Primitivity Of The Great Idiot Benjy

Devoted to unveiling the truth of the American South and people in it, William Faulkner spares no efforts to reflect, in his works, the disintegration of the southern traditional value and the inevitable trend of the downfall of the southern aristocracy. Benjy, the first narrator of The Sound and the Fury, yet an idiot, is not only extraordinarily provocative and attractive, but also intricate and puzzling for he is physically abnormal but spiritually sensitive, which appeals to readers and critics.The thesis, from the perspective of primitivity in light of anthropological study, is to demystify and examine the profundity of the idiotic narrator Benjy in The Sound and the Fury in terms of primitive behavior, language and mentality, and to uncover William Faulkner's ideas on the American South as well.The French philosopher and anthropologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl observes that the primitive are distinctive from modern people, particularly in their behavior, language and mentality that form their unique primitivity. They behave straightforwardly and implicitly with threnetical and ominous nature; they employ concrete, simple and blunt language; they mystically perceive things around. Ascribing to their primitivity, the primitive remain truthful, instantaneous and immaculate, observing problems in their life clean-headedly.The thesis starts with an exploration into the primitivity of Benjy's behavior, as for an idiot, behavior, which is both direct with threnetical nature and implicit with adumbrative nature, speaks more than speech itself. All through the story Benjy's unexpected behavior, including mournfully crying for the loss of human virtues and strangely behaving to foretell the fate of the family, confirms the doom of the family and the loss of human virtues, and conveys William Faulkner's affection towards tradition and misgivings about the degraded South.The study then focuses on the primitivity of Benjy's language, which comprises concrete words to depict things, simple diction to uncover shades of meaning and blunt expressions to convey his emotions. Such primitive language objectively and faithfully suggests the truth of the family, the characteristics of the family members and Benjy's emotions to them. Benjy's primitive language carries along William Falkner's philosophy of life, who meditates that the old southern value is still influencing modern people's thinking and maintains that the cure and hope for mankind seems to regain the lost human virtues.Based on the above analysis, this thesis probes into the primitivity of Benjy's mentality. Benjy's perceptive powers lay special stress upon the mystic properties and the occult forces of his name and shadow and he intuitively yet creatively associates his emotions with objects bearing the same emotions as Caddy to him. His primitive mental characteristics help him penetrate things around and objectively present the misfortune and downfall of the Compson family, which mercilessly destroys his longing for maternal, paternal, fraternal and sororal love. By cutting open Benjy's immaculate and primitive mentality, William Faulkner searches for the causes of the downfall of the Compson family, conveys his appreciation of the human virtues and lays bare his detestation to the degraded American south.Due to all these primitive characteristics, Benjy, of the primitive nature, penetrates human nature on such basis. His rich, special and immaculate life experiences are embodied by his primitive behavior, language and mentality, through which Benjy, as a spokesman for William Faulkner, unfolds the truth of the downfall of both the Compson family and the American South and indicates William Faulkner's distaste for the degenerated American south, his misgivings about its decadence and his nostalgia for the lost human virtues. In this sense, the profundity and significance of creation of the primitive idiot Benjy can best illustrate William Faulkner's artistic vision and creativity, standing as a landmark in human literary history and appealing to readers and critics ever after.