William Faulkner and reification
| dc.contributor.author | La Rocque, Lance | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-08-14T20:59:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-08-14T20:59:31Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 1989 | en_US |
| dc.date.issued | 1989 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of English | |
| dc.degree.level | Master of Arts M.A. | en |
| dc.description.abstract | This thesis argues that Faulkner's object within Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury is to explore the development and effects of what Georg Lukacs calls reification. By placing these novels within this intellectual framework, Faulkner's critique of the social landscape can better be understood. The concept and conditions of reification, as outlined in Lukacs' History and Class Consciousness, will clarify the social picture painted in the novels and sharpen the reader's perception of the world that Faulkner critiques. The first chapter examines Lukacs' concept of "reification", providing a context for the psychological drama in Faulkner's novels and finding a vocabulary that speaks to that context. Lukacs fuses Weber's theory of rationality with Marx's notion of the commodity structure, showing the effects of these processes on subjectivity. History and Class Consciousness addresses the history and meanings (increasing formalism, rationalization, and commodification) of reification. The second chapter focuses on Absalom, Absalom 1 , a work in which Faulkner Juxtaposes the Southern code with the homogenizing effects of the industrial world. By opposing Sutpen's amorphous country background to his assumption of an over-arching design, Faulkner dramatizes the sudden invasion of abstract formalism on social relations and consciousness. Although Sutpen wants to fit into the role of the Southern gentleman landowner, his method of approach is more in keeping with the values of the industrial world -- he attempts to buy respectability. The third chapter focuses on the development of reification as a totalizing social prob~em. In The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner uses Quentin to contrast reification with the value system of the South. Coming from a culture not yet dominated by reification, Quentin has the perspective to locate and protest against it. Whereas the commodified social order must quantify the world so it can function, Quentin appears, both to the reader and to the North, as a question mark, and hence a point of resistance. | |
| dc.format.extent | 77 pages | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/18524 | |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | en_US |
| dc.title | William Faulkner and reification | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
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