Analysis Of Faulkner’s Bildungsroman Short Stories In Modernist Perspective

As an influential modernist writer, William Faulkner (1897-1962) was distinguished inthe history of American literature for his powerful and unprecedented contributions tocontemporary American novels. Faulkner had written a large number of novels and shortstories with extraordinary innovation in artistic techniques. Scholars and critics have paidclose attention to Faulkner’s novels but his short stories were always neglected. Barn Burning,An Odor of Verbena and The Bear were three significant short stories written in1938,1939and1942respectively, which marked the transition of Faulkner’s attitude to the future of oldsouth. The thesis analyzes the three protagonists’ psychological development in theperspective of modernism.The chapter one firstly offers an introduction of William Faulkner and his main works,which contains three parts altogether. Part one provides an introduction of William Faulknerand his life experience as a unique modernist. Part two is a brief introduction of these threebildungsroman short stories. Part three is an introduction of the general layout of this thesis.Chapter two is about the literature review, which consists of four parts. The first part isthe literature review of overseas William Faulkner study and the second part is the literaturereview in China. The third part focuses on an introduction of the current studies of the threeshort stories. The last part in this chapter scrutinizes the relationship between WilliamFaulkner and modernism. Chapter three is the main body of this paper. This chapter is about the analysis ofpsychological development in William Faulkner’s bildungroman short stories, which isdeveloped from four perspectives. Firstly the thesis examines the special employment ofperspectives and stream of consciousness in Barn Burning and An Odor of Verbena, which isan obvious feature of modernist works. The second part discusses the modernist use ofbildungsroman model in Barn Burning, An Odor of Verbena and The Bear, focusing on theway that helps to portray the painful psychological struggle of Sartoris and Bayard frompsychological innocence to maturity. The third part is the study of symbolism. The thesisanalyzes the important images that are of symbolic meanings in detail and each has to do witha gradual change with the psychological development of the protagonists, like verbena in AnOdor of Verbena and Old Ben in The Bear. Then the forth part explores the use of biblicalallusion in The Bear. The paper highlights the similarities between Isaac’s growth experiencewith Moses’ experience to take Israelites out of Egypt, which is an important archetypalimage.Chapter four is about theme of Faulkner’s three stories, which analyzes from two aspects.The first part discusses the spiritual crisis of Southern people. Lost in their psychologicalstruggle between the violent past and the unknown future, southern people feel despaired tofind their way out. The second part is about the prospect for modern people. Impelled byhumanitarianism, Faulkner deeply believes that good merits will lead people break throughfrom spiritual traps and enter into a brilliant future.The fifth chapter is the final conclusion, including main findings, limitations of the thesis andsuggestions for the further study.