"stare" William Faulkner "i'm Thinking"

William Faulkner is regarded to be one of the greatest American writers in the last century. In the thesis, I try to do some phenomenological studies on five of his early novels, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August,Abosalom,Abosalom!.When approaching Faulkner's unique spirit and achievement, I am provided with some inspirations by the phenomenological method and what phenomenological critics have done in that regard. Phenomenology was founded in the early years of 20th century by German philosopher Edmund Husserl, who wished to return philosophy to concrete experience and to reveal the essential conscious structure. Its impact on literary studies is expressed in the work of Geneva School on authors' characteristic modes of consciousness. The Genevan School, represented by Poulet Georges, emphasized that the literature work was a kind of concentrated manifestation of the writer's consciousness, so the aim of literature studies should be to present the essential consciousness of the writer through the "phenomenological revivification". In his opinion, the critics' most important work is to attain the writer's "cogito", which constructed the whole work, to discover how the "cogito" produced the work, and to acquire the characteristic way of the writers' understanding of the world.Through phenomenological analysis, we find that what occupy Faulkner's consciousness is the concern about the exist predicament of mankind. In the latest history, reason prevailed, but meanwhile the nihilism of value appeared, which made the modern people sink into the despairing abyss, in which what people could do is only to suffer the pain and wait for the salvation.This consciousness is best showed in one kind of Faulkner's characters, who have special and warm feeling to death, the so-called special and warm feeling means these figures treat death with a releasing feeling, some of them even could not wait to be kilted. In the hearts of these figures, we can feel the pain of long suffering, the hope to be redeemed, and Faulkner's profound pity to mankind's destiny. So I conclude, the "cogito" of Faulkner can be summarized as "nihilism-redeem", which means the profound experience of nihilism and despair and the thirst for redeem.In terms of what I have draught of Faulkner, different figure's destiny carries on a demonstration to nihilism in different ways. My treatise will try to get near to the "cogito" of Faulkner and to investigate the unique soul of the writer.