An Analysis Of Death In Faulkner's Three Novels From The Perspective Of Existentialism

Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner is one of the most prolific and well known American writers.His works are still widely read,discussed,analyzed up to now.In his fiction,consciously or unconsciously,Faulkner used the materials in his life.Thus more than one scholar has tried to use Faulkner's view about life to explain his work or the work to explain his life.Critics home and abroad have made great achievements on topics such as race,gender,religion,structure and narrative techniques etc.Nevertheless,further study on the theme of death from the perspective of existentialism is inadequate.The theme of death is one of the major motifs in Faulkner's novels.Faulkner's descriptions of death are manifestations of his ontological views such as Grenzsensituation,being-towards-death and anxiety,alienation and absurd.This thesis tries to discuss Faulkner's descriptions of death in three of his works,namely,As I Lay Dying,Light in August and A Rose for Emily within the theoretical framework of existentialism.Based on Karl Jaspers,Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist theories,the thesis identifies and investigates three types of Faulkner's descriptions of death(i.e.death for survival,death of depressive rebellion and paradox towards death)through the analysis of the themes,characters,plots and artistic techniques Faulkner adopted in his vivid descriptions of death in the three novels.The social,cultural and historical concerns of the southern United States have left Faulkner's works and his ideas deeply branded in the literary world.Via the existentialist interpretation of As I Lay Dying,Light in August and A Rose for Emily,it argues that Faulkner's descriptions of death are infused with his deep humanistic concerns for the existence and fate of mankind,especially those of women and the black with lower social status and worse condition of existence.To some extent,his philosophical concept of existentialism echoes Jaspers',Heidegger's and Sartre's thoughts.Through the descriptions of death in artistic way,Faulkner vividly and profoundly embodies human destiny and survival,and manifests the connection between existentialism and humanism as well.