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Collapse of Dynasty : The Thematic Center of Absalom, Absalom!

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Ralph Behrens
Ralph Behrens*
Affiliation:
State College of Arkansas, Conway
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Abstract

Absalom, Absalom! achieves mythic significance and universality through Faulkner's deliberate use of parallels between Thomas Sutpen's attempt to found a dynasty in the Old South and the attempts of ancient Hebrew rulers to establish their kingdoms. The choice of title for the novel, as well as numerous analogies between Faulkner's plot and incidents in the prophetic books of the Old Testament, particularly n Samuel, indicate that Faulkner intended the biblical accounts of dynastic failures to illuminate and strengthen his theme. In attempting to find reasons for the failure of Sutpen to establish his Southern dynasty, critics have advanced four tenable theories. One theory finds Sutpen's innocence the principal reason for his failure; another sees hubris as the cause of failure; still a third contends that the socioeconomic injustices of the pre-Civil War South, magnified in the character of Sutpen, account for the failure. The fourth and most tenable theory, considered too briefly by critics, indicates that the very concept of dynasty is so basically flawed that failure is inherent in the design itself; or, more broadly still, that men erroneously persist in the mythic hope that they can establish permanent dynasties, though historically none has succeeded.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 24 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1974

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References

Note 1 in page 24 William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (New York: Random, 1951), p. 8. This Modern Library edition will be used for reference henceforth in this paper; page numbers appearing in parentheses in the text refer to it. “Design” is the word used throughout the novel to refer to Sutpen's plans for establishing a plantation and founding an aristocratic family, a dynasty.

Note 2 in page 24 Use Dusoir Lind, “The Design and Meaning of Absalom, Absalom!” in William Faulkner: Three Decades of Criticism, ed. Frederick J. Hoffman and Olga W. Vickery (New York: Harcourt, 1960), p. 297.

Note 3 in page 24 William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1963). Hereafter cited in text as “Brooks.”

Note 4 in page 24 Lawrance Thompson, William Faulkner: An Introduction and Interpretation, 2nd ed. (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1964), p. 64.

Note 5 in page 24 Lind, p. 281. Walter Sullivan, in “The Tragic Design of Absalom, Absalom!” South Atlantic Quarterly, 50 (1951), 552–66, sees Faulkner's novel as meeting most of the requirements set up in Aristotle's definition of tragedy, though he draws no specific analogies to particular plays. John Lewis Longley, Jr., in The Tragic Mask: A Study of Faulkner's Heroes (Chapel Hill : Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1963), pp. 206–18, notes characteristics not only of Greek tragedy but also of the epic in his discussion of Sutpen's story.

Note 6 in page 24 William J. Sowder, considering Sutpen in relation to existential philosophy, makes a point that is perhaps relevant to Sutpen's pride. Sowder sees Sutpen as existentialist in making his free choice to break away from his heredity and environment; Sutpen becomes engagé in carrying out his design. But his failure, says Sowder, is a result of settling too definitely on that design, thereby losing freedom of choice and exhibiting mauvaise foi. Sutpen's refusal to modify his design, though called mauvaise foi by Sowder, may be the same thing that is more traditionally termed “pride.” Sowder's view is set forth in “Colonel Thomas Sutpen as Existentialist Hero,” American Literature, 33 (Jan. 1962), 485–99.

Note 7 in page 24 William Faulkner: A Critical Study, 2nd ed., rev. and expanded (New York: Random, 1962), p. 223. It was, of course, Jones's granddaughter, not his daughter, on whom Sutpen attempted to beget a male heir.

Note 8 in page 24 The Novels of William Faulkner: A Critical Interpretation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1959), p. 92.

Note 9 in page 24 The phrase is taken from Malcolm Cowley's introduction to The Portable Faulkner (New York: Viking, 1961), p. 13.

Note 10 in page 24 Among the critics who subscribe to this theory are the following: Joseph Gold, William Faulkner: A Study in Humanism from Metaphor to Discourse (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1966); Donald M. Kartiganer, “Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!: The Discovery of Values,” American Literature, 37 (Nov. 1961), 291–306; Use Dusoir Lind, “The Design and Meaning of Absalom, AbsalomG' previously cited; and Millar MacLure, ”Allegories of Innocence,“ The Dalhousie Review, 40 (Summer 1960), 145–56.

Note 11 in page 24 William R. Poirier, “ ‘Strange Gods’ in Jefferson, Mississippi: Analysis of Absalom, Absalom!” in William Faulkner: Two Decades of Criticism, ed. Frederick J. Hoffman and Olga W. Vickery (East Lansing: Michigan State Coll. Press, 1951), pp. 217–43.

Note 12 in page 24 The Mind of the South (New York: Random, 1941), pp. 10–11.

Note 13 in page 33 Melvin Backman, in Faulkner, the Major Years: A Critical Study (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 91–95, takes this viewpoint; Backman uses Cash's work to strengthen his argument.

Note 14 in page 33 Faulkner in the University: Class Conferences at the University of Virginia, ed. Frederick L. Gwynn and Joseph L. Blotner (Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, 1959), p. 76.

Note 15 in page 33 Faulkner at Nagano, ed. Robert A. Jelliffe (Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1956), p. 42.

Note 16 in page 33 John W. Hunt, William Faulkner: Art in Theological Tension (Syracuse, ?. Y.: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1965), p. 16. Hunt's thesis is that Faulkner's novel exhibits “tension between Stoic and Christian visions” (pp. 27–33, 101–36, et passim).

Note 17 in page 33 Irving Malin, in William Faulkner: An Interpretation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1957), p. 68, equates Absalom with Charles Bon. Though Bon, like Absalom, is “beautiful,” as Malin notes, surely the more logical conclusion is that the better parallel lies in equating Absalom with Henry, who indeed kills his older brother, as did Absalom.

Note 18 in page 33 The Interpreter's Bible, ed. George Arthur Buttrick et al. (New York: Abingdon, 1953), ii, 1098.

Note 19 in page 33 I am indebted to J. Mitchell Morse of Temple Univ. for suggestions which have led to certain aspects of this conclusion.