A Suicidal "Gentleman" And A Renewal "Lady"

The novel The Sound and the Fury is the modern American novelist,1949NobelLiterature Prize winner William Faulkner’s favorite works, which is based on the southerntradition and historic background. Faulkner skilled in the use of the stream of consciousness andmultiple points of view, which made the novel read like a fantastic dream filled with noise andconfusion from content to form. In this way, the novel reflects the decline of family in thesouthern United States, meaningless life and profound spiritual crisis. By the decline of theCompson family, The Sound and the Fury writes an elegy for the southern tradition and noblespirit. As the eldest son of this decayed southern noble family, Quentin was tortured by hisfather’s nihilism and his mother’s selfish and indifference. He imagined himself as the “southernknight”, retains the aristocratic pride, actually, he was feeble, weak, daydreaming and lack theability to adapt to the changes in society. Quentin, who couldn’t get love from his mother,projected his special love onto his own sister Caddy. It was Caddy’s loss of virginity that forcedQuentin to the final collapse. After experiencing the pain and inner struggle, weak Quentinultimately selected making suicide to escape from the cruel reality.Another outstanding representative of the South American Literature is Tennessee Williams(1911-1983) whose vast majorities of works are also to demonstrate the southern failure of thewar and the Southern plantation culture decline under the context of the development of northindustrial civilization. He concerns about the fate of women in his literary works. After thesuccess of The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke isTennessee’s another masterpiece. Alma is the incarnation of the southern lady. She concentratedall the virtues of the traditional southern culture, kind and obedient. As a preacher’s daughter, herwords always meet the specification. She is the representative of the south spirit. However,long-time’s church life repressed her normal need as a young girl. Young Alma fell in love withJohn against the southern tradition. She tried her best to persuade John to give up the dirty lifeand finish his father’s honorable job as a respective doctor. However, they are strangers who livein totally different circles. Therefore, there exist conflicts and gaps between them. Tennesseevividly described the mental and body conflict between the two persons who grown up in totallydifferent background. Finally, John became a successful doctor. When Alma decided to abandontradition and give herself to John, she was refused by John. The news that John would engagewith another woman strongly defeated Alma. In the end, Alma chose a salesman to have sexualrelations.Carl Gustav Jung is an outstanding Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who found theschool of analytical psychology. Jung’s theory focuses on collective unconscious. And the content of collective unconscious is archetype. Archetypal theory is of great contribution notonly in the field of psychology but in other disciplines, including literature, art, and aesthetics.This thesis aims at comparing Quentin in The Sound and the Fury and Alma in The Summer andSmoke from a psychoanalytic perspective, especially refers to Jung’s archetype theory and themost important two archetypes, namely, anima and animus.Quentin is a southern gentleman in Faulkner’s novel, while Alma is a typical southern ladyin Tennessee’s drama. Why compare them in this thesis? According to Jung’s archetype theory,the reason why Quentin has negative female characters and affection to his sister is that hisanima cannot get proper projection from his mother. He was coward, feeble and hesitates. At last,he killed himself to escape from the reality. The opposite of anima is animus, the male qualitiesin woman. Girl’s animus originates from her father. Alma was such a lady who was greatlyinfluenced by her father. She never gave up persuading John to live a respective life, just like abrave girl in a fairy tale who saved a poor prince. She was tortured by the repressed desire andthe conflicts between them. Although her final behavior was strongly against with the tradition,she didn’t choose death as her new birth. Their different choices show the influences of animaand animus in people’s mind. This thesis tried to reveal the causes of the anima and animus, theshown of them and their choice of new birth under the control of anima and animus. In themodern society, people’s development related to the family society and environment. How todevelop healthy mind, make use of active qualities of anima and animus and avoid negative oneshelps a lot in people’s life.The first chapter mainly introduces the background and the significance of this study. Inaddition, this part will also introduce the writers and the two pieces of literature works that thisresearch based on.Chapter two is theoretical basis and literature review, Jung’s collective unconscious andarchetype theories will be introduced, especially the anima and animus. Also, great importancewill be attached on researches that have been done both in nation and the foreign countries.Chapter three focuses on the causes of Quentin’s anima and Alma’s animus, the causes willbe revealed from the point view of lack of love from family members.Chapter four will mainly analysis Quentin’s anima shown and Alma’s animus shown fromthe perspective of lake of love from the opposite sex.Chapter five studies the conflict between tradition, ideal and the reality. Therefore, revealthe different choices of the two characters based on different archetypes control.The final chapter is a conclusion. In this comparative study, the southern gentleman Quentinand the southern lady Alma shared the same experience of lack of love from family, lack of lovefrom the opposite sex and the conflicts between reality and dream. Then they chose different ways of rebirth under the control of anima and animus. Anima and Animas greatly influence thefate of the characters and the real life of people. They make people have a correct understandingabout both themselves and others. Also, people must learn to resolve and balance the variousconsciousnesses of their own, and then construct their behaviors in a right way.