Signification, Dissemination And Subversion: A Deconstructive Reading Of Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy

By founding his literary edifice upon the"little postage stamp of native soil", Faulkner reveals the human consciousness with his unique themes and styles. His greatness lies not in a single aspect: he is both regional and international, both psychological and economic, both racial and integrationist, both experimental and repetitive, among many others. It is based on this multi-facetedness that a deconstructive reading of his Snopes trilogy becomes possible.This dissertation aims to explore the linguistic, textual and philosophical features in The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion from the angle of deconstruction. A critical review in The Introduction shows that the trilogy has not been systematically researched in a deconstructive perspective. Given the comparative research inadequacy in this field, this project may be seen as a meaningful attempt in China. The Introduction also offers an overview of the deconstruction theory, renowned for its ambiguity and difficulty. Combined with the previous understanding of the trilogy, the dissertation boils the theory down to three aspects: linguistic, textual and philosophical. For ease of analysis and avoidance of repetition, those three factors are to be integrated into the analysis of the three novels. Thus, apart from the Introduction and Conclusion, this dissertation is divided into 3 chapters, with the focus on a deconstructive understanding of signification, textuality and existence respectively.Chapter One seeks to find out the deconstructive process of signification in The Hamlet. As the first and most researched text of the trilogy, The Hamlet not only attracts its reader with its humor and light-heartedness, but also shows its deconstructive force in language. Signification, the process of establishing meaning by signifying, is overturned by Derrida's complete liberation of the signifier and signified. Faulkner's practices in language are very similar to Derrida's deconstruction on traditional thoughts. The Hamlet pulls down the establishments of linguistic decidability by the mighty forces of différance, supplement and rhetoricity. Firstly, deconstruction shows its power in its intrasemiotic motion of différance, which combines"deferral"with"difference"to suggest that the differential nature of meanings in language ceaselessly defers or postpones any determinate meaning. Flem Snopes differs and defers his own name and his social status in the agrarian community. Ike jabbers out a sound that differs and defers the true meaning of his family name. The centric position of Eula is deconstructed by the centrifugal force. Ratliff, the narrator-character in The Hamlet, deconstructs his initial"postal-service"reliability and godlike detachedness. Secondly, the intersemiotic motion of deconstruction reveals its force on supplement. According to Derrida, all metaphysical systems and their embodying presence need a supplementary term to compensate for the absence of this source. Because of his fundamental lack, Flem is supplemented by those seemingly marginal or supplementary Snopeses. Ike's queer but brave love for a cow surrogates the seemingly"normal"love among humans. Thirdly, Faulkner's frequent use of metaphors suggests that he treats language as a phenomenon filled with contingencies and shows how he deconstructs the language by the transsemiotic forces of rhetoricity. The proper names like"Flem","Mink"and"Eula"are all susceptible to the play of metaphor. The animal images used in describing the Snopes and the women in The Hamlet amplify the elusive interaction between the signifier and the signified.Chapter Two focuses its analysis on the disseminative features in The Town. Dissemination is the dispersal and dissipation of meanings among infinite possibilities. Under the force of dissemination, the literary works become texts, which are open to infinite explanation. With textuality as its essential quality, The Town disseminates intertextually, intratextually and extratextually. For intertextual analysis, firstly The Town shows two differences from The Hamlet: the narrative perspective and the textual arrangement of Eula. Being exalted to the title of"a virtuous wife"and a"blessed"mother in The Town, Eula becomes both the pharmakos and pharmakon of the trilogy, both inside and outside the town, both static and dynamic in nature, both lewd and shrewd in personality, both mythic and earthy in imagery, both ergon and parergon in society. The intertextual dissemination between The Town and The Mansion is shown in the three versions of the monument scene and Linda's education. The third intertextual dissemination happens between The Town and"Centaur in Brass". The revision is mainly shown in structure and facts. The Town's turn from Centaur's specificity to its own uncertainty signifies Faulkner's abandoning of direct representation of the quotidian realities of southern life. The intratextual operations in The Town also show much disseminative force. Faulkner's treatment of the problem between truth and facts and his revisive arrangement of the text sets the narrative in an illogical and absurd corner, where deconstruction shows itself as a moment of"aporia"or impasse. Extratextual deconstruction is mainly revealed through the novel's borrowings from mythological, biblical and literary texts, which helps to expand the introspective perspective out into a disseminative field of cross-reference.Chapter Three aims to explore the effects of deconstruction on human existence in The Mansion. Faulkner's characterization in the novel shows how people react to their fate and unfolds the existence in a deconstructed world. Mink reveals himself as a figure of much deconstructive power to subvert the"Old Moster"and His embodiments–"them-they-it". Even though he tries every honest way to compensate for the loss he inflicts upon others, he is just cast into a deeper and darker abyss all the time. Linda is also trapped in her personal plight in a modern world. She is jilted by four Generalissimos in her world. Through her own choice and action, Linda deconstructs an existence that is not worthy of living. Linda's another important tool for deconstruction is her deafness, for which she subverts the traditional view on speech and writing. Though commonly regarded as the archrival of the trilogy, Flem is a character that miniaturizes substantial paradoxical or contradictory traits on his small stature: a moneygrubber but throws big money on respectability; an ascender on the social ladder yet takes no action facing a pistol to his head. Flem's death is out of a choice of de-signification. As a form of self-deconstruction, de-signification usually has two types: anasemia and anathémes. For the former, a state of inexhaustible poverty by the displacement of antisemantic signification, Flem stops his motion in his later years and deconstructs his own status as a victimizer. For the latter, anathémes functions like a"dredger"in Flem's life: the meaning and content of his existence have been hollowed out from its inside. On his road to fortune and fame, the change and revision in life dredge the substance by degrees and leave a vacuum for him.After a deconstructive reading of the trilogy, the dissertation finally concludes that Faulkner brings a new sense of language, text and existence to his readers. Firstly, in the trilogy, readers find out that Faulkner's language lives on its own: differing and deferring its signification and supplementing its lack. Secondly, through Faulkner's revising and revisiting his earlier stories and other sources, readers see more clearly how the life of literature hinges on the dissemination of texts. Thirdly, a deconstructive reading of the trilogy helps the reader better understand Faulkner's deconstructive outlook on the human existence. Finally, the Snopes trilogy, from its self-deconstructive tendency, has shown the burgeoning of postmodernism on Faulkner.