Faulkner and the Ecology of the South (Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Series)

198 Pages·2005·1.103 MB·English

by  Joseph R. Urgo, Ann J. Abadie

Faulkner and the Ecology of the South
faulkner and yoknapatawpha,
2003
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Faulkner and the
Ecology of the South
faulkner and yoknapatawpha, 2003
edited by
joseph r. urgo
and
ann j. abadie
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI
jackson
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Copyright © 2005by University Press of Mississippi
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Manufactured in the United States of America
First edition 2005
(cid:1)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference (30th : 2003: University of Mississippi)
Faulkner and the ecology of the South / Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 2003;
edited by Joseph R. Urgo and Ann J. Abadie.
v. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: “Old man” : shackles, chains, and water water everywhere / Cecelia
Tichi—The land’s turn / Philip Weinstein—Environed blood : ecology and violence
in The sound and the fury and Sanctuary / Eric Gary Anderson—William Faulkner,
Peter Matthiessen, and the environmental imagination / Ann Fisher-Wirth—The
enemy within : Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy / Michael Wainwright—Is Faulkner
green? the wilderness as aporia / François Pitavy—The ecology of Uncle Ike :
teaching Go down, Moses with Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a cracker childhood /
Thomas L. McHaney—Visceral Faulkner : fiction and the tug of the organic world /
Scott Slovic—McCrady’s La-fay-ette County / Jeanne de la Houssaye—Collecting
Faulkner / Seth Berner.
ISBN 1-57806-782-0(cloth : alk. paper)
1. Faulkner, William, 1897–1962—Knowledge—Southern States—Congresses.
2. Faulkner, William, 1897–1962—Knowledge—Natural history—Congresses.
3. Yoknapatawpha County (Imaginary place)—Congresses. 4. Southern States—In
literature—Congresses. 5. Human ecology—Southern States—Congresses.
6. Human ecology in literature—Congresses. 7. Nature in literature—Congresses.
I. Urgo, Joseph R. II. Abadie, Ann J. III. Title.
PS3511.A86Z78321175 2005
813(cid:2).52—dc22 2005002380
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
In Memoriam,
Murry Cuthbert “Chooky” Falkner II
November 22, 1928–April 23, 2004
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Contents
Introduction ix
Joseph R. Urgo
A Note on the Conference xxiii
“Old Man”: Shackles, Chains, and Water Water Everywhere 3
Cecelia Tichi
The Land’s Turn 15
Philip Weinstein
Environed Blood: Ecology and Violence in The Sound and
the Fury andSanctuary 30
Eric Gary Anderson
William Faulkner, Peter Matthiessen, and the Environmental
Imagination 47
Ann Fisher-Wirth
The Enemy Within: Faulkner’s Snopes Trilogy 61
Michael Wainwright
Is Faulkner Green? The Wilderness as Aporia 81
François Pitavy
The Ecology of Uncle Ike: Teaching Go Down, Moses with
Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood 98
Thomas L. McHaney
Visceral Faulkner: Fiction and the Tug of the Organic World 115
Scott Slovic
McCrady’s La-FAY-ette County 133
Jeanne de la Houssaye
vii
viii contents
Collecting Faulkner 153
Seth Berner
Contributors 168
Index 171
Introduction
It was the way he dried out—he took it out on bitterweeds. I think he had
an obsession about bitterweeds—he always kept a hoe or two leaning
against the side of the house, and when he had a hangover, or when things
weren’t going well with his writing, he’d go out into the pasture and
attack them.
—Malcolm Franklin
Bitterweeds: Life with William Faulkner at Rowan Oak
I’m interested primarily in people, in man in conflict with himself, with his
fellow man, or with his time and place, his environment.
—William Faulkner, 1957
1
By ecology we do not exclude the natural world, though what we have in
mind is more akin to the idea of a human ecology, the interaction of
humans with their environment—made and found, communities as well
as habitats. While Faulkner would often discount the importance or the
centrality of the South because it was simply what he knew best, the fact
remains that he did know it and the way he knew it is inextricable from the
world he imagined in his fiction. To the terminologically weary, the nomi-
native, ecocriticism, may be no more than theoretical dressing on what
we’ve always known as setting, time and place, or environment. However,
the recent school of criticism which calls itself ecocriticism (and which has
an association and a journal1) has led to a renewed interest among literary
scholars for what in this volume Cecelia Tichi calls “humanness within
congeries of habitats and environments.” Faulkner scholars, such as Philip
Weinstein, locate within Yoknapatawpha County “a precarious ecosys-
tem” which may be illuminated in fresh ways through the application of
ecocritical theory. The essays collected in Faulkner and the Ecological
South probe Faulkner’s environmental imagination, seeking what Ann
Fisher-Wirth calls the “ecological countermelody” of his texts.
The term environmentseems to have held deep meaning for Faulkner;
at least, that is, it was a word he relied on in public. Among the more
resonant formulations upon which Faulkner relied while writer in resi-
dence at the University of Virginia in the late 1950s was his statement of
primary interest in “man in conflict with himself, with his fellow man, or
ix