| Absalom, Absalom! (1936) has long been seen as one of William Faulkner's supreme creations, as well as one of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century. In this epic fiction, Faulkner exhibits his technical virtuosity and aesthetic genius to the full. Among the many writing skills employed in this complex and difficult novel, dialogue among the multiple conflicting voices gives great challenge to the reader's interpretation and judgment. Equipped with Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of "polyphony", we can illuminate Absalom, Absalom! in a new light. This is the attempt made in the present thesis.This thesis consists of four chapters, along with the introduction and the conclusion. Chapter One gives an introduction to the polyphonic novel defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in his Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. With the equal footing between the author and heroes, the great dialogue between the characters, the microdialogue featured with double-voicing within each character and the dialogue between the character and the reader, the concept of a polyphonic novel is the product of the collapse of a homogeneous society and the artistic reflection of a pluralistic and diverse changing society.Based on Bakhtin's polyphonic theory, Chapter Two and Chapter Three center on a detailed counterpointing analysis of the polyphonic features in Absalom, Absalom! from four aspects. The four character-narrators - Miss Rosa, Mr. Compson, Quentin and Shreve - with different purposes and limitations and from different perspectives, contradict one another in telling the Sutpen legend, each trying to authenticate and finalize his or her version of the story. Even within each narrator's monologue, we hear different voices conflicting with each other. Actually, we get at least three different versions. These versions cannot be united into one story. Even till the last line of the novel, the author doesn't give the readers a final verdict, leaving them confused and reflecting, thus forming the dialogue with these characters. Meanwhile,these characters are not only narrating the Sutpen saga, they are also telling their own stories and exposing the fictionalization of their narratives. Absalom, Absalom! has the main features of the polyphonic novel without any doubt.Chapter Four analyzes the historical background and significance of Absalom, Absalom! as a polyphonic novel. Like Dostoevsky's polyphonic novels, Absalom, Absalom! displays to us a transforming South America from an isolated and traditional agricultural society to an open and pluralistic world through the description of the rise and fall of the Sutpen family during about 100 years, full of adventures and failures, full of racial discrimination, incest, mulattos, idiots, blood and hatred. Moreover, as an innovative and imaginative writer, Faulkner has also influenced many other writers home and abroad with his experiment in writing skills.Therefore, through a Bakhtinian interpretation of Absalom, Absalom!, we can see that Faulkner, as a Nobel Prize winner in literature, displays his outstanding skill in polyphonic writing in this great fiction. To reflect his beloved and hateful South, he chooses this most effective and powerful technique and leaves us a masterpiece of polyphony. |
