William Faulkner's Mythopoesis: Mythic Patterns in The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying

• Main Authors: Tze-chiang Lu, 魯自強
• Other Authors: Chu Yen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2000
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/37391678615412249752

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學系研究所 === 89 === This thesis is an attempt to examine two of Faulkner’s representative works, The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, in the light of mythopoesis. That means, I elicit Faulkner’s extensive use of mythologies recorded in classical writings — Greco-Roman or Biblical — and the way he reconstructed the distinct myths symbolically into unified artistic works. The first introductory part of the thesis lays out Faulkner’s own mythic design of Yoknapatawpha County, by means of which he defined the nature of myth — that is to say, human life patterns — as well as the essence of the tragic. The revelation is based upon the belief that Faulkner reproduced the once-prosperous mythic kingdom, where the archetypal quest for the heroic stands still for the sweat and pain of human hearts in conflict. The second part is devoted to an analysis of Faulkner’s most controversial work, The Sound and the Fury in the mythological approach. I contend that the story is a romanticized version of the Edenic myth in the Hebraic-Christian culture. By establishing The Sound and the Fury as a chivalric romance of Man’s Fall, Faulkner attached importance to the moral battle of good and evil, representative of the Sartoris and the Snopes code of values at work in the Compson family. In this novel, finally, the struggle is made clear in the form of contending voices given to the unobtainable cause of ultimate salvation. The third part treats of As I Lay Dying as a medieval pilgrimage toward spiritual catharsis, carried out through contradictory heroic codes of honor of the Bundren family members. In re-defining the epic hero’s capacity for trials and tribulations, Faulkner works hard, again, on the basic meaning of the journey toward salvation when he juxtaposes flood and fire with personal greed as natural obstacles on the way. He skillfully internalizes the quest and expands the single meaningful experience into a mythic universality of symbolic weight. The last part of the thesis, functioning as conclusion, summarizes the techniques with which Faulkner universalizes his available mythological material and applies the resultant theme to some other major works of Faulkner’s. The crosscheck proves that almost all of Faulkner’s works can be viewed as a significant microcosmic record of human conflicts from the angle of mythopoesis.