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Chapter 4 - When Ideology Wavers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2023

John Michael Corrigan
Affiliation:
National Chengchi University, Taiwan
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Summary

This chapter examines Light in August and Absalom, Absalom! as Faulkner’s first novels to depict the racial ideology of the South as unstable and incoherent. Whereas the author initially attempted to understand how information continuously flows through a networked system as culture, these novels depict entropic states capable of undermining and destroying the social order. In Absalom, Absalom! especially, we see how regimes of power fail from within – with a network of individuals increasingly unable to relate to each other, so mediated are they by the ideological and racial abstractions of the plantation system. These emergent entropic states, though perilous to the wellbeing of many, are not simply to be feared. As ideological surfaces waver in their ability to disseminate cultural directives, there emerges the potential for reorganization and renewal, trajectories of novelty and behavior that gesture beyond the seemingly intractable bounds of social space and the self-reflexive epistemology of textual space that reinforces them.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • When Ideology Wavers
  • John Michael Corrigan, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
  • Book: Faulkner's Cartographies of Consciousness
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377867.005
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  • When Ideology Wavers
  • John Michael Corrigan, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
  • Book: Faulkner's Cartographies of Consciousness
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377867.005
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • When Ideology Wavers
  • John Michael Corrigan, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
  • Book: Faulkner's Cartographies of Consciousness
  • Online publication: 02 November 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009377867.005
Available formats
×