Problems Of Southern Womanhood In Faulkner's Two Major Novels

Faulkner, who has won the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature, is a famous American writer. The Sound and the Fury and Light in August are his two well-received major novels. With its intricate narrative structure, the former tells of the fall of a southern noble family and becomes the pinnacle of Faulknerian stream of consciousness, while the latter affords for thought of its moral dilemma: Christmas, the protagonist and a possible miscegenationist, kills his white lover and is lunched by racists.This thesis discusses the problem of southern womanhood in these two novels. In his writings, Faulkner has often addressed himself to southern women's fate. However, more often than not, his female characters are problem-haunted. This thesis analyses the problems of six representative women from the two novels and tries to reveal the true nature of Faulkner's womanhood: the myth of southern ladies has been destroyed after the fall of the South. In females'constant struggle with male despotism for basic rights, Faulkner's males are often hostile to females.The thesis is divided into two chapters. The first chapter covers the problems of three generations of women in the Compson Manor, a downfallen southern noble family: Mrs. Compson, the rotten mother; caddy, the depraved daughter; and the identity crisis of Quentin, the granddaughter. The fall of these women brings the Compson family to ruin. The second chapter bases its text reading on three women in Light in August: the problem of Mrs. Hines, an unvanquishable mother; the problem of Miss Burden, an outcast spinster; and the problem of Lena's resigned dumbness. Their different fates prove that women's subordination is a must to their survival in a suffocating patriarchal society.The thesis is concluded with the discussion of the antagonism between the two sexes and the author's deprivation of women's voice in the two novels. The subject of the thesis is practical and meaningful in that the historical prejudice imposed on women should be removed and that today's women must strive for their own rights.