A Spatial Interpretation Of "The Other" In Faulkner’s Novels

William Faulkner is an American modernist writer of the twentieth century,being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1949.He is not only a traditional epic writer who describes the history of the South,but also a pioneer of modernist stream-of-consciousness novels dedicated to exploring writing skills,at the same time,Faulkner has profound thinking and unique insights into many social and human issues as a humanitarian writer,which makes his works being important texts for many theoretical schools to study the history of the South of the United States and analyze the social conditions from multiple perspectives.Taking three novels——The Sound and the Fury,Go Down,Mosses,Light in August——as examples,this paper attempting to uncover the three representative images of "the Other" in William Faulkner’s literary works:people of madness,of color,of woman,aims to demonstrate the subsidiary status,derogatory and suppressed situation of "the Other" in the relationship with "the Self",by the means of analyzing the plight of "the Other" and Faulkner’s own inclination from a spatial perspective.This thesis is divided into three parts:introduction,main body,and conclusion.The introduction mainly discusses the domestic and foreign research summarization of Faulkner’s literary works,the understanding of the concept of "the Other" and the research significance of this paper.The main body contains three chapters.Each chapter is based on a novel as the basis of analysis and one kind of "the Other" as the object of interpretation;at the same time,in terms of structure,each chapter is divided into four subsections——the first subsection discusses the reasons why the object of interpretation in that chapter becomes "the Other",the second subsection and the third subsection analyzes the spatial characteristics and plight of "the Other",the fourth subsection discusses Faulkner’s own attitude and position on the problem of "the Other" as a South American white male writer.Speaking specifically,the first chapter is based on The Sound and the Fury,combines special perspective with Michel Foucault’s "Power" and "Discourse" theory to analyze the space of "the Other" under the confrontation between madness and civilization.This chapter mainly discusses the facts that civilization("the Self") delimits the edge for people of madness by isolation,and realizes the purpose of suppressing madness and eliminating "the other" by confinement.The second chapter is based on Go Down,Mosses,analyzes the space of "the Other" under racial consciousness by combining special perspective with some scholars’ related discussions on race,such as Homi Baba,Fanon,Edward Said,etc..This chapter firstly focuses on the "space contrast" in the work,so as to explore the space of "the Other" in the vision of white race.Secondly,this chapter focuses on analyzing the apartheid in the novel and highlights the spatial manifestation of "ethnic consciousness".The third chapter is based on Light in August,analyzes the space of"the Other" under the patriarchal discourse by means of the special perspective combined with the opinions of Kate Millett and Simon de Beauvoir on patriarchal discourse and the formation of women.The third chapter firstly discusses the inhuman indoctrination of patriarchy,which leads to the distinction between public sphere and private sphere in the field of female,then discusses the deviation of the deep consciousness "self-restraint" and the superficial action "space expansion" of the women who are "others" being "stared".