Fiction begot Fiction: An exploration of trauma in William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury
Date
2012-09-21
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
“Fiction begot Fiction,” is a psychobiographical study of William Faulkner, which draws primarily on The Sound and the Fury for its evidence. It is not, strictly speaking, a study of Faulkner’s novel, since the questions it seeks to answer are biographical ones concerning Faulkner’s motivations for writing the novel, and the reasons for its famously elliptical style. Nor is it a conventional literary critical essay, even in the psychobiographical mode, since it relies heavily on red herrings, suspense, and a deus ex machina resolution. It is therefore most aptly considered as a specimen of creative non-fiction for which psychobiographical literary criticism provides the foundation. The project offers a defense of conjectural readings of characters’ fictive past traumas, drawn from the work of Esther Rashkin. The author offers her own justification for extending Rashkin’s character-focused approach to the uncovering of an authorial trauma that isfigured elliptically in the traumatic and post-traumatic struggles of the novel’s fictional characters. The project provides a provocative “riff” on psychobiographical criticism.
Description
Keywords
William Faulkner, Trauma, Sound and the Fury, Trauma Theory, Esther Rashkin, Nicolas Abraham, Cathy Caruth
Citation
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
English
Program
English