1 / 12

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

wei
Download Presentation

Absalom, Absalom: History, Identity, and Class Consciousness

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  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

More Related