A Raw Portrayal Of Life The Polyphonic Features In The Sound And The Fury And Absalom, Absalom!

As the representative writer of American South Literature, William Faulkner frequently delineates such dark sides of the society as sex, violence, and death with unique writing techniques in most of his works. In many critics'view, Faulkner was just courting the favor of the public through maverick behaviors. Until 1940s, critics represented by Malcolm Cowley made detailed exploration into Faulkner and thus acknowledged him as one of the literary giant.Faulkner wrote 19 novels and 76 novellas and short stories during his writing career. Most of his works, set in Yoknapatawpha County, unfold the contradictions and conflicts of the South in the turbulent times. As the most typical ones among them, The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! have been the most discussed and analyzed in the literary circle both in terms of their contents and the writing styles. Based on the theory of polyphony by Mikhail Bakhtin, this thesis attempts to verify the unfinalizability of the two novels through a systematic exploration into their two polyphonic features: heteroglossia and dialogism, and thus expound Faulkner's artistic intentions.Compared with the traditional novels in which the characters are usually instrumental to the author, the characters in polyphonic novels are independent individuals enjoying equal rights with the author. Moreover, they all possess distinctive personalities and consciousnesses. In The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!, four narrators respectively tell the stories of the Compson family and the Sutpen family from their own viewpoints. Due to the difference of their experiences and value judgements, they argue with each other in their dialogues, staging the heteroglossia of the whole story. Furthermore, they make up many plots and conjectures to explain the mysteries in the stories and thus fashion different versions of Caddy and Sutpen. The uncertainties of the text and the theme not only cause the unfinalizability of the whole story even if it has come to a conclusion physically, but also force the readers to actively participate in the recreation of the stories so as to add more fresh thoughts to the works.The thesis contends that Faulkner's apparent non-mainstream is actually a raw portrayal of his times. He does not complicate simple issues on purpose, but adds the polyphonic features of the times to his creation. For him, life itself is full of uncertainties and contradictions.