The Subversion And Containment Of Power:a New Historical Analysis Of Faulkner’s The Bear

Since the publication of The Bear echoed people’s desire for natural ecology,it has aroused many a critic’s attention and comments.As profound research results have been yielded impressively,it seems obvious to find that a considerable number of them mainly focus on the themes of ecologism and ethics.Among those research outcomes few critics center their perspectives on the theory of New historicism related to Faulkner’s richness of social and racial presentation,while this research believes that The Bear concerns itself intensively with the social and racial contradiction in the South.Thus this article attempts to probe the text through the particular points of New Historicism—subversion and containment.The research presents the subversive spirit of Ike McCaslin who preserves Southern forest and resists the ancestral sin committed against the Indian land and female slaves.In a sense,Ike’s subversion resembles Old Ben’s defense for the divinity of forest and reflects its pursuit of freedom and liberty which the blacks deeply desire for.However,this subversion has no effect due to its incapability.Subversion is doomed to trap into the power of containment.Based on the elaborate consideration of Faulkner’s art of narration,this article attempts to add some innovative ideas and new researches to the previous study.