Telling Questions in Absalom, Absalom!

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Telling Questions in Absalom, Absalom!
DAVIDKELLY
Certainlytherebethem thatdelightingiddiness,andcountita
bondagetofixabelief- Bacon
Ifoneofthemorewelcomeeffectsofthetheoretical revolutionin
literaryand cultural studies overthepastthreedecades has been
an increased recognition ofthe availability ofall cultural forms
for a kind oftextual inquiry or a textual understanding, oneof
thelesswelcomeeffectshasbeen areflexive,largelyunthinking
devaluationoftheaestheticorliterarytextitself. lbishasreached
the pointlately where notonly one's over-enthusiastic students
but also scholars who should know better are willing to claim
that the theoretical texthas, or should, supplantthe literarytext
as the main object of our critical and, I suppose, cultural
attention. The absurdity ofthis is only momentarily engaging,
becauseitistoo dangerousaview to remainamusingforlong;in
particular,itbetraysthesamekindofdelirious egocentricity, the
wilful narrowness, and the poverty ofhistorical understanding
that has too often characterized the reception ofand analytical
deployment of 'Theory' - indeed, while 'Theory' itself was
often guilty of analytical self-absorption and political one
upmanship, its receptionincreasingly appeared to resemble the
mass consumption of the frequently indigestible by the
constitutionallydyspeptic.1Whatismostdistressing aboutthisis
theseeming willingnessofmanytodumptheliterarytextas ifits
only value was as a kind of anthropological-cum-cultural
evidence(ofPatriarchy, Capital, whatever)- as ifMiddlemarch
couldbeexchangedfor apennydreadful oran 1860snewspaper
It is bad enough when one comes across this sort of thing in
undergraduateessays butegregiousexamples arereadily availablefrom
the luminaries themselves, especially when put on the spot- see, for
example, Hillis Miller's 'The Critic as Host', his 'reply' to Meyer
Abrams's 'The Deconstructive Angel', both of which are included in
David Lodge's Modem Criticismand Theory: A Reader (Longman:
London, 1988), or Derrida's 'But, beyond ...', a shameful response to
McClintock and Nixon's 'No Names Apart', both of which appear in
'Race,' Writing and Difference, ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr (University
ofChicago Press: Chicago, 1985).
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because all we ever got from it was its witness to its
contemporary sociality. Whence arise those grand, and
lamentablyunexamined,maximsdismissiveofwholeperiodsof
literary endeavour - 'The Victorian realist novel came into
existence to nourish the imperialist consciousness and to
enshrineandpropagateitsideologicalimperatives',thatsortof
thing, as if the novel were not the pre-eminent invention of
European critical and self-critical consciousness. On second
thought perhapsitis the simple arroganceofit all thatis most
distressing; in any case in the midst ofthis it is well to assert
every now and then that the perspectives and the insights
acquiredfromthetheoreticalcomplicationofliteraryandcultural
studies (and they are many and considerable) are not entirely
unprecedented, andthatwehavetendedto valuetheliterarytext
partly according toitscapacityto makeprofoundandsearching
claimsuponourcriticalimagination- farmoreprofoundandfar
more searching claims, indeed, than the great bulk of 'Theory'
withwhichthezealotswishtodisplaceit.
Inthis polemicalcontextIwishtoofferareadingofWilliam
Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, a text which could be
considered valuable in a literary sense for any number of
reasons, but especially so in this case because, first, it is an
excellentexampleofthatkind ofModernisttextthatresists an
ordered,realistreading, andthereforeinvites- andperhapseven
initiates - a shift in critical apprehensiOn ofthe kind that has
come to be associated with a more theoretical textual
understanding; andsecond,becauseatacruciallevel thistextis
concerned withdramatizing an endless but passionateeffortof
interpretation, and this, it seems to me, illuminates in some
respectsthecharacterofcontemporarycritical reflection, which
h.ascomebothtorelyuponand yetprofoundlydistrustthemost
~ophisticated forms of interpretative analysis. That is, a
fundamental ambivalence seems to mark the conduct and the
:;onclusions of contemporary textual inquiry, and that
Imbivalence,oranaspectofit, seemstohavebeentakenupby
4.bsalom, Absalom! andmadethesubjectofits textual inquiry.
Here, then, is aliterarytextdeeplyconcerned withquestioning
hemotivations, thelimits,andthelegitimacyofinterpretation
lbsorbing questions, surely, for contemporary criticism. And
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further, hereis aliterarytextthatisequallyconcernedwiththe
dilemma ofrepresentation, a dilemma which arises from this
questioning, and which is dramatically figured here in the
confusion oftongues that comprises this puzzling, reiterative,
andultimatelycontradictorynarrative.
Itis appropriateto musehereonthe metaphor ofBabel, on
that confusion of tongues which signalled a profound
discontinuity betweenevent andrelation, action andreflection,
world and word, because that metaphor is peculiarly, and
perhaps compellingly, relevant to a text such as Absalom,
Absalom!. For unlike As I Lay Dying or The Sound and the
Fury this novel is told, not (by whatever gambit ofrealism)
thought: the whole process setin motion 'because she wants it
told'2imaginesQuentinattheopeningofthetext. Andtold,too,
notbyanimpliedauthor,butratherconstitutedbyasequenceof
radically heteroclite narrations told by four (perhaps five,
perhapsmore)narratorsallgrappling withtheproblemofhowto
giverepresentativeform to historical actuality, howto arriveat
thespeechofhistoryitself,howtoaccommodatewordto world
- and a world, for Mr Compson, Shreve and Quentin, already
lapsed and now delivered inthe dubious words ofothers. The
BiblicalstoryofBabeltoldofthebreakdownoflanguage,ofthe
terminationofmeaningful narrative, andoftheirrevocableloss
oftheLogos- thewordthatiswhatitsays. Now itisprecisely
this kind ofcrisis inthe relationbetween word and world that
appears to bedevil narrative and narratorial voiceinAbsalom,
Absalom!. Andtheultimateeffectofthisconfusionoftonguesis
anineluctablereductionofspeechtotheprivate, arcanelanguage
in which the mind discourses with itself- that spoken though
publiclyinaccessiblelanguagethathastheresidueofasingular
existential experience inscribed upon it. It is that kind of
language eloquently observed by St. Augustine in the
Confessions:
Although as for things past, whenever truestories aterelated,
outofthememoryaredrawnnot the things themselves which
are past, but such words as ... they, in their passing through
2 William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1971),p.7. Allsubsequentreferencesare tothisedition.
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our senses, have, as their footsteps, left imprinted in our
minds.3
'This identity oflanguage and consciousness is of particular
relevanceto atextsuchasAbsalom,Absalom!.Foralthoughthe
image of past or present reality organized from conflicting
individuatedperspectives may bea familiarliteraryencounter,
thestatusoftheinterpretativeconsciousnessto whichthisimage
gives rise remains - especially in this instance - problematic.
Critical engagement with this text, it seems, will be obliged to
seek the mannerin which the structureofany single narration
will be detennined notonly by the psychic architecture ofthe
narratingconsciousness,butalsobythecharacterofitspurchase
upon a language which, inoneway oranother(andthere are a
number of competing ways to consider), seems to make
interpretationpossibleinthefirstplace.
So Absalom, Absalom! is not simply an exercise in the
interrogation ofhistory and its final reconstitution through a
numberofdissonant voices: the more onelooks at it, the more
significantthosevoicesbecome. Theyallowustoidentify,even
atthisearlystage,twodistinctplanesofactioninthistext. There
is the plane of 'event', consisting of a set of existentially
attenuated facts relating to the life of Thomas Sutpen: not a
historyinitself, this plane offers merely a diagramoverwhich
theinterpretativemindmayplayasitseekstorelocatethatevent
in an historical density. 'This is the problematic action ofthe
secondplane,whichseekstorecoverthereal-inthis case,what
really happened - through the actiqns of interpretation and
representation (actions, that is, that pose the two crucial
questionsofcontemporarycriticalinquiry). Againsttheplaneof
event, of a potential truth to be unearthed, there is set then
another which mightjustas well becalledthe planeofmyth, a
term I use here in Barthes's sense. It is 'human history',
accordingtoBarthes,that
convertsrealityintospeech,anditalonerulesthelifeanddeath
of mythical language. Ancient or not, mythology can only
have an historical foundation, for myth is a type ofspeech
3 St. Augustine, Confessions, XI,xviii.
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chosen by history: itcannotpossiblyevolvefrom the 'nature'
ofthings.4
Barthesimplies aformal antithesisbetween 'nature' and 'myth',
between history and the language that speaks it; in Absalom,
Absalom! the actual structure ofthis relation is crucial, for at
stakeinthis is notonlythequestionofthetext'sreflectionofthe
world, but the further question of how those that come after
mightreflectuponthis.
Anappropriatestartingpointfor amoredetailedconsideration
ofAbsalom, Absalom! would be, Ithink, thecontradictions and
discontinuities that exist between the separate narrations that
servetodelimitandindividualizetheinterpretativeactionsofthe
narratingconsciousness. Thedominant motiveforthis seemingly
communal interrogationofhistory- thevisceral necessity tofind
'rhymeorreason orshadow ofexcuse' (Miss Rosa) for all this
'bloody mischancing of human affairs' (Mr Compson)
provides alsothedominantmotiveforthecollisionofreplies; but
this apart, one discovers minor and seemingly peripheral
discrepancies that disturb and subvert the interrogative flow of
the text. There is, for example, the puzzling photograph, first
mentionedby MrCompson:
Because HenrylovedBon. He repudiatedblood birthrightand
material security for his sake, for the sake of this man who
was at least an intending bigamist even ifnot an out and out
blackguard,andonwhosedeadbodyfouryearslaterJudith was
tofind thephotographoftheotherwomanandthechild. (p.74)
Towards the end ofthe text Shreve, discarding the picture of
Bon as a 'blackguard', exults in the ingenuity of his triumph
overMrCompson:
'And your old man wouldn't know about that too: why the
black sonofabitch should have taken herpicture outandput
the octoroon's picture in, so he invented a reason for it. But I
know. And you know too. Don't you? ... Don't you know? It
wasbecausehesaidtohimself, "IfHenry don'tmean whathe
said, it will be all right; Ican take it outanddestroy it. Butif
4 Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New York: Hill
and Wang, 1972), p.l00; myemphasis.
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he does mean what he said, it will be the only way I have to
say to her, I was no good; do not grievefor me." Aint that
right?Aintit?ByGodaintit?'
'Yes,' Quentinsaid.(pp.295-296)
While one might find these conflicting readings of Bon's
character moderately disconcerting - readings determined by
identicalevidence- thecrucialissueremainstheveracityofthat
evidence, rendered questionable by the witness to the scene,
MissRosa:
andthistoo theycannottellyou:HowI ran.fled. upthestairs
andfoundnogrievingwidowedbridebutJudithstandingbefore
the closeddoor to that chamber'" holding something in her
hand ... and how I saw that what she held in that lax and
negligenthandwasthephotograph. thepictureofherselfinits
metalcasewhichshehadgivenhim, heldcasualandforgotten
againstherflankasanyinterruptedpastimebook. (p.117)
Ifonewishes to preservetheintegrityofthefinal versionofthe
Sutpenstory,Shreve'sandQuentin'sversion, thenRosa'sclaim
heremusteitherbeignoredoraccountedforbysomemechanism
thatwillrenderitpatentlyfraudulent. Thelattercourseisafairly
simpleone: Rosa's narrativecaneasilybereadas anessentially
optative monologue - a reading which provides a convenient
modeofsuppressionwheneverdifficultiesofthis kind arise. But
thiscomfortablemechanismofrecoverydoesviolenceto thetext
in two ways: it subverts the normal process of empirical
detectionin whicheachofthe narrators participatesbydenying
Rosa's claimto superiorauthenticity ('andthis too theycannot
tell you'); andofcourseinabanalreductionitconvertstwofull
chapters into needless excrescences (Rosa's story), thereby
impoverishing the text by circumscribing theplay ofmeaning,
installing it in only one ofthe novel's situations: the dialogue
betweenShreveandQuentin. Itisatthetext'sinsistencethatwe
findthistroubling, then; anditisatthetext'sinsistencethatour
criticalinterestbeginstobedirected.
For although the photograph is a minor item the successive
accumulationofthiskindofcontradictoryevidencesignificantly
altersareader'smodeofattentiontowardsthisnarrativecomplex
(orcomplex ofnarratives). Thatis, thefundamental indecision
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over the figure in the frame (Judith or octoroon), over the
woundedandthesaved(CharlesorHenry),tosaynothingofthe
fundamental indecisionconcerningthemotiveforthemurderof
Charles, obstructs our interpretative passage from word to
world,instancesthatviolationofthemimeticcontractthatseems
to characterise this Modernist phase within the history of
narrative, and thus forcibly suggests, as Jonathan Culler has
argued ofthis kind oftextual action, 'that the only reality in
question is that ofwriting itselfwhich ... uses the concept ofa
worldinordertodisplay itsownlaws'.5Ifnotwritingprecisely
(pace Derrida), perhaps the only reality in question here is
speaking- still, ofcourse, a textual activity- and the laws and
processes governing the utterances ofspeakers. And it seems
thattherearecertainlaws,certainconventions, whicharefunda
mental to the process ofgiving voice to history, the process of
mythiccomposition; theproblem, however, isthatthese appear
toresultinawilfulincoherenceofthetextatthelevelofnarrated
action.Thereis,forexample,thecentralinterpretative-represent
ativeprocessofnaming- atechniquefully exploitedinthistext
by Faulkner, but one that interestingly signals a dual activity:
bothnarratorial andcritical. Ineachcasetheeffortisto read(to
interpretandtorepresent), andtoread, Barthesremindsus,
is a labour of language. To read is to find meanings, and to
findmeaningsis toname them; butthesenamedmeaningsare
swept toward other names; names call to each other,
reassemble, and their grouping calls for further naming: I
name, I unname, I rename: so the text passes: it is a
nomination in the course of becoming, a tireless
approximation,ametonymiclabour.6
Oneofthe moredisturbing features ofthistext, then, isits pre
emptive character before critical reflection: here is a text that
dramatizestheeventofreadingitself,rendering anysubsequent
reading(suchasthis) notsuperfluousbutmerelysupplementary,
merelyonemoreinterpretativeactioninasequenceofspiralling
irony.
5 Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1975), p.193.
sa,
6 RolandBarthes, trans. Richard Miller(New York: HillandWang,
1974), p.1l.
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'Yes. HenamedClytie as he named them all, [Mr Compson
tellsQuentin]theonebeforeClytieandHenryandJuditheven,
with thatsamerobustand sardonic temerity, naming with his
ownmouthhisown ironicfecundity ofdragon'steeth. OnlyI
havealwayslikedtobelievethathe intended to nameClytie,
Cassandra,promptedbysomepuredramaticeconomynotonly
to beget but to designate the presiding augur of his own
disaster, and that he just got the name wrong through a
mistake natural in a man who must have almost taught
himselftoread: (p.50)
One might expect figures acquiring 'a quality of solidity,
permanence' toemergefromtherecapitulativemovementofthis
text- thattypeofqualityQuentin,inthebeginning,perceivesin
thecharacterofSutpen(p.lO). Thatthisdoesnotseemto occur
may be due, in part, to the narrators' persistence in confusing
names. Mr Compson, for example, refers to Clytie as
Cassandra, yet throughoutthetextitis Rosa's affinity with the
Cassandra figure that is insistently remarked. Again Mr
Compson here clearly identifies Sutpen as Labdacus, heroic
father to the internecine brood of Spartoi; elsewhere he is
described as 'thedemon', a 'Faustus' who has sold something
(although not a soul) to the 'Creditor', and 'Beelzebub'; atthe
sametime heis deific, uttereroftheoriginal fiat ('Be Sutpen's
Hundred likethe oldentime Be Light' - p.6); to Quentinheis
Adamic, possessor of a pre-lapsarian innocence that is
hopelesslyincompetentatdistinguishingbetweengoodandevil;
equally he fulfils an Adamic role in Mr Compson's reflection
above, teaching himselfto read andthendesignating all things
withinsuperablepatriarchal authorityinaseeminglypre-Babelic
languagethatnamesatonceandalways- andthis,quiteliterally,
confuses the issue further; implicitly King David, explicitly an
aging Abraham (p.268), heis also Bluebeardtheravisherinhis
castle (p.49); again he is not the 'widowed Agamemnon' to
Rosa's 'Cassandra' butan 'ancientandstiff-jointedPyramusto
her eager though untried Thisbe' (p.l46). The list is far from
exhaustive and omits the many references to Sutpen as the
protagonist in a Greek tragedy. Yet what emerges from this
proliferationofnamesis adisconcertingfluidityofcharacterthat
extendstotheothercharactersintheSutpenstory: theiridentity
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collapses under the metamorphic pressures of narrative
recapitulation. Bonis 'shadowy, amyth, aphantom: something
they engendered whole themselves; some effluvium of Sutpen
blood and character, as though as a man he did not exist at all'
(pp.85-86). Judith and Henry seem to exist almost
symbiotically, and arestrangelyandrogynous, as is Bon. Judith
was just the blank shape, the empty vessel in which each of
them strove to preserve, not the illusion of himself nor the
illusionoftheotherbutwhateachconceivedtheotherbelieved
him to be- the man and the youth, seducer and seduced,
victimized in tum each by theother, conquerervanquished by
hisownstrength,vanquishedconqueringbyhisownweakness,
before Judith came into theirjointlives even by so much as a
girlname. (p.99)
It is in this context that Mr Compson muses upon the 'perfect
andpureincest':
the brother realizing that the sister's virginity must be
destroyed inordertohaveexistedatall, taking thatvirginityin
thepersonofthebrother-in-law, the man whom he wouldbeif
he could become, metamorphose into, the lover, the husband;
by whom he would be despoiled, choose for despoiler, ifhe
couldbecome, metamorphose into the sister, the mistress, the
bride. (p.79)
OnecouldgoonbutIthinkthepointis fairly clear: this reckless
will to nominate demands of the reader an awareness of
discontinuity as an active principle in the text - an activity
reaching beyond the plane of event and working at ever
increasing depths of the textual strata. The recapitulative
movements of the narrative - the source and mechanism of
contradiction- ultimatelytransformtheSutpenstoryinto nothing
more thanaclouded sequenceofpossible actions performedby
enigmatic figures whose only persistent attribute is,
paradoxically, a metamorphic capacity exercised under the
presentexigencies ofnarration. And yeteveninthis therelies a
potentialinter-relatedness, apotential coherence- butapotential
thatcan only be realized by aneffortofimaginative projection
thatcan map a mythic landscapeonto the gaps in the sequence,
thereby endowing these shadowy figures with meaning within
history as narration. And this is preciselythe task performedby
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naming. For to name an object is to invest it with existential
depth, tochartitsrangeofsignificationsand,asthemedievalists
knew, toappropriateandcontrolit
The further importanceofthis naming activity derives from
theflow ofmeaningresultingfrom apowerfulreflexiveironyto
which itgives rise, and to whichit is continually subjected. A
title such as Absalom, Absalom! is itself an inviting and
powerfulheuristicdevice:itimpliesaparticularmodeofattention
towards the text that will seek and explore motifs potentially
derived from the story of Absalom - it excites a kind of
allegorical attention. But like the mimetic contract mentioned
earlierthisisanequallyproblematicfeatureofthetext. Forwho
is Absalom? Charles seems the most likely candidate - the
bastard son intent upon claiming his rightful heritage. In fact
Shreve,whilemusingonwhatCharlesmighthavethoughtashis
determinationgrew,refersspecificallytothestoryofAbsalom:
I will renounce love and all [Shreve imagines Charles
declaring]; thatwillbecheap,cheap,eventhoughhesaytome
'never look upon my face again; take my love and my
acknowledgementinsecret,andgo.' (p.270)
Bon's (orShreve's) allusionisto IISamuel, 15:24:
And theking said,Lethim tum tohisownhouse, andlethim
not seemy face. So Absalom returned to his own house, and
sawnottheking'sface.
Theinferenceis clear,thereferenceconfused. ForDavidishere
punishing Absalom for having murdered his half-brother,
Amnon, who had committed incest with Absalom's sister,
Tamar. Who, then, is Absalom? The dispossessed bastard son
moved by the Ahitophel-like scheming ofa country lawyer to
claim his rightful heritage (perhaps Charles); or the fratricide
outragedbyincest(perhaps Henry)?Ifthereis allegoryatwork
inthistext- andthetitlecertainlyinvitesustosuspectthereis
thenittoo iscontaminatedbythe general fracturing ofsignand
referent, renderingitsoperationdiscontinuous andrandom, and
thus ironically undermining the naming activity undertakenby
thenarrators whilesimultaneouslyexposingthefactitiousness of
theinterpretativeoperationofwhichnamingisapart.
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