Challenging Progress

Labeled as an exemplary modernist along with writers like James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Virginia Woolf of the early twentieth century, Faulkner deployed a variety of narrative experiments from multiple perspectives to interior monologues to disrupt temporal sequence to show fragmented pictures of reality and to challenge narrative authority. Compared with these modernist elements that are used for elaborate depictions of the character’s psychological reality and have attracted considerable attention from critics, Faulkner’s acute social consciousness has been often overlooked.This dissertation distinguishes itself by centering on the close interaction between Faulkner’s Poor Whites Trilogy, The Hamlet, The Town and The Mansion and social reality. We aim at a critical interpretation of the trilogy in an attempt to foreground this neglected part in Faulkner’s prolific canon. With the employment of sociological concepts like Community and Society by Ferdinand Tonnies, and key notions of commodification and alienation, this dissertation is primarily an examination of the social transformation and its wide influence on the value of humanity and interpersonal relationships in the Poor Whites Trilogy. As it is revealed in the analysis of these three novels, Faulkner keeps a close eye on the social occurrences around him. Like many other humanists and romantics, Faulkner also expressed his concerns over the loss of organic unity of the individual and community. Faulkner’s comprehension is more complicated than a one-sided rejection and repudiation because he is aware of both the challenges and the opportunities for alteration and improvement.This dissertation begins with an in-depth analysis of the economic reformation by Flem and its impact on the individuals and the community of the Old Frenchman’s Bend in The Hamlet. Flem forsook farming after the acquisition of the position of being a clerk in Varner’s store by manipulating the rumor of an arson that was supposed to be conducted by his father. His own career choice indicated the grand social transformation from a traditionally agrarian community to a modern marketing society. And his replacement of credit business with cash business functioned as a typical example of the change from a more flexible business mode to a completely market-based contract business devoid of personal factors. In the vendition of the spotted horses that he imported from Texas, he injected blood of modern consumerism into village residents and revealed its tremendous power. The examination of Flem’s commodification of the popular Southern legend of buried wealth further demonstrated that his ubiquitous profit-pursuing activities had permeated all aspects of human life, a foretelling of the following stories in The Town.Chapter Two investigates commodification and alienation of human interrelationships, particularly the spousal relation and paternal connection. Flem’s relation with Eula Varner initially was a marital transaction between two men, Flem and Will Varner. Flem traded a fatherhood name for Eula’s bastard baby for the dowry of a ruined plantation called Old Frenchman’s place and one-hundred dollars in cash. And the alliance with the most eminent family in the neighborhood accorded Flem full access into local Community. Impotent himself, Flem traded his sex-right with De Spain, the young mayor of Jefferson, first for the position of presidency of the only power plant in town and then for the vice-presidency of Jefferson’s Bank. Ultimately he made use of this scandal to drive his wife to suicide and forced a monument with the eulogy of the virtue of a chaste wife on her grave. This final touch turned her into a desirable ornament of her husband. Flem also used this affair to evict the disgraced Spain from Jefferson and he himself moved into the grand mansion of the De Spains, which stood more than eminence but also acted as a symbol of Southern history and civilization. Besides the commodification of matrimony, he also profited from his role of stepfather and cheated Linda into signing the will that renounced all her inheritance and offered them to her stepfather. This chapter also dwelled upon the objectification and exploitation of women especially with an emphasis on the homology between women and nature.Chapter Three centers on the resistance, primarily represented by Mink, a polarity and outcome of contention of the beliefs of Flem, and Linda a rebellious and independent modern woman who was extricated from patriarchal bonds, to Flem’s extreme instrument rationality. Throughout the Poor Whites Trilogy, Flem and Mink were posed against each other as opposites. Compared to the inhuman Flem, who lived for the single purpose of profit, Mink was endowed with more spirit. His frustration and anger at ill luck, conviction in kinship and consanguinity, as well as his determined vengeance against all the violators of his dignity demonstrated that he was anything but the absolute rationality typified by Flem. The delineation of Mink’s conviction in the primitive code of family loyalty and kinship also revealed Faulkner’s affirmation of the existence of humanity power. Unobvious as it was, it existed consistently throughout the change of times. In Linda contained Faulkner’s view of the improvement of female status with the arrival of modern society. As a contrast to the passivity of her mother, which condemned her to a life of confinement and sterility, and the stereotyped southern female images, Linda took a firm control of her own fate and prefigured a radical future of modern women. It was the joint work of the ancient and everlasting force manifested by Mink and the modern and radical force symbolized by Linda that rectified the monomaniacal profiteering force of Flem and his bargain-driven epistemology.Chapter Four presents an overall picture of the poor whites in Faulkner’s Poor Whites Trilogy and an evaluation of Faulkner’s efforts to consolidate, rectify and supplement the established discourse on poor whites. From the analysis, we can conclude that just like his transcendence over the geographical restriction, Faulkner the great "transindividual" has also exceeded both his family origin and the superficialness of popular cry. The more sensitive and profound poor whites under Faulkner’s pen not only enriched the existing literature on poor whites but also contributed to the formation of a more open and diversified discourse on poor whites.Popular criticism tends to consider that Faulkner is preoccupied with formal experimentation to the pint of obliviousness and indifference to the tenor of the times. However, as the critical analysis in this dissertation has demonstrated, Faulkner’s works especially his late fiction is not only socially challenging but also politically radical. As a brave humanist, Faulkner never defies and shuts his ears to public appeal. In the dramatization of Flem Snopes and his kin, Faulkner depicts them as an allegory and challenges the blind faith in the so called progress of human society.