History In His Stories

William Faulkner is one of the most influential modernist writers in the United States and his Yoknapatawpha novels reflect the historical and cultural life of American South in the transitional period.This thesis aims to study Faulkner’s Southern plantation writing from social,historical and cultural perspectives in an attempt to discuss about his descriptions of Southern plantation’s rise,prosperity and decline.His three representative novels Absalom,Absalom!,The Sound and the Fury and Go Down,Moses are all set in the Southern plantations,by which Faulkner tells the stories of Sutpen’s,Compson’s and McCaslin’s family.The Southern plantation in Faulkner’s novels is not only the epitome of the South,but also the special symbol for a transitional society.On the one hand,as a descendant of the Southern aristocratic family,Faulkner loved the Southern plantation for it is the place where he grew up.On the other hand,he saw the sins of the Southern plantation.The buttoned-down Southerners lost their way at the turn of the century.This thesis probes into Faulkner’s Southern plantation writing from four perspectives as follows:The first part studies the rise of Southern plantations in Faulkner’s novels.Having overcome the execrable living conditions of northern America,those early settlers built plantations in the South and brought the European civilization there.Thomas Sutpen,General Compson and Carothers McCaslin built "Sutpen’s Hundred," "Compson’s plantation" and "McCaslin’s plantation" respectively.However,the fact that all of them grabbed the land on which they built plantations from native Indians reflects the unjust nature of Southern plantations.The second part examines the dialectical relationship between master and slave.Faulkner held an ambivalent attitude towards the relationship between master and slave.On the one hand,masters exploited slaves for economic benefits.On the other hand,masters’ dependency on slaves cannot be overlooked.Sutpen’s identity is shaped by the experience that he was ruthlessly rejected by a black slave when he was a child,the traumatic memory of which induced his hatred towards the black.But he depended on black labor as well.Ike depended on Sam Fathers,who serves to fill in the role of paternity for which Ike desperately longed.Moreover,the relationship among Zachary Edmonds,Lucas Beauchamp and Molly is analyzed in details.The third part discusses about the representation of primogeniture in Faulkner ’s plantations in the light of Habermas’ and Weber’s theories of modem society.In Faulkner ’s Southern plantation novels,the fighting for right of inheritance includes two cases:the son of mixed blood who challenges his white counterpart to pursue free and equal personality,and the fierce competition for the fittest between white siblings.More specifically,the rivalries happen between Charles Bon and Henry Sutpen in Absalom,Absalom!,between Quentin and Jason in The Sound and the Fury,between Issac McCaslin and McCaslin Edmonds in Go Down,Moses.The fourth part studies the decline and rebirth of Southern plantations.The social causes for the decline are mainly the industrial revolution and Civil War.Thanks to the industrial revolution,the Southern plantations were revived by the agricultural mechanization.Faulkner not only depicted the decline of "Sutpen’s Hundred," but also depicted the reformation of "McCaslin’s plantation" and "Compson’s plantation."The slavery-based McCaslin’s plantation has been transformed into a tenant plantation.Compson plantation was partly transformed into a golf course at first.Finally it has been sold out and transformed into boardinghouse completely.Based on Faulkner’s Southern plantation writing,this thesis examines his descriptions of the rise,prosperity and decline of Southern plantations in the context of ever-changing American plantation culture.Traditional plantations were on the decline,whereas modern plantations were rising.The traditional moral values,life style and production mode of Southern plantation varied significantly in the course of modernization.Faulkner creatively showed the history of Southern plantations before and after the Civil War.He retold the history in his stories and created three family legends in the context of Southern history.The interaction between his stories and history is achieved through his almost impeccable artistic skills.