William Faulkner, His Eye for Archetypes, and America's Divided

176 Pages·2015·0.42 MB·English

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English Dissertations Department of English
7-16-2008
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Geraldine Mart Harmon
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Harmon, Geraldine Mart, "William Faulkner, His Eye for Archetypes, and America's Divided Legacy of
Medicine." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2008.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1059560
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @
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WILLIAM FAULKNER, HIS EYE FOR ARCHETYPES,
AND AMERICA’S DIVIDED LEGACY OF MEDICINE
by
GERALDINE MART HARMON

Under the Direction of Dr. Thomas L. McHaney

ABSTRACT
The medical division between constitutional homeopathy and allopathic medicine
shaped the culture in which William Faulkner grew up and wrote. Early 20th century
America was daily subjected to a variety of conflicting approaches to maintaining or
recovering physical, psychological, or spiritual health. The culture was discussing the role
of vitalism for good health; the use and dosage of medicine to treat the individual or to
treat the disease instead; the interaction of the mind, body, and spirit; the tendency of
personality to emerge from inherent biology or acquired traits; the varied explanations for
illness; and the legitimacy of doctors, their philosophies, and their remedies.
These competing definitions of psycho-biological health informed Faulkner’s
character conceptions and portrayals. In their psycho-biological traits, some of his
characters represent concurrently published homeopathic descriptions of constitutions
quite accurately. Faulkner’s own life may have offered him opportunities to learn about
alternative medicine and generated an interest--along with other medical dissidents--in
opposing the newly-garnered authority of modern scientific medicine. It is also likely that
Faulkner’s own beliefs about a divinity present in humans and the human capacity to
neglect their spiritual essence would have instead supported the older, more romanticized,
homeopathic ideas based on mind-body typology to balance an invisible vitalism.
Medicine and literature has recently established itself as an engaging and
complementary-paired field in the humanities. This study contributes to the maturing
interdisciplinary field by contemplating a famous author and some of his character
portrayals from a medical or health perspective. This study of the writer and his fictional
people suggests that the unorthodox ideology of homeopathy continued to play a role in
the culture through literature, even as it lacked legitimate authority from the newly
established medical community.

INDEX WORDS: William Faulkner, Character study, History of medicine, Medicine
and literature, Alternative medicine, Homeopathy, Energy
medicine, Mind-body typology, Theories of personality.
WILLIAM FAULKNER, HIS EYE FOR ARCHETYPES,
AND AMERICA’S DIVIDED LEGACY OF MEDICINE

by

GERALDINE MART HARMON

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy
In the College of Arts and Science
Georgia State University
2008
Copyright by
Geraldine Mart Harmon
2008
WILLIAM FAULKNER, HIS EYE FOR ARCHETYPES,
AND AMERICA’S DIVIDED LEGACY OF MEDICINE

by

GERALDINE MART HARMON

Committee Chair: Thomas L. McHaney
Committee: Nancy Chase
Marti Singer

Electronic Version Approved:

Office of Graduate Studies
College of Arts and Sciences
Georgia State University
August 2008
iv

DEDICATION
This project is dedicated to the memory of my father Albert Mart, a life-long
electrician who understood the risks and rewards of directing energy to overcome
obstacles. His humble ingenuity is deeply missed.
It is also dedicated to the memory of my mother Camille Mart, an artist in disguise
who brought a delicate, precise, and disciplined touch to her pursuits, and whose greatest
fulfillment emanated from not simply raising, but shaping, her children.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to recognize the patience of my dissertation committee and their helpful
suggestions throughout this process, particularly the suggestions from Dr. Thomas L.
McHaney, whose buoyant optimism never wavered. I also wish to acknowledge my
committee who offered steady encouragement for an unconventional union of topics.
I wish to acknowledge my husband Jonathan who shared my desire to complete
this project with equal sacrifice, and my son Jackson who inspired the essential idea on
which this work is founded. I am also indebted to my valuable friend Kokila Ravi who
provided sanctuary from demands that threatened to interfere with this task.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the early interest and support from an older
generation of general practitioner doctors who attended a conference at The Medical
College of Georgia. Perhaps they grew up on Faulkner and are similarly intrigued by his
characters. Perhaps homeopathy is a taste of forbidden fruit that they allowed themselves
to experience only now. Or perhaps these medical generalists, like some of their unlikely
predecessors, the constitutional prescribers of homeopathic remedies, tend to use their
diagnostic eye to observe some fictional characters as patients. If some homeopathic
concepts are still alive anywhere in the regular medical community today, I suspect it may
be with the oldest of the doctors of family medicine who, unlike specialists, consider their
patients’ psycho-biological health.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE: Why Combine Faulkner and Homeopathy? 10
CHAPTER TWO: The Roots of American Homeopathy 19
CHAPTER THREE: A Homeopathic Diagnosis of Faulkner 38
CHAPTER FOUR: Biographical Evidence of Faulkner’s Medical Associations 75
CHAPTER FIVE: Literary Evidence--Representations of Selected Characters
and Their Homeopathic Archetypes 105
CONCLUSION 148
WORKS CITED 153
WORKS CONSULTED 159
1
Introduction
The ideological conflict between members of the newer, regular, allopathic
medicine and the older, “irregular,” or homeopathic medicine created a prevailing
discourse at the turn of the 20th century. Homeopathy, widely practiced throughout the
19th century, was effectively driven underground by the new medical establishment.
Physicians of both camps were suspicious of each other, leaving common people who
needed medical care to decide for themselves which group to follow. The powerful
American Medical Association forced homeopaths out of legitimate practice, forbidding
regular doctors to treat patients who had consorted1 with homeopaths or risk losing their
licenses.
But homeopaths, effectively branded as medical heretics, did not completely
disappear from circulation. In fact, in early 20th century America, homeopathy expanded
its practice from treating primarily physical illnesses toward identifying and treating
emotional and psychological symptoms coupled with, and linked to, the physical ones.
Constitutional homeopathy took a developmental leap forward, and it claimed to be able
to diagnose and treat specific illnesses based on a patient’s unique collection of psycho-
biological symptoms. American homeopaths of the late 19th century added significantly
to the descriptions of the various types or portraits evident in human nature, and it thus
broadened the symptom portraits already established by the homeopathic archetypes.
Homeopathy asserted that its medicines or remedies balanced the patient’s disturbed
“vitalism,” responsible for producing overall health.
The cultural context of such medical division, William Faulkner’s family history
of serious illness and alcoholism, family visits to “cures,” and his own reading about

1 Notice the pejorative choice of the the word “consorted” instead of “consulted.”