Faulkner on the Color Line: The Later Novels

192 Pages·2000·8.135 MB·English

by  Theresa M. Towner

Faulkner
on the
Color Line
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FAULKNER
ON THE
COLOR LINE
The Later Novels
Theresa M. Towner
University Press of Mississippi
Jackson
www.upress.state.ms.us
Copyright © 2000 by University Press of Mississippi
AH rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Print-on-Demand Edition
©Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Towner, Theresa M.
Faulkner on the color line : the later novels / Theresa M. Towner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57806-249-7 (alk. paper)
i. Faulkner, William, 1897-1962—Political and social views. 2. Race relations in
literature. 3. Race in literature. 4. Afro-Americans in literature. 5. Literature and
society—Southern States—History—2oth century. 6. Literary form. I. Title.
PS35H.A86 7978 2000
813'.52—dc2i 99-052926
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
For Steve
—where love lives
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... it had taken one conjoined breath to shape that sound, the
speaker speaking not loud, diffidently, tentatively, as you insert
the first light tentative push of wind into the mouthpiece of a
strange untried foxhorn: "By God. Jefferson."
"Jefferson, Mississippi," a second added.
"Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi," a third
corrected; who, which one, didn't matter this time either since
it was still one conjoined breathing, one compound dream-
state, mused and static. . . .
"It aint until we finish the goddamned thing," Compson
said. ... So they finished it that day, working rapidly now,
with speed and lightness too, . . . and Compson said, "I reckon
that'll do"—all knowing what he meant: not abandonment: to
complete it, of course, but so little remained now that the two
slaves could finish it. The four in fact, since, although as soon
as it was assumed that the two Grenier Negroes would lend
the two local ones a hand, Compson demurred on the grounds
that who would dare violate the rigid protocol of bondage by
ordering a stable-servant, let alone a house-servant, to do man-
ual labor. . . .
Act One, "The Courthouse (A Name for the City)"
Requiem for a Nun
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
Chapter i
FLESH AND THE PENCIL
Racial Identity and the Search for Form 3
Chapter 2
"How CAN A BLACK MAN ASK?"
Orality, Race, and Identity 29
Chapter 3
FINDING SOMEBODY TO TALK To
Detection, Confession, and the Color Line 48
Chapter 4
SNOPES*WATCHING AND RACIAL IDEOLOGY 74
Chapter 5
RACE AND THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNER 119
Notes 145
Works Cited 161
Index 173