Over the course of this semester, it has become apparent that traditional chronological storytelling simply doesn't exist for Faulkner. In fact, it could be said that time itself is a character interacting and antagonizing his human characters. Rather than the passage of time serving as catalyst for Faulkner's characters, time is either personified or simply disregarded.
I'm beginning to think that his disregard for (or perversion of) time serves as a very powerful lesson about the rigid characterization of his central players. Many (Quentin Compson and Drusilla immediately come to mind) of Faulkner's characters seem stuck, unable to pry themselves from the romantic notions or failures of the previous generations ingrained in their minds. While Drusilla Hawk escaped the fate of most Confederate soldiers--PTSD and a total loss of identity--she never did break away from the war or the fantasy of the South. Others like Quentin Compson were simply unable to reconcile a rapidly evolving world and the romantic notions he believed was his legacy.We see that Drusilla incapable of moving beyond the Antebellum South, still clinging to antique dueling pistols and the culture they represented. For Quentin, we see someone stuck in the past regardless of the narrator or the chronological lens.
For the more simple characters, such as Benjy, time is irrelevant. Life is just a series of events and triggers to those events, the passage of time is not marked or even acknowledged. Using a different technique, we see the despair of a person hopelessly stuck, regardless of whether or not they are actually aware of it.
Time ceases to become just a catalyst, but rather an antagonist, taunting or punishing its hapless victims for their antiquated mindsets and rigid adherence to a mythical era. It's an interesting way for Faulkner to allow us to perceive his characters as well as force them to act. The fracturing of time allows time to serve a more important role than simply placeholder: it is a person.
Hey Sam, McLamore here:
ReplyDeleteThought-provoking comment. As in: it's been noticed (by someone I'm too lazy to look up right now) that the historiographic awareness is fairly recent.
Galileo had to measure time with water-clocks because second-hands had not yet been devised; the freakin' calendar was massively inaccurate until Copernicus and the Reformation . . .
So, what if we've all been bludgeoned by a host of dali-esque second and minute and hour hands into backwards-projecting a chronometrica experience of time that's simply been impossible for most humans to have experienced?
So, it could be that Faulkner is interested in, fascinated by some of the persistent, yet marginalized ways of organizing and registering experience, that get repressed or degraded by the chronological model of time?
Sam: the standard beginning point for your interests = Paul Ricouer's Time and Narrative, which appears not to be available through any of the Abilene libraries.
ReplyDeleteA quick search reveals tons of results for time and narrative--and if you stick close to the ones dealing with Ricouer that should be a good starting point, finding direct comparisons to treatments of the themes in Faulkner could get in the way of your own thinking at first.
Interesting, I'll look into it when I get a chance (probably the end of the semester).
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