Light In Self-exploration

William Faulkner is one of the most creative and influential American southern writers in the twentieth century,he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949.Light in August,as one of the masterpieces of Faulkner,is recognized as his most impressive fictional achievement.Set in the unique patriarchal and puritan social background in American south,Light in August depicts the unconventional life experience of the southern female characters.The female theme of Light in August reveals Faulkner’s concern with the fate of southern women and their ways out.This paper employs Foucault’s disciplinary power theory to study the female growth in Light in August.It focuses on the process of women’s submission,resistance and their pursuit of harmonious relationships in the disciplinary patriarchal society.This thesis consists of three parts.The introductory part summarizes the research of Light in August at home and abroad and expounds on the theoretical basis and research significance of this paper.The body part includes three chapters.The first chapter discusses women’s submission to the patriarchal discipline.In the disciplinary patriarchal society,the southern women turn the male gaze into their self-surveillance.Obediently they become docile bodies and keep aphasic in front of men.However,women’s submission to the patriarchal discipline does not bring them happiness,instead,it severely suppresses their true selves.The second chapter explores women’s resistance against the patriarchal discipline.The suffering of life awakens these southern women,they begin to rebel against the disciplinary power in order to emancipate their suppressed selves and obtain new self-identities in the patriarchal society.The radical resistance has achieved some success;however,it simultaneously causes enormous harm.The third chapter expounds women’s self-exploration in pursuing harmonious relationships.They eventually become the subjects with independent spirits,achieve their self-worth and obtain their newself-identities through developing sisterhood and establishing harmonious relationship with men.Through the comprehensive analysis above,this thesis draws a conclusion that in the patriarchal southern society,neither the absolute submission to the patriarchal discipline nor the radical resistance against it is able to help women find their ways out,women should explore the light of selves through developing sisterhood and establishing harmonious relationship with men.