| William Faulkner's baronial historical Yoknapatawpha works with unique artistic style and strong local color make a prodigious contribution to American literature and even the world literature. This literary giant produces tremendous amount of works, and most of his novels with universal praise become the hotspot of researchers'study. Meanwhile his short stories are also great treasure of the world literature, and more and more researchers study them mainly from the aspect of women's images. However, there is still great room for us to study the women characters from the perspective of Existentialism.From the perspective of Existentialism this thesis mainly survey four short stories which were produced in the early 1930s:"A Rose for Emily","That Evening Sun","Dry September"and"There was a Queen". The theory of existentialism is used to probe into women's existence in the four short stories from two aspects: women's existence in the presence of themselves, women's existence in the presence of others. These women's interior existence is actually unitive. They all strive against the similar limitations in the same way. They attempt to make their essence or invent their value through self-deception. Meanwhile, they go through the human process of nihilation and transcendence without exception. These women can not forget the past, nor can they catch the present or see their future. All of them are desperately helpless when they confront death. These women's freedom of choosing is demonstrated to us clearly through the actions, ends and motives of the freedom. Nevertheless, they are stuck in inferiority complex which is the project of their own for-itself in the world in the presence of others. They choose the world in its meaning by choosing themselves and their responsible choosing in the world is their being. Unavoidably, they have concrete relations with others in the world, and those relations become inseparable elements of their existence. They are demonstrated from the aspects of love, indifference, desire and hate. Their relations with others become an inseparable part of their existence. Finally, women, confronting responsibility, unavoidably and helplessly relapse into the rattrap of anguish, abandonment and despair. It is largely due to their inability to actualize the"authentic self"and lead a real life. William Faulkner is concerned about the strength of morality, the meaning of life and the way people treat their life and themselves. Just like an existentialist he believes in a kind of ethic concept emphasizing the integrity of humanity: to evade the authentic self is evil; to face it good. Therefore, the women's existence annotates Sartre's Existentialism perfectly. |
