Faulkners Works of Heart, Essay Example

The Expiration of the Body and Liberation of the Spirit in Faulkner Literature

There is but a thin line between love and hate, and all is fair in love and war. However, love does not have to turn to hate to accomplish a war between two people. As Faulkner said when he received the Pulitzer Prize, the only worthy subject is “the human heart in conflict with itself” (Lu and Sullivan, 2004). The ancient Egyptians certainly could not conceive of the brain being the center of human life, because the complexities of the heart’s reactions- and its ability to produce what we today would call crimes of passion- were seen as an unavoidable truth. Through both the spoken and written word, Faulkner gave humanity its heart back.

William Faulkner often explored the clash of traditional and futuristic views of society, such as is commonly found in southern values of race and gender. In both of the examples which we explore during the course of this paper, the concept of the privilege-obligation continuum of the noblesse oblige is as unmoving as the North Star (Faulkner, 1990). In our first reading, As I Lay Dying, we are introduced to examples of all of these themes, which could be described as the social conflict at the heart of American principles of equality and freedom. In the discussion of Cora’s passing, one of the less affluent townspeople, Kate, watches her closely even in death, commenting that “But those rich town ladies can change their minds. Poor people can’t” (Faulkner, 1990, 7). This is apparent in the perspectives of the three sons of The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner, 1990).

Rome may not have been built in a day, but As I Lay Dying was written in forty-seven days (Faulkner, 1990). Faulkner’s depiction of the affluent class is that of a people bound by rigid social restrictions and expectations, a people that live in conflict and inner turmoil that must be bound within the realm of propriety until their death. Death is liberating, and produces a natural context for the revelation of matters of the heart. As such, Faulkner’s thematic revelations often fall within this context, as in such renowned works as As I Lay Dying, An Odor of Verbena (from the Unvanquished), A Rose for Emily, and The Sound and the Fury. As a part of his Pulitzer acceptance speech, Faulkner opened with a discussion of the human spirit comprised of “courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his [the writer’s] past” (Lu & Sullivan, 2004, 100). Marius and Anderson (2007) wrote of the seamlessness of transition between intellect and emotion in Faulkner’s literature. Perhaps one of his most famous works, A Rose for Emily was a break from his gothic and (paradoxically) ornate literary style and presents the character study of Emily Grierson as an incidental indictment against southern society. However, our protagonist struggles against a deluge of other forces as well: defiance of gender roles, psychological oppression, humiliation, anger, and love. As Faulkner outright stated, “Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, a care; a sort of hereditary obligation on the town” (Faulkner, 2003, 292). While the townspeople made excuses for her not marrying, said it was for the best that she not marry below her station (or even that it was better for her to poison herself with arsenic), and felt sorry for her, Emily knew her heart and mind.

The audience, on the other hand, fidgets and twists their way slowly through a steady, ambling stream of details; the reading of the work itself is conflict- mostly uncertainty and guilt over measuring a masterpiece of Faulkner’s legacy to be drab and arduous. The reader often feels that they have been strung along by “a loose ball of yarn left on the page, so twisted up that it cannot be unwound” (Marius & Anderson, 2007, 5-6). These were not the heart-rending horrors of Poe or the gothic perversions of love created by the Bronte women; these were words that ambled on to the ultimate conclusion that is beyond imagining: the discovery of murder. Only at the edge does the reader gain perspective; this was a love-hate story for the ages- reminiscent of Glaspell’s Trifles in its “The devil is in the details” outlook.  The supporting characters themselves are but indistinct shadows cast momentarily over the freedoms of Emily Grierson, and the true genius of Faulkner’s presentation of real horror is in the potential of the reader’s imagination. We are left with a skeleton and a tell-tale gray hair from Emily lying in her bed.

Ironically, Faulkner’s revelations of the secrets of the heart occur just as the heart ceases to continue, and the great literary master himself died of a heart attack, of a spirit which outgrew the body’s capabilities to cope with strong feeling. Were he alive today, he would most likely have approved of the extent of personal freedoms afforded to all people today and would have better guided the application of these freedoms in today’s world which often replaces love with lust. In his Pulitzer acceptance speech, he had stressed the authors’ duty to keep the deeper fulfillment of life alive (Lu & Sullivan, 2004). Thus, in the end, he shared at least one major trait with his characters: his legacy is best realized in his absence.

Works Cited

Faulkner, William. 1990. As I Lay Dying. First Vintage International Edition. 1930. New York, U.S.A.: Vintage Books. Print.

Faulkner, William. 2003. (Ed.) Cowley, Malcom. The Portable Faulkner. Penguine Classics.

Lu, Xin-An & Rita Sullivan. 2004. Gems from the Top 100 Speeches: A Handy Source of Inspiration for Your Thoughts and Language. Lincoln, NE, U.S.A.: iUniverse, Inc. Print.

Marius, Richard & Nancy Anderson. 2007. Reading Faulkner: Introductions to the First Thirteen Novels. Tennessee Press. Print.