Myth, ritual, and taboo in William Faulkner's 'Absalom, Absalom!'

It is my intention to examine the possibility that Absalom, Absalom! can be read not only as a document that details the rituals and taboos inherent in the mythos of the South, but also as an indictment that presents these same rituals and taboos as being symptomatic of the spiritual decay that culminated in the Civil War and the destruction of the antebellum Southern culture. In addition, Faulkner's novel examines the psychological aftermath of the destruction of the mythos, for when the mythos has been destroyed, anarchy and chaos hold sway.; One must first examine the mythos of the South, which incorporated elements displaced from primary myths (the Bible), other mythoi (Calvinism, the Spanish and Portuguese plantation society), and profane myths (the American Adam and the Cavalier). Critics are in general agreement that Sutpen and his "design" serve as an analogy for the antebellum mythos. According to historians, the mythos was affected from the start by the mild climate of the region, which produced a leisured "aristocracy" based upon slave labor, in contrast to the harsh winters common to the northern states, which produced a self-conscious democracy animated by individualism. Both cultures were influenced greatly by their Puritan heritage. Over time, the South became increasingly isolated over the slave issue, in the process eschewing such Yankee innovations as macadamized roads, canals, railroads, and industrialization. The structure of their society retained its agrarian nature while becoming more rigidly hierarchical, with the plantation owners at the top and the slaves at the bottom.; The rituals that extend from the mythos of the South are best exemplified by the gentleman planter class, and are embodied in a quasi-chivalric "code of honor" that not only assigns behavioral standards to its adherents, but also provides the justification for a caste system that classifies every Southerner according to such criteria as wealth, property, gender, religious belief, race, and others. Men's rituals are focused on the outdoors, and include the establishment and maintenance of their plantations and the duty to uphold the honor of their families, their class, and their society. Such duty areas are succinctly summarized in Sutpen's Design: money, a house, a plantation, slaves, and a family. Women's rituals are focused indoors, and serve primarily to epitomize the gentility, decorum, and moral rectitude which represent the height of civilization.; One of the major areas where ritual and taboo collide is the institution of marriage as it relates to blood and race. The major taboos Faulkner addresses in Absalom, Absalom! are incest, miscegenation, hubris, and fratricide. All are to some extent informed by racial distinctions.; The tragedy of the Civil War is implicit in the moral code of the mythos, which exhibits both the refusal to recognize simple human value and the conviction that some men are born to dominate others. In addition, the rituals and taboos associated with the mythos bear little relationship to the powers required to triumph in an all-out conflict. With the failure of the slave-based agricultural system that supported the Southern economy, the mythos collapsed. Sutpen's design, stripped of its legitimacy in the wake of the Civil War, becomes little more than a compulsive old man's neurotic obsession to father a dynasty.; During the Reconstruction era and beyond, attempts were made to reform the South in the image of the North, but Yankee ways proved unsuitable as a substitute for the mythos of the South. In its place arose individual mythopoeias that served as moral guidelines for their creators. Rosa Coldfield's mythopoeic vision of Sutpen (and the defunct Southern mythos) takes the form of a Gothic horror tale; Mr. Compson's mythopoeia is articulated in the form of Greek tragedy; Quentin Compson, with the aid of Shreve McCannon, combines these two mythopoeias to create a third version that resembles a chiva...