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The Theme and Structure of Faulkner's The Hamlet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

T. Y. Greet
T. Y. Greet*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison 6
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Extract

William Faulkner's novel The Hamlet has received less critical attention and, perhaps, less critical intelligence than any other of his major works. The reasons for this neglect are rather easily stated. Published in 1940, Faulkner's only significant novel between Absalom, Absalom! in 1936 and Go Down, Moses in 1942, The Hamlet differs considerably from the novels of the “major phase,” 1929–1936. It comes at a point in the development of the Yoknapatawpha Cycle when the early conflict between legend and reality which so disturbed Quentin Compson had been largely resolved, and it is concerned with themes that had earlier been of peripheral interest. It presents as protagonists a class of Yoknapatawphans who are relative newcomers to the cycle. These things together—the lessening of tension and the utilization of new material—are reflected in the unique tone of The Hamlet, which led Malcolm Cowley to entitle his review of the novel “Faulkner By Daylight.” Further, since the novel is leisurely in its narrative method and relatively lucid in its style, it does not at first glance seem to demand or merit the sort of exhaustive readings which have been given, say, to The Sound and the Fury. Finally, with the major exception of Robert Penn Warren, almost none of the critics has been willing to recognize the book as a novel at all. Cowley speaks of its structure as that of “beads on a string.” John Arthos calls the book Faulkner's “most remarkable writing” but adds that it “falls into at least four separate stories… there is no real unity.” O'Connor, Howe, Campbell and Foster have all dealt with and appreciated various aspects of the novel but it remains the chief enigma of the cycle.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 72 , Issue 4-Part-1 , September 1957 , pp. 775 - 790
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1957

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References

1 New Republic, cii (15 April 1940), 510.

2 Introd., The Viking Portable Faulkner (New York, 1949), p. 18.

3 “Ritual and Humor in the Writings of William Faulkner,” William Faulkner: Two Decades of Criticism, ed. Frederick J. Hoffman and Olga Vickery (East Lansing, Mich., 1951), p. 113.

4 Viola Hopkins, “Meaning and Form in Faulkner's The Hamlet,” Accent, xv (Spring 1955), 125–144, provides an extended and provocative treatment.

5 Nor are the Snopeses the only persons from the Bend who are dealt with elsewhere. Suratt, who becomes Ratliff, is a companion of Bayard Sartoris and appears in several short stories. Cora and Vernon Tull, Bookwright, and the Armstids all play minor roles in other novels and, in a sense, the world of As I Lay Dying is that of The Hamlet. Faulkner's treatment of Flem and Eula in The Town has no appreciable bearing on my reading here of The Hamlet.

6 “The Snopes World,” Kenyon Rev., III (Spring 1941), 256.

7 “Delta Autumn,” Go Down, Moses (New York, 1931), p. 363.

8 The Handel (New York, 1940), pp. 15–16. All subsequent references to the novel will appear in parentheses immediately following citations in the text.

9 American Humor: A Study of the National Character (New York, 1931), pp. 29–30.

10 William Van O'Connor, The Tangled Fire of William Faulkner (Minneapolis, 1954), is best on sources. John Arthos, “Ritual and Humor,” and Harry M. Campbell and Ruel E. Foster, William Faulkner (Norman, Okla., 1951), are best on humor generally.

11 “Fool About a Horse,” Scribner's Mag., c (Aug. 1936), 80–86.

12 Suggestive also is Faulkner's description of I. O., who wears spectacles without lenses, a dickey, and a coat with shirt cuffs attached (p. 229).

13 The Golden Bough (New York, 1937), I, 39; II, 129 ff.

14 “The Bear,” Go Down, Moses, p. 257.

15 American Humor, p. 10.

16 It is worth noting that B. A. Botkin, A Treasury of American Folk Humor (New York, 1949), pp. 80–81, tells the story of a “Snopes” who went to Hell and was imprisoned under a washpot. Later, a visitor starting to lift it was stopped by the Devil's shouting, “Don't lift that pot! We have Old Man Cobb under there and if you let him out he'll foreclose a mortgage on all hell in the first crop season!”

17 Viola Hopkins views Ratliff's decision as an “act of conscience,” which Faulkner sees as “one of the conditions of humanity.” As she further points out, “Ratliff is certainly the chief spokesman and defendant of an ethical, humane tradition” (“Meaning and Form,” pp. 135, 130); but I would suggest that his defensive attitude and Mrs. Littlejohn's comment justify my censure. Florence Leaver, “The Structure of The Hamlet,” Twentieth Cent. Lit., I (July 1955), 77–84, holds Mrs. Littlejohn to be morally superior even to Ratliff.

18 “The Centaur and the Pear Tree,” Western Res,, XVI (Spring 1952), 199–205; “As Whirlwinds in the South,” Perspective, ii (Summer 1949), 225–238.

19 have relied here, to some extent, on Roth. He, however, emphasizes the sexual implications of the symbolism, tending, perhaps, to distort its context. See also Harry M. Campbell, “Mr. Roth's Centaur and Faulkner's Symbolism,” Webern Rev., XVI (Summer 1952), 320–321.