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Absalom, Absalom: History, Identity, and Class Consciousness

Absalom, Absalom: History, Identity, and Class Consciousness. Ramon Saldivar Stanford University. Faulkner as a Third World Writer. link between historical narrative and social and racial ideology

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Absalom, Absalom: History, Identity, and Class Consciousness

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  1. Absalom, Absalom: History, Identity, and Class Consciousness Ramon Saldivar Stanford University

  2. Faulkner as a Third World Writer • link between historical narrative and social and racial ideology • subject formation in relation to the emerging colonized world as it begins to throw off its colonial burden • Faulkner’s analysis of the colonial and emerging postcolonial subject Story and Plot in Absalom

  3. Story and Plot in Absalom, Absalom • “The best novel yet written by an American” • Title of the novel: 2 Samuel 13-18 • Sutpen’s “Design” Absalom p. 212 Story and Plot in Absalom

  4. Story and Plot • Viktor Shklovsky, Story v. Plot • Story is a THEMATIC concept • Plot is a COMPOSITIONAL concept made up of devices • Plot is the specific peculiarity of narrative art Story and Plot in Absalom

  5. Three plots of Sutpen’s story • Chapter 1, Rosa Coldfield’s narrative, August 1909 • Chapters 2-4, Mr. Compson’s narrative, summer 1909 • Chapter 5, Rosa’s story continues • Chapters 6-8, Quentin Compson’s and Shreve McCannon’s narrative, Jan 10, 1910 Story and Plot in Absalom

  6. Romance • A lone hero • Embarks on a melodramatic Quest • Through a Symbolic Universe • Unformed by networks of social relations • Unfettered by the pressures of real social constraints • Object of his quest is eroticized and sensual Story and Plot in Absalom

  7. Proairetic Code of Narration • The logic of actions • How the completion of an action can be logically derived from its initiation • How these completed actions combine with other actions to form sequences Story and Plot in Absalom

  8. The Hermeneutic Code of Narration • Concerns the questions and answers that structure a story • Their suspense • Partial unveiling • Eventual resolution into MEANING Story and Plot in Absalom

  9. Plot: combination of Proairetic and Hermeneutic Codes • In Proairetic • Actions and sequences of actions of the narrative are assembled into larger wholes • In Hermeneutic • Sort things out to see the significance of actions Story and Plot in Absalom

  10. Rosa’s Narrative of Southern Innocence • The Romance of the South • “The evil’s source and head which had outlasted all its victims” Absalom, p. 12 • “Fatality and curse on the South and on our family” Absalom p. 14 • “He was not articulated in this world. He was a walking shadow” Absalom p. 139 Story and Plot in Absalom

  11. Mr. Compson’s Narrative of Southern Irony • The Critique of Romance • Lawless opportunity • Moral Credit • Misogyny Story and Plot in Absalom

  12. Quentin and Shreve’s Metanarrative • Romance Undone: Paradox and Contradiction • “Things that just have to be whether they are or not,” Absalom p. 260 • Social Construction and Aesthetic Design Story and Plot in Absalom

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