ヨクナパトーファ郡の"VOICES"と"LEGENDS"
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概要
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This thesis aims to analyze the literary world of William Faulkner in terms of the voices and legends in Yoknapatawpha County, the writer's fictitious county in Mississippi, and tries to find what it is that makes his works so exuberant and captivating. The constant voices of the multitude, the 15,611 inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha County, permeate Faulkner's novels, making space alive, thick and opaque, and loading time with the guilts and sorrows of history. The voices can be classified into two kinds: those of rumours and those telling legendary tales. Both play some important roles. The voices of rumours inform the reader of the occurrence and progress of events, or exert their collective power of convention or prejudice on the hero and decide his destiny. These voices reveal the profiles of the groups and classes that compose the society, and their role may correspond to that of the chorus in Greek drama. The voices telling legendary tales render some essential effects to Faulkner's world. For example, when the old Southern ladies evoke the glory and sorrow of by-gone times by narrating legends, their voices are those of priests celebrating a mass for the repose of the souls of their ancestors. The young heroes listen to these legends to discover the truth about life. Faulkner's moral issues take a dramatic turn when the voices spreading rumours or spinning legendary tales are juxtaposed with the voice of an individual man. In their efforts to claim the innocence of the negroes who are in danger of being lynched, Hawkshow in "Dry September" and Charles in Intruder in the Dust face the almost irresistible power of prejudice in the general consensus of opinion. The voices narrating legends in Absalom, Absalom! and in "The Bear" meet the sharp inquiring voices of the imaginative young heroes whose purpose is to find the reality of life and whose pursuit of it eventually leads to the discovery of evil. In the process of this analysis I have been concerned with a problem which is still somewhat unsettled and bewildering. The problem is the writer's delicate balance between his assertion of hopes for the future of mankind and the overwhelming despair which casts its gloomy shadow over his works. The voices of opposite natures attract my attention when I grope for a solution to this vexing question. They are the howling sounds of the idiots and the deep singing voices of the pious and enduring negroes, both of which penetrate the hearts of Faulkner's young heroes after their initiation into the meaning of life. Finally, I want to emphasize the significance of the aesthetic effects of Faulkner's art, and the rare success of the simultaneity of the heroes' ethical realization and the aesthetic climax of such a work as Absalom, Absalom!. William Faulkner's belief in man's immortality seems to originate in the two constituents of his genius: his faith in the verities of the heart and his intuitive poetic grasp of the absolute character of aesthetic truth even over the passage of time.
- 財団法人日本英文学会の論文
- 1971-03-31
財団法人日本英文学会 | 論文
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