William Faulkner and the Search for American Southern Identity: An Anthropological Approach
Main Article Content
Abstract
The American South is the cultural root and archetype for the fictional world of William Faulkner, a prominent author in modern world literature. The theme Faulkner and the South has been studied exhaustively and elaborately, especially from historical and cultural perspectives. However, the issue of Faulknerian Southern identity remains a gap in the current literature, so this study sets out to address that gap. This paper is an anthropological approach to Faulkner, with two research questions: how did Faulkner interpret American Southern identity? how should a set of keywords that encapsulates Southern identity in Faulkner’s writing be established? Applying anthropological theory of identity and the method of generalization and identification of cultural patterns, this study focuses on the four outstanding novels in Faulkner’s legacy. These novels provide a picture of the Southern identity, wrapped up in a set of keywords whose two main pillars are burden of the past and agrarianism. The other traits - pride, nostagia, melancholy, complex, conservativeness, indomitability - intertwine and promote each other, creating the very Faulknerian South.
Article Details
Keywords
American literature, William Faulkner, American South, identity, anthropology
References
Abadie, A. J., & Harrington, E. (Eds.) (1977). The South and Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha: The actual and the apocryphal. University Press of Mississippi.
Abadie, A. J., & Kartiganer, D. (Eds.) (1997) Faulkner in cultural context. University Press of Mississippi.
Aiken, C. (1977). Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha county: Geographical fact into fiction. Geographical Review, 67(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.2307/213600
Aiken, C. (2009). Yoknapatawpha and the Southern landscape. University of Georgia Press.
Atkinson, T. (Ed.). (2021). Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures. Johns Hopkins University Press. https://www.missq.msstate.edu
Barnard, A., & Spencer, J. (Eds.) (2010). The Routledge encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Beck, W. (1941). Faulkner and the South. The Antioch Review, 1(1), 82-94. https://doi.org/10.2307/4608822
Benedict, R. (1946). The chrysanthemum and the sword (patterns of Japanese culture). Mariner Books.
Brooks, C. (1963). William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha country. LSU Press.
Brown, C. (1962). Faulkner's geography and topography. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 77(5), 652-659. https://doi.org/10.2307/460414
Brooks, C. (1978). William Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha and beyond. LSU Press.
Buckley, G. (1961). Is Oxford the original of Jefferson in William Faulkner's novels? Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 76(4-Part1), 447-454. https://doi.org/10.2307/460629
Devereux, G. (1967). From anxiety to method in the behavioral sciences. De Gruyter Mouton.
Dimock, W. C. (n.d.). Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner [Open Yale Courses]. https://oyc.yale.edu/american-studies/amst-246/lecture-1
Doyle, D. H. (2001). Faulkner’s county: The historical roots of Yoknapatawpha. University of North Carolina Press.
Faulkner, W. (1990). Absalom, Absalom! Random House.
Faulkner, W. (1990). As I lay dying. Vintage International.
Faulkner, W. (1990). Light in August. Vintage International.
Faulkner, W. (2000). The sound and the fury. Everyman Publishers.
Faulkner, W. (n.d.). Banquet speech [Speech transcript]. The Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1949/faulkner/speech/ (Original work published 1950)
Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. Farrar & Rinehart.
Gleason, P. (1983). Identifying identity: A semantic history. The Journal of American History, 69(4), 910-931. https://doi.org/10.2307/1901196
Hagood, T. (2017). Following Faulkner: The critical response to Yoknapatawpha’s architect. Camden House.
Hellström, G. (1950). Award ceremony speech [Speech transcript]. The Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1949/ceremony-speech/
Kardiner, A., & Linton R. (1939). The individual and his society. Columbia University Press.
Lurie, P., & Towner T. M. (Eds.). (2021). The Faulkner Journal. Johns Hopkins University Press. https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/faulkner-journal
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. University of Chicago Press.
Mead, M. (1942). And keep your powder dry: An anthropologist look at America. Berghahn Books.
Miner, W. L. (1959). The world of William Faulkner. Literary Licensing.
Nguyễn, Q. (2008). Văn hóa, giao thoa văn hóa và giảng dạy ngoại ngữ [Culture, cultural interaction and language teaching]. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 24(2), 69-85. https://js.vnu.edu.vn/FS/article/view/3179
Peek, C. A., & Hamblin, R. W. (Eds.). (2004). A companion to Faulkner studies. GreenWood Press.
Phạm, M. Q. (2018). Một vài nét về tâm lí học tộc người [A few features of ethono-psychology]. Tạp chí Thông tin Khoa học xã hội, (1), 11-20.
Schlesinger, A. (1943). What then is the American, this new man? The American Historical Review, 48(2), 225-244. https://doi.org/10.2307/1840766
Sen, A. (2007). Identity and violence: The illusion of destiny. W. W. Norton & Company.
Woodward, C. V. (2008). The burden of Southern history (3rd ed.). Louisiana State University Press.