Naturalistic Strains In William Faulkner's Novels: 1929-1936

This thesis, by analyzing four of the most accomplished novels of William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury (1929), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), and Absalom, Absaloml (1936), intends to show the influence that naturalism leaves on modernistic writing.When naturalism is first introduced into America, it is titled "extreme realism," criticized as "erotic," "amoral," etc, and seldom enjoys an easy time with the critics. However, from the mid-twentieth century, there was a shift in criticism on naturalism. Some famous critics such as Charles Child Walcutt, Richard Chase, William Thorp, Lee Clark Mitchell and Donald Pizer affirm the significance of naturalistic writing. Naturalism, as the pioneer to explore existential and spiritual crisis of ordinary people in the new social-economic conditions, is placed in a prominent position in American literature.American naturalism is originated in the last decade of the nineteenth century. As a literary movement, it is soon replaced by modernism. However, some naturalistic criteria have lasted in various modernistic writing. Naturalism uncovers the smile mask of American realism and turns to the life of ordinary people. Poverty, violence, sexuality, alcoholism, disease, and death, which are taboos for previous literary writing, become major themes for the naturalists. They aim to show human mind and behavior restricted to heredity and environment. American naturalism, nevertheless, is not completely pessimistic. By discovering the cause of failure, naturalism aims to find a way to improve man and environment. Based on the criteria of objectivity, naturalistic writings are diversiform. American naturalists both describe objective world in a realistic way and show a truthful psychological world and uncontrollable human incentives. Although tragic model, irony, and repetition are not the inventions of naturalism, naturalism uses them, for the first time in literature, to speak out insignificance of man, his destiny and wilderment. This writing direction has always been steering the writing of modernism, even of post-modernism.William Faulkner (1897-1962) is one of American modernistic novelists who have been influenced by naturalism. The years from 1929 to 1936 is usually regarded as the most "passionate years" in his writing career. During this period, Faulkner had his most achieved works published, including the four novels we mention above. The Sound and the Fury (1929) tells the collapse of the Compsons, descents of plantation owners; Sanctuary (1931) records Temple's being violated by Popeye with a corncob; Light in August (1932) is mainly about the miserable life of a said-to-be mulatto Joe Christmas who is finally shot and cruelly gelded; Absalom, Absalom! (1936) displays the breath of a dream which comes from a poor white boy for being humiliated by a black servant and which is doomed.These novels as a whole have a motif, i.e. the death of the Old South. In order to seek out the reasons, Faulkner explores two factors: the southerners and southern environment. Both man and environment are essential to naturalistic themes. The southerners are born with fatalistic weakness; at the same time, they could not resist negative effects caused by invasion of mechanized industry, and they are burdened with racism and Calvinistic Puritanism. Both in body and in mind, the southerners turn out to be victims of that given cultural environments of the south: Jason Compson, Popeye and Joe are spiritually rootless and can only let out their dissatisfaction, fear, and confusion through violence. The description of disease, including idiocy, sick baby, prostitute, and venereal disease portrays the picture of a diseased south. The female characters in Faulkner's novels are symbol of depravity. The stories of Caddy Compson and Temple Drake signify that traditional morality has lost its commandment over the new south. Death finally becomes the end of Faulkner's major characters. Quentin and his father cannot change the presence, only to find peace by committing suicide and drinking. When Thomas Sutpen resolves to reconstruct Sutpen's Hundred returning from the Civil War, the dream of restoration to the Old South is destined to fail. Dramatic death of Popeye and Joe otherwise shows a naturalistic philosophy that human life is insignificant and accidental. Violence, disease, depravity, and death which are generally naturalistic themes, are employed by Faulkner to indicate that the southerners are not competent to fightagainst their fate and environment by any possibility. These themes show that Faulkner's writings are greatly influenced by naturalism.Artistic techniques also share commonalities with naturalism. On the one hand, Faulkner describes Yoknapatawpha with minuteness and frankness, the landscape, custom, people, and language adopted from those of Mississippi. On the other hand, Faulkner uses stream of consciousness to show chaotic and confused psychological world of his characters. Both methods bear naturalistic objectivity with them and serve to give voice to the motif that the southerners are fatefully burdened with the past. In Faulkner's eyes, the southerners live in a tragedy: the defeat in the Civil War is one tragedy, and the gradual mechanization of the new south is the other. What's more, the pursuit for the significance of human life ends up with tragedy. Faulkner also creates many comic stories of less important figures, which is just in accordance with naturalistic tradition of confirming while complaining. Irony is used in various ways in Faulkner, such as the title of the novels, the name of the characters, the time, and the plots. Besides, Faulkner uses many repetitive images and languages to stress the inability of man to control either external environment or chaotic consciousness. The most important repetition is the text itself, since Faulkner discusses the relationship between the southerners and southern environment again and again in all of his novels. As far as these writing skills are concerned, Faulkner's novels correspond to naturalistic writings.The selected novels in the thesis belong to the most representative modernistic works of Faulkner. These novels bear with them a sense of despair and anger, which differs much from Faulkner's later works. However, what astonishs us is just the early novels produced by an angry and enchanted young Faulkner. Faulkner along with other American writers in the 1920s and 1930s, consciously or unconsciously, has inherited styles from naturalistic writings. Modernism is fundamentally naturalistic. The study of naturalistic strains in his works, however, does not purport him as a naturalist, but to prove the influences and continuation of naturalistic pneuma upon modernistic writings. It's hoped that this thesis will be helpful for majors of American literature to reevaluate naturalistic writing and explore the close relationship betweennaturalistic literature and modernistic literature.