72-3384
DESMOND, John Francis, 1939CHRISTIAN HISTORICAL ANALOGUES IN THE
FICTION OF WILLIAM FAULKNER AND FLANNERY
O ’CONNOR.
The University of Oklahoma, Ph.D., 1971
Language and Literature, modern
i University Microfilms. A XEROKCompany, Ann Arbor, Michigan
i
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED
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C H R I S T I A N HI STORICAL ANALOGUES IN THE FICTION OF
W I L L I A M FAULKNER AND FLANNE RY O'CONNOR
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO T H E GRADUATE FACULTY
in p artial
fulfillment of the requir eme nt s fo:
degree of
DOCTOR OF PHI LO SOP HY
BY
JOHN F. DESMOND
Norman,
Oklahoma
1971
the
CHRISTIAN H I S T O R I C A L ANALOGUES IN THE FICTION OF
W I L L I A M F A U L K N E R AND FLANNERY O'CONNOR
APPROVED BY
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DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
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Some P a g e s h a v e i n d i s t i n c t
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UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION.............................................
1
Chapter
ON E ....................................................
9
T W O .........................
47
T H R E E .................................................
64
F O U R ...................................................
87
F I V E ...................................................
127
BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................
191
INTRODUCTION
Almost all critical studies of Southern literature
have be e n quick to point out the acute historical conscious­
ness -which informs the work of most Southern writers.
This
study is an attempt to explore some of the implications of
a particular kind of historical consciousness— which I will
call "Christian”— in the fictional art of William Faulkner
and Flannery O'Connor,
adds to their work.
to see what dimensions and values it
It is based upon the premise that the
historical sense plays a crucial role in the a r t i s t ’s deci­
sion making process at every stage in his work.
M y initial concern in this study will be to discuss
certain themes whi ch I beli.eve are at the core of a Christian
conception of history,
and which I feel are present typo-
logically in the wo r k of these two Southern writers.
It is
generally acknowledged that the Christian tradition plays a
central part in the w ork of both Faulkner and O'Connor.
My
first particular point of focus will be to try to show how
both writers accept a Christian interpretation of the his­
torical process at work around them, a process whi ch goes
1
2
back through Southern and A m e r i c a n history into Biblical
revelation of the history of the race itself.
Secondly,
I vant to explore how their acceptance of this particular
interpretation of hi st ory makes itself felt in the creative
act itself;
that is, what impact this historical sense has
on the w a y their fiction a c t u a l l y is shaped.
jus
It is not
a matter of calling t h e m "Christian" writers,
ignoring what such a t e r m can actually mean.
and then
The accept­
ance of that particular interpre ta tio n of history will,
it
seems to me, greatly d etermine how history is actually
"realized" in their f iction f rom a n artistic standpoint.
M a n y valuable studies have already been done on the
Christian influence u p o n b o t h these writers— critical treat­
ments which show the thematic links between their various
works and the Christian as wel l as non-Christian sources.
In fact,
it has become almost a critical cliché to identify
the South as the Bible Belt,
and then claim this as the
essential part of the writer's inherited tradition which
then crops up automatically in his fiction.
Or in more
academic terms, the Chr is tia n tradi tio n is frequently
described as a "mythic background" which functions as a theo­
logical and moral framework of values for the ac ti on repre­
sented in the particular story.
This is undoubtedly true,
and critical studies w h i c h show these thematic links are
of the highest importance.
Yet often such studies,
it seems
3
to me, do no t
fully pursue the problem of ho-w this material
from t r a d i t i o n actually "works" to create value and meaning
in the story;
critics accept the material and p roceed as
though s o m e h o w the formal aspect of the w ork were separable
from the thematic.
Thus for example,
one can show the
thematic t i es be tween the Christ story as it is evoked in a
Faulkner tale,
and the same material as it is present in a
story b y C a r s o n McCullers.
But the material is obviously
not "present" in the same
w a y in both works.
to dismiss th e problem by
saying that one is
One is tempted
a greater
writer t h a n the other, but this merely begs the question.
The true co m p l e x i t y of the issue
lies in the
wa y in w h i c h the material is rendered
the a e s t h e t i c value of the work.
fact that the
will not only affect
It also affects the onto­
logical t r u t h of the history itself being pres en ted in the
work,
to w h i c h it is organically linked both w i t h i n and out­
side the fiction.
The
complicated nat ure of this problem shows one
l i m i t a t i o n of the strictly thematic approach.
Writers have
complex a n d v arying attitudes toward the "history" they
evoke in fi cti on — realistic,
comic,
a n d so on.
sentimental,
ironic, nostalgic,
The pur el y thematic approach often slights
the q u e s t i o n of how it is rendered dramatic and made "to live"
th rough th e artistic decisions of the writer.
Since the
his tor ic al sense is intrinsically part of the creative a c t ,
it makes a crucial difference how precisely the material is
" t h e r e ."
4
In the case of many writers,
Southern and otherwise,
the "history" is present in their w o r k in a kind of residual
way, part of the cultural milieu they have inherited and
transmitted in their fiction.
We have all read Southern fic­
tion of this type. U s u a l l y it presents a romantic and ideal­
ized "Past," sometimes ante-bellum and nominally invoking
"Christian" values,
and more often t h a n not suffused with
a n aura of n os t a l g i a for the pre-lapsarian state.
Such works,
I believe, tend to be dishonest not only because of the dis­
tortions of h i s t o r y they usually contain, but also because
from an artistic standpoint they show us a writer who has
abnegated the t o u g h decision-making processes in art in
favor of letting a particular "historical" or "religious"
view do the seeing and evaluating for him.
The result is
almost always a partially dead and repetitive work; the his­
torical sense has somehow become detached from the creative
faculty,
and tho ug h such works are po pularly called "his­
torical," t h ey are I believe quite the opposite.
For if we
conceive of the historical sense, as I believe Eliot correct­
l y does,
as an act of genuine "self-awareness" of history
functioning w i t h i n the creative act,
then such works are
guilty of an "unconscious" or dissociated use of history
which is not dynamic and generative of the work's values— and
there only in a passive,
manner.
inert, and artistically unrealized
Fa ul kne r himself did not help the cause of clarity
b y statements he sometimes made to the effect that the
C h r ist ia n t r a dit io n was a framework he just happened to in­
herit a nd therefore used in his fiction.
Such statements
tended t o slight the focal point where "history" becomes
operative in art, that is,
in the particularized creative
act where the writer must first of all make a choice about
the possible v a lid ity of a particular view of history,
and
t h e n co n t i n u a l l y incarnate that choice in a series of dra­
matic artistic options.
This seems to me a more accurate
w a y of desc rib in g how Faulkner experienced Christian history
in the act of writing (as opposed to talking about "mythic
background" or "usable past"),
and equally important, a
more accura te w a y of describing how the reader experiences
that m a t e r i a l w h e n he reads the work.
In fact,
F a u l k n e r ’s
statement that the writer tries to "write the whole history
o f the h u m a n heart on the head of a pin" is more to the
point, b e c a u s e it is metaphysically true, if we conceive
of the h e a d of the pin as the relatively few moments of time
in the i ndi vidual work,
Faulkner,
like Eliot,
saw the
problem of the historical sense in art in the widest meta­
physical context when he stated that history was not "was"
but "is"— a dynamic organism and ongoing process in which
past is present and continually altering and being altered
b y the cre at ed work.
6
Ho-w then,
in the case of Faulkner and O'Connor, can
■we attack the problem of hoiv history becomes dramatically
"alive" and generative of value in the work?
How is it pos­
sible to describe the particular creative act wh ich embodies
a Christian interpretation of history in a living way— which
in a single creative movement brings to life several layers
of "historical" meaning as though they were one and indivisible
in the p r e s e n t , experienced simultaneously by the reader?
The most meaningful approach,
it seems to me, is to see the
operation of the historical sense in terms of the metaphysical
doctrine of analogy, and call the "history" evoked in the
work an analogical dimension of the action being presented,
rather than using the vague historicism of terms like "mythic
background" and "traditional Christianity."
In Chapter
Three of this study, where the historical sense will be dis­
cussed in relation to formal problems,
this doctrine of analogy more fully.
I shall try to explore
For the moment,
let
me simply note that the doctrine of analogy is a metaphysical
answer to the problem of how being can be both everywhere
alike and different at the same time in existence.
It states
that each existing thing receives existence in proportion
to
(ana-lagon— according to the measure) the possibility
of being possessed by that thing.
The principle of propor­
tionality of being is alike in all things, yet each is
different in the proportionality of being they possess.^
In his brilliant study of the literary imagination,
Christ and A p o l l o , Fr, W i l l i a m F. Lynch has demonstrated
convincingly the relation b e t w e e n the doctrine of analogy
and the creative act, showing how the analogical v iew of
being gave foundation to the medieval practice of four-fold
meanings in scriptural exegesis.
M y own emphasis in this
study will be upon the historical vision of Faulkner and
O'Connor as an analogical dimension in their fiction,
and
it is greatly indebted to Fr. Lynch's work.
I have
However,
also repeated stressed in this introduction the inextricably
organic relationship be tw e e n the thematic elements of a
particular vi ew of history— in this case a Christian view—
and the formal manner of presenting that view fictionally,
so that it is interpenetratively dramatic and evaluative of
the action.
This leads to a final problem for speculation
in this study: namely, w he t h e r the Christian view of history
incarnated in their fiction is rooted in both manner and
form in a historical incarnation which, as Fr. Lynch suggests,
can be conceived of as the prototype of completely realized
analogical action,
something w h ic h writers like Faulkner and
0'Connor attempt to approximate humanly in their art.
conclusion,
In
I wish to assert m y belief that the creative act
Gerald B. Phelan, S t . Thomas and Analogy (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 19^8),
15-22.
See also William
F . Lynch, Christ and Apollo (New York:
Sheed and Ward, I 9 6 0 ) ,
VI.
8
is fina lly mysterious, but also that its mysteries can be
re fle cte d u p o n meaningfully in such a way that we can bring
ourselves closer into step with the creative motions of the
artist's mind.
CH AP T E R ONE
Before a tt e m p t i n g to characterize the major themes
in a Ch ri s t i a n con ce pti on of h i s t o r y - -which is the object
of this c h a p t e r — I wish to stress one point w h i c h seems
me fu ndamental to this entire study.
to
That is, the absolutely
central i mportance of the p art icular decisions w hich the
wri ter makes in the act of writing con cer ni ng the "history"
he evokes
typologically.
How he chooses
rial creates its v a l i d i t y and value,
introduction.
to render the m a t e ­
as was n o te d in the
The p h i l o s op her Mi chael N o v ak has illustrated
in a nother context how a man's philosophical
"horizon"
largely defined by his initial starting point,
or will not choose
to allow as possible
matter u nder consideration.^
imply a r i g i d dogmatism.
and explore
before
what he will
truth concerning the
This does not seem to me to
Rather,
the willingness to accept
" p o s s i b i l i t y " — to remain open and flexible
the facts--is a n e c e s s a r y ingredient
in deciding how
a certain p erspective can be regarded as meaningful.
seems to me
is
It
that in a b r oa d sense Ch ris ti a n i t y is present in
Faulkner and O'Connor's w o rk s in p r e cis el y this w a y — as a
^Michae] Novak, Belief and Unbel ief
M c M i l l a n Co., 1965)1 Chap te r III.
9
(Now York:
10
"possibility,"
an option w h i c h m a y often be re jec te d by
characters but which is ne v e r t h e l e s s made v i t a l l y and viabl y
real in the w o r k by the authors.
Given experience as it is,
this is all that can ju sti fia bl y be demanded of the writer.
To evoke C h r i s t i a n i t y in this way,
not c o n tra dic t
and manif es t
the a s se rt ion made
a Christian
in this chapter,
I shall
action.
does
that these w riters choose
i nte rp r e t a t i o n of history.
Later
try to show that the ve ry essence
of the C h r i s t i a n viewpoint
openness and possibility,
as "possibility,"
of the historical process is
free and truly creative human
Th e claim w h i ch some critics make that the writer's
choice of a pa rt icular i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of events
is somehow
a l im i t a t i o n or barrier to t r u t h seems u nf o u n d e d if the
core of that i nt erpretation rests upon an absolute doctrine
of fre e d o m to explore as m a n y dimensions of the real as can
be conceived.
This
initial historical
"horizon" chos en operates
in the p a r ti cu lar artistic deci si ons of the writer,
course,
in a con tinuing way,
the hist ori ca l
though not automatically.
If
sense is vital to the a c t , the ho ri z o n is not
one that he can accept and then ignore,
but one which must
be in c a r n a t e d again and a gain creatively.
conscious to the writer at e ac h moment;
here
of
It ne ed not be
F a ul kne r is right
in p l e a d i n g a certain "unawareness" of artistic strate-
g e m s , and indeed his art w o u ld not be free and vital o the r­
wise.
However,
this does not
imply that the historical
11
view comes
best
into the creative act passively.
P erh ap s the
e x p l a n a t i o n is that the w r i t e r develops what M a rit ai n
called the
a habit
"habit of art," which in regard to h i s t o r y means
of se ein g it actively typological.
Miss O'Connor
once s t r e s s e d that young writers needed most to learn to
"read"
events
in the manner of the medieval e xegetes--with
four levels of meaning.
tive h i s t o r i c a l
This
is the kind of active,
c re a­
sense which gave added dimension to her and
Faulkner's writing.
In the works of these two writers,
strains
the three dominant
in this added dimension to which the literal action
is linked are classical mythology.
Testament revelation.
there are evocations
For example,
Old Testament and Ne w
in Faulkner's
"The Bear,"
of classical myth--reference to Priam,
to p a g a n r i t u a l s and primitive forces of Fate,
and the Greek
gesture of B o o n H o g g en bac k ki lling old Sam Fathers.
There
are also e v o c at ion s of Old Testament myth--the story of
Abraham and I s a a c — as well as the New Testament
analogue—
Ike the
These
c a r p e n t e r making his act of atonement.
strains are,
three
of c o u r s e , transmuted through a h i s t o r y of the
South w h i c h germinates from the literal level of the story.
We know that
the "history"
evoked as corresponding thematic
parallels serv es as an evaluative norm for the action pr e­
sented.
But
these added questions arise:
What,
if any,
typological r el a t i o n s h i p exists between the v arious
of "history"
for the action of the story?
levels
The thematic
12
question is inseparable f r o m the formal,
but
for the moment
we shall view the problem strictly from the standpoint of
historical vision.
For example,
is there significance in
the fact
that as the h i s t o r y of Ike's m a t u r a t i o n develops
he moves
from the primitive arena of Force and Fate to the
more C hri stianized one invol vi ng growing self-consciousness
of his place in history,
freedom,
of the actual di me nsions of his
and a knowledge of his own redemp tio n?
clear that there is a definit e plan,
It seems
a st rat eg y of historical
interpretation,
being p resented typol og ica lly by Faulkner
in "The Bear."
Another example is Miss O' Co nnor's story
"Greenleaf," where the central character Mrs.
farm woman,
May,
is a ss ociated symbolically w i t h Hera.
a Southern
The stray
bull in the story is ass o c i a t e d with Zeus in his seduction
of E u r o p a , only to have the typology t ransformed later in
the acti on so that Mrs. M a y 's d eath by goring becomes a
violent encounter w i t h Christ.
levels
Again,
the typological
suggest a par ticular historical
interpretation,
so
much so that both stories seem to be e xp eri e n c e d - b y the
reader as prophetic
"cont in uin g revelations"-- dra mat iz ati ons
of the h i s t o ri cal -on to log ica l
links that
exist between these
evoked parallels and the particular literal
presented, which
"realizes"
action being
the typology.
There is the possibility,
of course,
that these
writers may be r a nd oml y drawing symbolic parallels
action,
to the
but the pa rt icu l a r l y strong hi s t o r i c a l sense that
13
seems to be o p e rat ing w o ul d argue otherwise.
And if a c o n ­
tinuous and patte rn ed h is t o r i c a l vision is b e i n g rendered,
then an a tt e m p t
classical,
to bri e f l y characterize
Old Testament,
and N e w Tes tam e n t - - w o u l d seem
fruitful for in ves tigating
themes
the three strains--
the nature and di men si ons of the
they encompass.
Fi rst
of all,
the c lassical world, has been c ha r a c ­
terized as one in which m a n saw the universe as a cir c u m ­
scribed,
li mi t e d whole
that contai ned all of reality.
Even the w o r k i n g s of the gods or fate, how ev er inscrutable
to man, w e r e n eve rtheless a part of that s elf-enclosed
world.
T h e effects of this v i s i o n have been described by
Romano G u a r d i n i as follows:
F r o m his rel igi ou s convic tio ns he knew of a 'highest
fa t h e r of the gods and men,' but this father belonged
to h i s own w orld just as did the vaults of heaven; in
truth he was their v e r y spirit.
Classical man knew
the p o w e r of a Fate w h i c h commanded his world; he knew
of a g o v e r n i n g justice and a reasonable order for all
things.
These forces, all powerful though they were,
did not stand beyond the wo rld but formed wit h i n its
u l t i m a t e order.^
Cl a s s i c a l man k n e w n o t h i n g of a being existing
b e y o n d the world; as a result he was n ei t h e r able to
v i e w or shape his world from a vantage point which
t r a n s c e n d e d it.
With his feelings and imagination, in
his a c t i o n s and all his endeavors, he lived withi n his
cosmos.
Every project that he undertook, even when he
da red to go to the farthest bounds, ran its course
w i t h i n the arc of his world.^
2
York:
R o m a n o Guardini, Th e End of the M o d e r n World
S h e e d & Ward, 1956), p. Ï?.
^ I b i d . , p. 19.
(New
14
One project w h ic h he undertook,
of course, was
my th olo g i z i n g the spiritual m ysteries he encountered in
his experience.
tively)
But even here, he was
to nat u r a l mystery,
edge of his own world.
limited
(imagina­
cir cu msc ri bed w ith i n the k n o w l ­
Consequently,
clas sic al myth and a
classical v i e w of history is " l i m i t e d ," not just in the sense
of being o ut dat ed by the advances of learning and t ech ­
nology,
but limited ontolog ic all y in the v e r y possibilities
of being,
and of the dimensions of h u m an freedom it could
conceptualize and actuate.
It will take a breakthrough of
a ne w and h i g h e r kind of knowledge,
that
of divine revelation,
to make possible man's knowing p a r t i c i p a t i o n in supernatural
mystery.
Th is does not suggest, however,
mythol og y is false,
that classical
or that a n e ce ss ary anta gon is m exists
b e tween it and revelation.
C hristian scholars of the Middl e
Ages vi ewe d classical literature as expre ssi on s of natural
truth, w h o s e content was further de v e l o p e d and amplified
by Christianity.
to the action;
R e v e lat io n added a deeper layer of m ean in g
one reason w h y Christian w r i t e r s like Dante
or M i l t o n or O'Connor found it possible
to develop an i m a g i ­
native s i t ua tio n w i th both classical and Chris ti an parallels
operating in a thematically meaningful way.
4
M is s O'Connor strongly insisted u p o n this d i s t i n c ­
tion.
In r e p l y to a friend who saw parallels between
Oedipus at Colonus and Christ, she said that the words of
Oedipus involve natural mystery, w hereas Christ's were of
a different order ent ire ly --supernatural mystery--and hence
not fully k n o w a b l e by man.
15
Give n the self-enclosed,
limited classical position,
one can see the totally r e v o l u t i o n a r y character of the
Christian revelation.
transcendent God,
First,
the n o t ion of a c omp letely
c reator and sustainer of the un ive rs e but
completely separate from it, r a d i c a l l y redefined man's p o s i ­
tion in
the world.
N o w he was
self from a standpoint
destiny,
free to conceptualize
o u t s i d e his
and to direct or r e f u s e
world,
to see his eternal
to direct his energies in
the light of that special knowledge.
within the n o t i o n of time and
him­
No longer was he bound
the simplistic idea of eternity-
a s -timelessness which c h a r a c t e r i z e d the classical view;
eter­
n ity in
r e v e l a t i o n was r e v e a l e d as "here" and "now," a d i m e n ­
sion of
the present wh i c h gives
ondly,
it
its true meaning.
Sec­
r e v e l a t i o n as v o i c e d b y the prophets was God's d e s i g ­
nated plan for
the race
of m a n k i n d
in totality,
one w h i c h
gave clear direction and aim to the whole historical process.
Human h i s t o r y has a definit e b e g i n n i n g in time
a factual point of t r ans fo rmi ng
tion),
and a fixed end
apothesis
(the Creation),
(Christ's
(the Final Judgment).
Third,
Incarna­
in
sharp contrast to the r e l a t i v e l y static classical view of
creation,
theories
One,
existence,
and man 's re lat i o n to the divine--
of "imitation,"
of Pl at o n i c pa rti cip at ion in the
or cr ea t i o n by d i s p e r s i o n into mul ti pli ci t y - - r e v e l a t i o n
insisted that
in time,
creation was a positive,
ongoing act of genesis
in which r e a l ity is in the process
throughout all of history.
Thu s
St.
of being created
Augustine
spoke of the
l6
various
"stages"
ization,
the
last stage be g i n n i n g wit h the Incarnation,
which n u l l i f i e d
ne w freedom,
ence.
of his to ry in the drive toward final r e a l ­
the effects of the Fall and introduced a
a n e w potentiality of being into human e x p e r i ­
T w e n t i e t h ce nt ury apologists
like Teilhard de Chardin
found e vid e n c e o f this intuition o f ongoing genesis in the
modern p h e n o m e n a of biological
and psychological evolution,
seeing it as a u n i v er sal drive towar d union directed by
love.
Fourth,
C h r i s t i a n r e v e l a t i o n introduced the idea of
one, un iversal,
corporate and transcendent destiny for man-
kind--spiritual
salvation.
This salvific destiny was m a n i ­
fested in Ol d Tes t a m e n t re vel at ion in God's personal dialogue
with man,
in w o rds and actions interpreted p rophetically and
typologically,
so that each event really and symbolically
pr e f i g u r e d its co n s u m m a t i o n in Christ's ministry,
r e s u rr ect ion ,
w h i c h itself points
death,
and
toward the apocalypse at
the end o f history.
Ch r i s t ' s
history,
epochs,
fillment
di st i n c t
com i n g begins a n e w stage in universal
from the classical and Old Testament
m o r e revolutionary.
The n e w era brought the f u l ­
of O l d Te stament prophecy,
i rrevocable
and the mysterious and
link in g of time and eternity in the Incarnation
by compl ete s u b m i s s i o n of the Wo rd to human limitation in
order to f i n a l l y transcend it.
In ca rna tio n
This process of Christ's
is r e v e a l e d as "the way" of historical process
toward f inal transcendence,
for paradoxically,
as Fr. W i l l i a m
17
Lynch has shown,
Christ took time itself as His instrument
and, rather than averting it. He explored it to the fullest
limits of potentiality,
and more.^
Thus in the New T e s t a ­
ment, human h istory becomes the hi s t o r y of Christ's p e n e ­
tration of the world of fact,
time,
and sp ace--in a process
of genesis moved forward by hum anity's w i l l i n g p a r t i c i p a ­
tion.
At the core of this process is the n e w freedom
generated by the Redemption, w h i c h nurtu res
of man.
the divine life
This freedom is inconceivable outside the corporate
destiny of ma n and the race,
a fact wh ich accounts for the
"scandal" of Christ's ministry,
for against
the classical
and secular tendency to v iew fre edo m as a mode of t ra n s c e n d ­
ing the limited physical plane of existence,
the concrete,
Christ constantly upends
tations by na mi n g the humble,
the factual and
these visionary e x p e c ­
the temporal,
the mundane and
the uns pe ctacular as the free road to salvation.
In later chapters we shall have to look closely at
the w o r k of Faulkner and O'Connor to see if their treatment
of history reveals a patterned r e l a t i o n s h i p between the
classical,
Old Testament and New Tes tam en t
strains.
The
point which should be stressed at this stage, nonetheless,
is that, whether either writer is fully aware of it or not,
the facts and effects of r eve lation exist as part of their
historical consciousness,
and action.
present as an optio n of vision
Even without being formally acknowledged,
this
^William F. Lynch, Christ and Apollo (New York:
Sheed & Ward, i 9 6 0 ).
See es pec ia lly Chapters II and VIII.
18
re v e l a t i o n is part of the writer's aw a r e n e s s by a process
of hi storical absorption,
creative act.
Such is,
and it d e c i s i v e l y influences the
I think,
"Barn Burning," where distinct
consciousness
the case in Faulkner's
"stages"
in the level of
can be observed ope rat in g as possibilities
of h u m a n freedom wit hin the action,
consciousness
and this
is cast in the unive rsa l
between different historical
terms
"rising"
of a struggle
epochs.
In a narrow sense this is an initiation story,
in
which the b o y Sarty chooses to break the paternal bond with
his b a r n - b u r n i n g father and follow
his conscience.
the truer dictates
It is a difficult choice,
of
one w h i c h severs
him i r r e v o cab ly from the f am i l y and sets h i m alone on the
road to independent manhood.
At the same time, however,
the
story's action and the boy's final choice for freedom is set
by F aul kn er within a larger univer sa l framework.
Eve ry thi ng
about Sarty's father and home
(mental and physical)
to a primitive mode of life:
the no mad ic
family,
point
existence of the
the unquestioned a uthority of the tribal leader,
the code of blood loyalty,
the torpid,
bovine sister and
;
older brother,
his ruthles s
moral
Abner's primordial wo rs h i p of fire and horses,
anti-social independence,
and the primitive
code by which Abner l i v e s — an eye for an eye.
this is set a higher, more c i v il iz ed life:
with an ethos of mutual responsibility,
Against
communal so ciety
wit h appeals to
conscience and reason to settle d if fer en ces
(the courts
19
Abner scorns),
human rights,
"civilization"
r ath e r than by brute force;
at least nominally,
and the
the respect for
general sense of
symbolized by Major deSpain's mansion,
valuable rug Abner deliberately stains,
w h ich v i e w actions
and the
law courts,
from the standpoint of a community larger
than the family and its narrow blood loyalties.
context,
the
In this
Sarty's choice of freedom appears as almost a kind
of universal h u m a n and racial option,
as he elects to follow
the "higher" mode of life based on rea s o n and conscience
rather than the more primitive, w h i ch w o ul d have obliterated
his ident ity as a free person as much as it already has his
older brother,
cantly,
higher
w ho has become his father's stooge.
Sarty is only able
Sig n i f i ­
to do this after wi tnessing that
life concretized in Major deSpain's mansion, which
gave h i m an awareness of life beyond the nomadic
that made h i m despair until that time.
existence
Faulkner's u n i v e r ­
salizing of the boy's choice is made p os s i b l e by the writer's
vital histo ric al consciousness wo rking
so that there is a dramatic ontological
in the creative act,
pr o g r e s s i o n within
the story ba sed up on a vision of h u m a n f r e e d o m unable
contained in the primitive mode.
to be
It should be added that,
how Sarty a c tua ll y finds his identity and fr ee d o m is r eve ale d
by F a ulk ne r to be a m yst er y in the story.
In an ontological
figured revelation,
sense,
then,
classical myth p r e ­
and the Old Testament
typ olo gically p r e ­
figured the h i s t o r y of man fulfilled in the Ne w Testament.
20
Since creation is seen as an ongoing process,
plete,
still i n c om­
the h i s t o ri ogr ap hic role of the artist is the p r o ­
phetic one of rev e a l i n g the significance of events
light of u lt im ate
arises:
transcendent destiny.
what crucial
historical vision,
in the
The question now
themes germinate from this Christian
and how do they affect the artist both
in his way of seeing experience and his creative practice?
Such an expansive question can be dealt w i t h only partially
here.
For purposes
tral themes
of discussion in this study,
a few c e n ­
that derive fro m this his tor ica l vi si o n must be
characterized.
T h e y are:
(1) the belief in mystery;
(2) the
international v i e w of spirit and matter,
the w o r d and the
act;
(4) the theme of
(3) the theme of time and qternity;
g r ace --"spiritual motion";
(5 ) the concept of place ; and
(6) the theme of "community."
The
life and dimensions
logical mystery,
of man's being are an o n t o ­
roote d in the mys te ry of Christ's Inc a r n a ­
tion and Redemption.
Mystery, here,
is used not
of "unkno\m," but of "unknowable" by human means.
in the sense
The source
of the m yst e r y of h u m a n identity is therefore supernatural,
a fact assured by Christ's hypostatic union with the race.
Acceptance of such a profoundly fundamental v ie w has a c r u ­
cial impact on the writer's
creative acts.
Paradoxically,
it does not limit his field of observation because experience
is mysterious;
rather,
it opens the writer
to further and
further p oss ibi l i t i e s of exploration by guaranteeing the
21
supernatural d i m e n s i o n of reali ty in such a w a y that he is
not given to rest in simplistic,
but able
to push his
of mystery.
reductive explanations,
fiction toward the invisible
H a w th or ne,
an avowed enemy of reductionists,
s taunchly b e l i e v e d in this principle,
and it is a position
that Miss O'C o n n o r f re quently espoused.
curred in this belief,
think of was
Faulkner also c o n­
stating that the "worst
" v i o l a t i o n of the human heart."
Christian s ta nd poi nt ,
sin" he could
From the
this doctrine of the inviola bil it y of
human b ei n g - n e s s stems
in the Incarnation,
frontiers
f rom the mystery embodied perfectly
imperfe ct ly in man--the m y s t eri ou s union
of spirit and matter.
In a general
philosophical
view of spirit and m a t t e r holds
sense,
the incarnational
that the two are not s ep a ­
rable or s epa r a t e ex ist in g entities,
but r ather are inc ar ­
nated in such a w a y that each b e i n g possesses its unique
act of existence.
A contrary view is some f or m of dualism
or d i s s o c i a t i o n of spirit and matter
(usually the manichean
form w h i c h r e l e g a t e s m atter to inferiority or p e r v e r s i t y ) ,
a position w h i c h is theo lo gic al ly impossible
point of the Incarnation,
antagonistic
being.
from the stand­
and which also is p h i lo sop hi cal ly
to the doctrine
of analogy as an explanation of
T he exact r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t we en spirit and matter
remains a m y s t e r y because,
Incarnation b r o a d e n e d
as has been pointed out,
the
immeasurably the possible dimensions
of human e x i s t e n c e — the potential New Man is r ad i c a l l y
22
different
from his classical and Old Testament forefathers.
As Fr. Lynch notes:
so much.
hold."^
static;
"The form of a mouse can receive only
No one yet knows how much the form of a man can
Nor is the relationship between spirit and matter
it is linked to time,
and decay,
genesis and change,
and most importantly, human freedom.
growth
Looking at
the theme of spirit and matter from an evolutionary s t a n d ­
point, Teilh ar d de Chardin saw the historical process as one
of a gradual spiritualization of matter,
tion" of the material world.
of "C h r i s t i a n i z a ­
Th e key to the myst er y of
freedom in the incarnational v i e w of spirit and matter seems
to be bound up with the mystery of suffering, not n e c e s ­
sarily in the sense of und ergoing intense, unremitting
anguish because of the fallen condition,
but rather of
accepting the mea ni ng of suffering and loss offered in the
Incarnation,
an acknowledgment which then paradoxically
acts as a liberating force upon rea li ty by lifting the b u r ­
den of guilt.
tion,
This,
of course,
is the essence of the R e d e m p ­
that the debt which man could not pay has already been
paid.
With freedom, rejection is always a possibility,
as will be shown later,
refusal
and
in Faulkner and O'Connor such a
(which is essentially a refusal of the concrete,
limited demands of love)
frequently takes the form of a
retreat into some spiritual and psychological
^Christ and A p o l l o , p . 174.
d ualism--spirit
23
disembodied from matter.
A poignant example is the case of
Quentin Compson, w h o cannot
accept
factuality of his h i s t o r i c a l
the blemi she d concrete
situation since it does not
match the ideological sp i r i t u a l principles
of beh a v i o r he
holds, principles w h i c h in fact betoken a state of innocence
whose immunity he thinks
to achieve by suicide.
anguished dua li sm is a m a t t e r of degree,
Quentin's
however;
since
there was only one a b s o l u t e l y perfect incarnation of spirit
and m a tte r- -Christ--all h u m a n i t y suffers from "incompletion"
in this respect.
festations
Thus grotesque,
in fiction are,
violent,
and biz arr e m a n i ­
as Miss O'Connor noted,
dramatically h e i g h te ned examples of the grotesque
one.
Nevertheless,
only
in e v e r y ­
in the Christian view "incompletion"
not taken as a n o r m or a b s o l u t e condition;
is
the drive is
toward some i nte rp e n e t r a t i n g reco nc ili ati on based on love,
perhaps best exemplified b y Dilsey, who seems to be whole
and at one with herself.
The verbal
equi va len t
spirit and matter is,
the Act.
Here,
of the incarnational v ie w of
of course,
the theme of the Word and
the Son of M a n is the Word,
fect comm un ica tio n of Himself,
God's most p e r ­
a n d Christ's own words are
the most perf ect ly c o n c r e t i z e d incarnation of my s t e r y - - t h e
Spirit d esc ending into c r e a t i o n analogically,
forming it by its divine character.
and t r a n s ­
This pe rfect u n i on of
word and act occurs in Chr i s t because He is the W o r d w hich
is Act;
that is, his m e s s a g e incarnates T r ut h in a single
2k
i%ovement
(in w h at
This of cour se
his s tru gg le
the Christian would call a m o ti on of grace).
is wh at the writer tries
to cre at e dramatic,
language in s e q ue nt ia l
time.
to ap pr ox im at e in
spiritual
"motion" with
In the in car national view of
crea ti vit y the con cep t of verbal m o t i o n in time is thus
lined w i t h the th eol ogi ca l idea of grace,
because
grace
ill umi na tes
"s pi rit ua l motion,"
the creative fa culty to see and
bring t o life essen tia l truths incarnated in reality, not
by escapist
ta ct ic s
of romantic
t ra ns cen den ce ou tside time,
but by the w r i t e r co mmi t ti ng ,h im se lf to the spirit-inf a c tu al it y of existence.
as t ry in g to s h ow the
Eudora W e l t y de scr ib ed h er task
"spirit" of concrete things,
makes t h e m d r a m a t i c a l l y moving;
that w hi ch
in a similar v e i n Miss
O'Conn or once d e s c r i b e d the act of fiction w r i t i n g as an
attempt to " d r aw the lines w hi ch create spiritual motion."
It seems to me that Faulkner's
all "f a i l u r e s "
judgment
that his works were
s h o u l d be read in exa ct l y this
light,
the
artist's h u m b l e re c og ni ti on that any h u ma n verbal creation
was d o o me d to fall short of his co nsc io u sn es s of a perfectly
rea l iz ed union.
Wha t
then,
would constitute artistic
i n c a r na ti on al v i e w of spirit and matter,
f ide li ty to the
the w ord and the
act, w h e n the w r i t e r sees around h im a "broken world" -spirit u n r e a l i z e d
in matter,
yet a w o r l d a ls o in genesis?
tual v i s i o n
the w ord separa te d from the act,
In the light of his own s p i ri ­
and the world he sees,
creative act is
to "name"
his pa rt icu la r redemptive-
that wh ich
is, as truly and
25
movingl y as possible.
True creative freedom here involves
avoiding the blurring, vague extremes of dualis m-- of spirit
disembodied;
one dualistic extreme results in the false
effect of didacticism,
abstractly,
redeeming experience qu ickly and
wh ile the other imparts evil to creati on in
the mann er of Manicheanism.
consists
In short,
this creative
freedom
in revealing the "essence" of the thing or action
being r e n d e r e d
"brokenness"
through the physical,
through language and show that it is s i m u l ­
taneously fallen but redeemed,
absolute
to free it fr om its
integrity.
limited but po ss es se d of
This type of imagination attemp ts to
show the thing's utter uniqueness,
its inviolable
spiritual
wholeness , that which makes it essentially what it is and
no other thing.
St. Thomas Aquinas perceived the intrinsic
rel at io n sh ip betw ee n such an imagination and the aesthetic
sense w h e n he set three conditions for beauty:
harmony,
and radiance.
the aesthetic
The first
(intégrités)
image be a discreet object,
wholeness,
demands that
ap pr eh en ded in
time and space but separated from everything around it;
second
(consonantia)
perceives
the
the object in its com pl ex and
variant h a r mo ny of relatio nsh ip between parts and whole;
and the third
(quidditas),
as Joyce perceived,
presents the
object
"so that you see that thing which it is and no other
7
thing."
It is not, therefore, some vague chimera of essence
wh ich is shown,
7
Man
but the real thing itself.
Jacques Maritain,
James Joyce, _A Portrait of the Artist as a^ Young
(New York:
The Viking Press, 1956), p. 213.
26
in his discourse on Aq uin ia n aesthetics,
has explained the
precise relat io nsh ip betwe en the be au ty of form of a work,
its intelligibility,
and m y s t e r y as follows:
By ’radiance of the f o r m ’ must be understood an ont o ­
logical splendor whi ch is in one wa y or other revealed
to our mind, not a co nc ept ua l clarity.
We must avoid
all m i s un de rs ta nd i ng here:
the words c l a r i t y , i n te ll i­
gib il it y , light which we use to characterize the role
of 'form' at the heart of things, do not necessarily
designate something clear and intelligible for u s , but
ra the r something clear and luminous in i t s e l f , in te l li ­
gible
i t s e l f , and w h i c h often remains obscure to our
eyes, either because the m at t e r in which the form in
qu est ion is buried, or be ca us e of the transcendence of
the form itself in the things of the spirit.
The more
substantial and the more profound this secret sense is,
the more hidden it is f r o m us ; so that, in truth, to
say w i t h the S ch oo lme n that the form is in things the
pr oper principle of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , is to say at the
same time that it is the pr op er principle of m y s t e r y .
(There
is in fact no m y s t e r y wh er e there is nothing to
know : myst ery exists w h e r e there is more to be known
than is given for our c o m p r e h e n s i o n . ) To define the
beauty
by the rad iance of the form is in reality to
define
it by the r a d i a n c e of a mystery.°
A fourth vital the me effecte d by the Christian h i s ­
torical v is io n is the m y s t e r i o u s r el at io ns hi p between time
and eternity,
part of the w r it er 's
r e f le ct ed thematically in fiction.
internal sense which is
Briefly,
the Christian
pe rs pec ti ve holds that man exists and acts both in time and
in an eternal "present," a d i m en si on outside time which
gives
it its essential meaning.
H u m a n actions derive their
deepest spiritual mean ing from this immutable
"now";
the sub
species aeternitatis in w h i c h ever y act is irrevocable,
objective,
Charles
and absolute.
If the n o t i o n of time is cut off
^Jacques Maritain, Art and Sc holasticism (New York:
Scribners Sons, I 9 6 2 ) , p. 2EI
27
from the eternal dimension,
mate significance.
then the present loses its u l t i ­
The historical fact of Christ's R e d em p­
tion is the mys t er y of time and the eternal,
mystery,
since in this
for man, both the fact of the fallen condition and
re d e m p t i v e fr eedom exist simultaneously in the present.
accept this mys te ry fu lly is to accept
time,
To
the Christie
p a r ad ox that the w a y to eternal transcendence is Christ's
way of exploring all the modes of a free being acting in
and t h r o u g h time.
As we
shall see later,
a familiar s p ir i­
tual m a l a i s e in Faulkner and O'Connor's w o r k is man's u n w il l­
ingness
to accept
falle n co ndi tio n
this mystery,
particularly the fact of the
(which implicitly witnesses
for redemption) , so that much violent
to the need
enei-gy is expended
tryi ng to achieve some m o c k state of personal innocence and
immunity.
The effect of the Fall was to place man completely
w i t h i n time and
death;
death.
subject to it--subject to corruption and
not simply physical
death, but spiritual,
eternal
The In ca rn at ion reunit ed the dimensions of time and
the eternal,
and the Res ur re c ti on overcame the effects of
time myst eri ou sly , not by Christ's abandoning time, but by
f u l f i l l i n g it in the light of the eternal.
of the r e l a t io ns hi p between
the Fall and Re demption remains
p a r t i a l l y hid d en in the veil of time,
concretely.
Yet the my stery
to be lived through
This precludes any notion of Platonic dualism,
or of escape into the m o c k ethereal realms of infinity.
28
H o w does this theme of time and eternit y relate to
the historical
sense and the creative faculty?
Fr. Claude
Tr esm ont an t has pointed out that Biblical metaphysics held
that God c r ea te d gratuitously in one act which is still
going o n - - c re at io n is still in the pr oc ess of being made,
in time,
M a n participates in this process of genesis c r e ­
atively,
es pe ci a ll y the prophetic artist, whose historical
sense ge nerates
intuitive perceptions
direction and meaning of history.
or revelations of the
To quote Tresmontant;
"Time denotes
the act of creation.
E t e r ni ty is the point
o
of vi e w of the creator."
Fr. Tresmon tan t shows how f u n d a ­
mental is this historical sense in the Judeo- Chr is tia n
heritage.
In P la t o n i s m the sensible pa rt ici pat es in the Idea
by a degr ada tio n. ... In the Biblical universe, the
sensible participates in the in telligible by creation
...it is at one time being and s i g n . .. .T he Platonic
symbol for representing and si gn ify in g a metaphysical
or theological reality appeals to a myth, to the unreal.
The symbol is di sin ca rna te d . The sensible, the concrete,
is not suitable to carry the message.
It is necessa ry
to co nst ru ct a chimera.
On the contrary, the Heb r ew uses daily things, c o m ­
munal reality, history, to signify and teach the m y s ­
teries w h i c h are the proper no ur ish me nt of the spirit
. .. .The advantage of the Hebrew m e t h o d of teaching m e t a ­
physics and theology by the niaschal and the parable of
concrete fact is its capacity for universality.
The
maschal grows from the concrete, the most common, the
most u n i v er sa ll y human....In the Biblical mode of e x p r e s ­
sion, it is enough to be human to un de rstand that which
is proposed.
The Biblical parable is as intelligible
for the Galilea n peasant as for the Corinthian docker
9
Claude Tresmontant, Essai sur la Pensee B i b l i q u e ,
quoted in Christ and A p o l l o , pp. 211-12.
29
in the time of St. Paul, as it is for the w o rk er in the
factories of Paris in our time.
A G r e c o- L at in culture
is often an impediment to an un der standing of these
parables, which imply a sense of the real and of work,
and such a love of the co ncr et e element as seems a
defect to the Platon ic mentality; the latter is more or
less unconsciou"_y dualist, and too aristo cra ti c to
prove the depth and r i c h n e s s of the mystical content of
these daily realities of working with the elemental....
The particular is the existant.
Hebrew thought springs
from the particular existant; the pa rt icular in the
Biblical universe is n e i t h e r negligible nor i n s i g n i f i ­
cant.
It is a v e h i c l e of sense.
Thus from the artist's
eternal dimension,
standpoint,
p a r a d o x i c a l l y "working"
the sensible concrete pa rt ic ul ar ,
tory is a truly creative way.
than creation.
It is not just a matt er of
in time a cc o r d i n g to some
this w o u l d be Platonic
The C h r i st i an
w i th the concept of h u m a n
in and through
allows him to reveal h i s ­
re vealing a hi st o ry w h ic h un ra ve ls
pre-exi st ing plan;
the cons cio us nes s of an
im ita ti on rather
idea of time is synonymous
(and thus artistic)
freedom,
of
au t he nt ic al ly creating the univer se in all its material f a c ­
tuality and the spiritual r e a l i t y at the heart
Fr. Tresmontant raises a que st io n wh ich seems
epitomize the artist's sense of this mystery.
of it.
to me to
"Isn't it
precisely the tension of d u r a t i o n of a knowing being that
measures his power to act,
the quantity of free and creative
activity that he is able to introduce into the world?
The paradoxical biblical
stance--measuring ex pe ri en ce
l°I b i d . , p. 2 1 1 .
l ^ I b i d . , p. 2 1 0 .
view of the artist's
from an eternal
fixed
30
standpoint,
yet conscious of genesis
to F a u l k n e r ' s
the bib li ca l
own conception.
going on--seems akin
Tresmontant
points out that
no ti o n of intelligence is "a dynamic
intuition
of B e i n g in g e n e s i s ” ; Faulkner freq uen tl y stated that
is change,
has a l so
"life
motion ," and that be ing must adapt or die.
s t at ed that the artist's
when he creates,
and this views
point o f eternity.
He
task is to arrest motion
the genesis from the fixed
On the other hand,
the actual experience
of the w o r k for the writer and r e a d er is not one of stasis,
but of d r a m a t i c movement
motion"
in time.
Faulkner's
"arrested
se ems more accurately a de scription of the absolute
concre te i ma ge w h i c h struck in an eternal flash the chord
of cr e a t i v e vision;
as for example,
the image of a young
girl w i t h m u d d y drawers climbing on a tree, w h i c h germinated
The So und
12
and the F u r y .
Yet Faulkner grappled to embody
that i m a g e in a dramatic and sequential c on ti nuu m of language
and act ion ,
and this is the
"time" w hic h wri te r and reader
pr oce ed t h r o u g h ex p er ie nt ia ll y.
W h e n we
quently
look within fiction itself,
there are f r e­
" s i g n s " -- ac ti on s- - de no ti n g the Chris ti an mystery of
12
In an interview with Cynthia Grenier, Faulkner
ve r i f i e d this sense:
"There's always a moment in experience
--a t h o u g h t — an i n c i d e n t - - t h a t 's there.
Then all I do is
work up to that moment.
I figure what must have happened
before to lead people to that particular point, and I work
away f r o m it, finding out how people act after that moment.
That's h o w all my books and stories come."
Quoted in The
Lion in the G a r d e n , James B. M e r iw et he r and Michael Millgate,
ed. (New York:
Random House, 1 9 6 8 ), p. 220.
31
time and eternity,
of supernatural grace operating in nature
and through time.
T h es e are what can be called acts of
"spiritual motion";
that is, some crucial act or insight
achieved by a chara cte r which witnes se s to the existence of
the eternal and
it.
the character's ontological relati ons hi p to
It has n o t h i n g especial to do w it h physical motio n in
time and space,
or w i t h any romantic
of the limited world.
idea of transcendence
Frequently it comes in the f o r m of
a mental re cog ni tio n by the character, wh o is "moved" by
the action of grace to see and accept
it.
Mysteriously,
he sees himself in the light of dimension beyond time,
consequently,
and
sees his own meaning and destiny incarnated
in this particular situation and in this "place"--which in
the Christian v i e w constitutes a truly historical
For example,
the
grandmother in Miss O'Connor's
Is Hard To Find"
travels a long way,
physically,
insight.
"A Good Man
to meet
4 " .■
death at the hands
tual motion"
of the Misfit.
occurs
But the essential "spir i­
in a small gesture-- tou ch ing the Misfit's
arm--a movement of grace which acknowledges her essential
relatio n to him:
" W h y , you're one of my own babies!"
In
this motion of grace she accepts her true place in relation
to him, and there
is no story without this free act.
"spiritual motions"
of recognition occur in "The Displaced
Person," when before her death Mrs.
"true country,"
Similar
Shortley perceives
eternal and invisible,
and in "The Ar tificial Nigger,"
the
from which she comes,
"Revelation," and in fact
32
every other major
cept is best
story by O'Connor.
In Faulkner,
the c o n ­
exemplified in D ils ey in The Sound and the
F u r y , a character who seems to live and move always in the
light of the eternal,
Part IV,
sermon,
yet co mp le te ly immersed in time.
she makes a spiritual movement
a hist ori ca l
during Rev.
In
Shegog's
insight that connects and reveals the
mysterious un i on between Christ
and the thirty-three year
old idiot Benjy standing next to he r in the pew.
None of these "motions"
especially,
fact,
indicate spatial movement
a change of p l a c e , in the popular sense.
In
spatial movement frequently betokens an attempt to
escape the judgment and
"presence"
of the eternal.
In Wise
Blood Hazel Mo tes only truly sees himself sub species
aeternitatis af t e r his means of physical
ra t-colored c a r — is destroyed.
notable
locomotion--his
Joe Christmas is another
example of a character w h o is existentially "lost,"
without a place,
and therefore driven on an anguished journey
to escape himself.
Thus "spiritual motion"
time and an acceptance of the
eternal,
is connected to
and this acceptance
is an act of his tor i ca l- on to lo gi ca l consciousness wh ic h
involves acc ep ti ng one's place in the
immediate situation
(temporally and s p a t i a l l y ) , and in re lation to the total
human co mm un it y and its single spiritual destiny,
Grandmother does wi th the Misfit,
is an awaren es s
as the
or Dilsey w i t h Benjy.
of "place" which begins
It
in the immediate
and the physical and then stretches outward to the invisible
33
and m y s t e r i o u s roots of being.
Some characters carry "place"
within t he m as an interior condition,
like Lena Grove, who
fits into an y community and seems to act as a catalyst for
the p o s s i b i l i t i e s of grace no m a t t e r where she is.
in this light,
Viewed
Faulkner's d e s c ri pt io n of Joe Christmas'
self­
eviction f r o m the human race as "the worst tragedy that
happen to a man"
can
seems to p o i n t — not to the fact that he
can't fit in so cie ty (as the sociologists might claim),
since o b v i o u s l y he can--but to the kind of existential loss
of place
that seems pa rticularly prevalent
in co nte mp ora ry
A mer ica n experience.
"Place,"
tion of time and
then, m e t a p h y s i c a l l y felt,
the eternal,
place is the Crucifixion.
concrete
and the Christian central
M a t e r i a l l y it is rooted in the
l o c at io n and time;
the i nv isi bl e
is the int e rs ec ­
on t ol og ic al ly it stretches
and the infinite.
into
In her essay "Place in
Mode rn Fi c t i o n , " Eudora W el ty e xpe rtl y defined this c o n ­
cept's s ig n i f i c a n c e in fiction as the ground root
and the d i s a st ro u s effects of its loss.
their uniq ue
intuit
cultural position,
of value,
Perhaps bec aus e of
Southern writers seem to
this m or e pro foundly than others.
Viewing the matter
o n t o l o g i c a l l y , Romano Guardini has pointed out that medieval
man p o s s e s s e d a rather firmly def ine d sense of place--in
society,
Empyreum,
in his cosmological
sense of God ruling from the
a n d in his sense of the
"other place"
of perdition
--albeit a finite view, but one wh ich found support in the
34
structure of life everywhere.
In addition,
there was the
sense of "inner finiteness," a sense withi n man of a f r o n ­
tier beyond which lay the my ste ry of his being, known c o m ­
pl et el y only by God.
vi du al
This gu aranteed a respect for i n d i ­
inviolability and the my st er y of personality,
concept,
needless
a
to say, wh ich is antinomous to mod e rn
r ed uct iv e and rationalistic
explorations
of the p s y c h e —
"violations of the heart" -- the inner place.
The security of the mediev al framework passed w i t h
the Renaissance, w i t h the r e vo l u t i o n a r y new cosmology s u p ­
porte d by n ew scientific discoveries, w it h critical r e a p ­
praisal and r e jec tio n of biblical revelation,
social and psychological revolution.
and w i t h the
These phenomena su nde re d
W e s t e r n man from his old secure place, w i t h profound psychic
repercussions
on the fundamental mat te r of man's attempt
locate his identity in being.
witnessed,
historically,
rootlessness,
Since the Renaissance we have
an in cre as i ng ly intense sense of
exhibited pos itively in the quest for d i s ­
covery in intellectual life,
explorations,
to
in scientific and geographic
and in the area of h u ma n freedom.
But these
ha ve been coupled with negative effects as well--the i n ­
creasin g sense of alienation from self,
of wandering,
and
of the extreme fragil it y of man's p o s it io n in the universe.
The concern of much moder n wri t in g w i t h this pr oblem shows
^^The End of the Modern W o r 1 d , pp. 6I-67.
13
35
the writer 's sense of this loss,
it, but also,
pa rt ly because he shares
if he is a t r u l y significant writer, because
he stands in a definite p la ce m et ap h y s i c a l l y which assures
his own identity in being.
writers
I do not mean to suggest that
like O'Connor and F a u l k n e r share the medieval view
of a fixed cosmology from w h i c h to judge contemporary ex pe r i­
ence.
Miss O'Connor once r e m a r k e d that the modern writer's
landscape was no longer f a i r l y evenly di vi de d between heaven,
hell,
and purgatory,
as Da nt e 's was,
but that he had to seek
for "balance" in co nf ro nti ng mod er n exp erience by searching
w i th in hi ms el f for a p o s i t i o n from w h i c h to truly see the
distortions of co nt em po ra r y life.
balance
Curiously,
that found
is often re f l e c t e d in fiction by the willingness
to
use surface d is to rti on- -t he gr ot esq ue -- to dramatize the depth
of m o d e r n value di sor ientation.
For the write r who shares
the C hr ist ia n hist or ica l vision,
the felt place of axio-
logical balance is the Re de mp tio n,
w rit er' s basic commitment
the point
of hope in the
aga ins t futili ty and despair.
Another theme w h i ch is clo sel y rel ate d to that of
"place"
is the concept of community.
torical vision the "community"
of humanity,
terms
In the Christian h i s ­
is the total,
universal mass
since the aim of the R e d e m p t i o n in historical
is the single c or p o r a t e salva ti on of the race.
includes
the dead as well as
This
those living and yet u n b o r n —
the "mystical body" of h u m a n i t y linked by Christ's entrance
into and transformation of history.
The de ad also have
36
their p la ce
in ex is ten ce- -a point worth considering in
r e l a t i o n to As
Lay Dying or The Violent Bear It A w a y .
The d r i v e of the R e d em pt io n is toward union by love,
h u m a n level within the co mmu ni ty of men;
a community c h a r ­
a c t e r i z e d ideally by fre edo m and openness.
pr oc es s
is slow,
painful,
on the
The red emptive
but inexorable.
Still,
of w i t h d r a w a l implies a fate w h ic h is worse:
p o r a r i l y soothe the an guish of commitment
the option
it may t e m ­
and change,
but it
also cuts the individual off from the concrete sources of
g r o w t h — h u m a n love in mutuality.
edly ev ide nt
in F a u l k n e r ’s work,
Cases of this are r e p e a t ­
and in each case he makes
it c lea r that, be ca u se of the inescapable bond of humanity,
d i s a f f e c t i o n only incurs spiritual sterility,
a n d , a retreat
f r o m h i s t o r y - - u s u a l l y into the false immunity of a r o m a n t i ­
cized past.
We need only think of Reverend Hi ght ow er and
Q u e n t i n Com pso n to see this tragic option at work,
each
c u r i o u s l y "outside" h i s t o r y out of some desperate urge to
dissociate
themselves fro m its evil forces.
tant to accept "place"
them,
in relati on to the community around
and each can rar e ly manage to accept
moment,
Each is r e l u c ­
the grace of the
to "move" by ack no wledging a link with the h u ma n
comm uni ty.
Hi ght ow er does,
of course,
manage this on o c c a ­
s io n (notably in he lpi ng Lena Grove in c h i l d b i r t h ) , but
he f i n a l l y disengages hi ms el f from involvement.
B yr on B u n c h makes his commitment
lo ve in spite of risk.
Dilsey,
then
In contrast,
to "move," acting out of
of course,
is the best
37
example:
a center of love and union who is p er fe ctl y at
home with h er spiritual self in the broken,
obsession-
ridden wo rld around her, a wor ld held together inwardly
and outwardly by h er sense of r es po n sib ili ty to a "community."
Ther e is another view of "community" wh ic h is ob­
noxious to the Christian concept,
Faulkner and O'Connor.
It is characterized by a sense of
enclosure rather than openness,
tual growth,
yet also dep icted in
of fixity ra ther than spi ri­
and of a rigid pro vin ci ali sm based on exclusion
and moralism,
such as the "town" re action to Joe Christmas
and Joanna Burden in Light in A u g u s t .
It is familiar in
fiction as the over-simplified stereotype of Southern
society,
and wi th many ostensible Christian members.
it must be judged in the light of the invisible,
community w i t h i n whi ch the writer measures
logical a cti on of the novel.
This
Yet
universal
it by the t y p o ­
is not to say judged in
the light of the universal contemporary c om mu nit y in America
or the West,
is that the
for one complicating factor
"true"
community may be enclosing to defend
itself against more pernicious
secular culture.
in Southern fiction
intrusions fr om a largely
As Miss O'Connor once noted,
anguish in
the South was not due to the fact that it is different from
the rest of America, but because
it is not
different enough.
38
II.
Th er e is a vision of his tor y wh ich is antinomous to
the Ch ri st ia n v i ew also r e p r es en te d in Faulkner and O'Connor's
works,
w h ic h both see as v e r y operative univers all y and
i ncr eas in gly wit h in the South.
secular modernist
This v i ew can be labeled the
or p r o g r e s s i v i s t , though neither writer
is es pe ci al ly anti-progressive.
The differen ces between the
two vi ews are fundamental and ir rec onc il able--concerning
the n a t ur e and direction of the u n i v e r s e , the essential
ch ar act er of man and his r ela ti on to a Divine Being,
re sp on si bl e use of fr eed om and power.
and a
The secular modernist
is the dominant sen sib il ity of co nte mp o r ar y American culture;
and both writers
the South,
see it m a k i n g significant headway within
even though the bibli cal trad it ion still persists
w i t h mor e evident tenacity than elsewhere.
as Miss O'Connor observed,
but
The South today,
may not be "Christ-centered,"
it is nevertheless still "Christ-haunted."
Southern
fiction has provided a dramatic battleg ro und for the clash
of these
opposing views of history's
"progress" for the past
hu nd red years.
As historians of culture have noted,
the modernist
secular viewpoint emerged from the d is so lu tio n of the Churchcentere d medieval world and the concomitant revolution in
all areas of life which has proc eed ed since the Renaissance.
The co mpl ex vie w of God,
man,
and human destiny propounded
by Chri sti an reve lat io n suffered a tt rit io n under the wave
39
of e n l i g h te nm en t brought by new fr ee do m in every dimension
of l i f e — intellectual,
ps yc hol og ica l.
Most
person of Christ
and obscured;
destiny,
social,
political,
importantly,
as the focal point
of his tor y became blunted
the preva il ing sense came to be that hum an
alone --b y intelligence,
and by po wer .
and
the recogn iti on of the
indi vid ual and collective,
hu m an me a n s
religious,
could fulfill itself by
by mutual understanding,
The sense of the sup er natural diminished;
problem o f evil seemed h u ma nl y soluble,
the
or as Eliot noted,
a sense of the supernatural power of evil became diluted in
this r i s i n g ne w sensibility.
bility" was
assu mp tio n of "s ol u­
based upon a se cu l ari zed vi ew of man's potential
as b e i n g unlimited;
emphasis
This
in direct co n tr ad ic ti on of the biblical
on hum an limitation and the need for divine grace
and dire cti on .
In short,
was acknowl edg ed;
very little ne e d for a Redemption
one could after all be "self-redeemed."
It is possible,
of course,
to elaborate endlessly
upon the d if fe ren t man if es ta ti o ns of the secular progressive
spirit in the past four centuries.
What
I wish to call a t t e n ­
tion to h e r e are those central themes w h i c h run counter to
the C h r i s t i a n historical vision und er discussion.
These are
the n e g a t i v e counterparts re fle cte d dra matically in Fau lkner
and O ' C o n n o r ' s
fiction.
T h e first p ri mar y dif ference w h i c h should be noted
is the v i e w of m an simply as a being.
posits
ence,
Christian revel ati on
the basic unk nowable m y s t e r y of existence and e x p e r i ­
c e n t e r e d in the Incarnation.
In contrast,
secular
40
m o d e r n i s m reje cts
this belief wholeheartedly;
ma n and his
experience are re garded as capable
of bei ng c on for me d to
human intellectual understanding.
Prime examples
of this
impulse are the various forms of r at i o n a l i s m wh ic h try to
eliminate m y s t e r y by formulaic analysis,
that invades all areas of life.
a temper of mind
Perhaps its most d e st r uc ­
tive effect is that by trying to reduce supern atu ra l mystery
in pe rs on al it y and "solve" huma n limitation,
it in variably
cuts down the po ten ti al it y of g ro w t h and good as well.
Miss O'Connor r e ma rk ed that
the "Aylmers in our society
have m u l ti pl ie d since Hawthor ne' s
day," and her fiction
offers ample ev idence of this w i d e s p r e a d se ns ib i li ty at
work:
R a y b e r , Shephard,
Mrs. McIntyre.
old Mr.
Fortune, Mrs.
Cope and
Another form of this reduc tiv e sensibility
manifests it se lf in the ru thless pragmatic m a t e r ia li sm by
wh i ch characters try to enforce their will upon experience.
Faulkner's wo rk s abound wi t h these
types:
insanely ob sessed with order and logic,
Jas on Compson,
yet irrational in
all his responses;
the "mechanical" men like Abner S n o p e s ,
P o p e y e , and Th o m a s
Sutpen;
and the religious rationalists
like Mr. M c E a c h e r n and Doc H in es- -a ll driven by a simplistic
vi ew of experience,
by the myst eri ou s
standably,
and all,
I sh ould add,
flow of h is t o r y
f in all y defeated
they rebel against.
Under­
no ne of these cha racters can come to terms with
time or place,
or accept "the momen t" gracefully;
and the super na tur al ha vin g been
discarded,
eternity
they are driven
41
by some obsessive quest for sa lv ati on through self-redemption
that i ne vi tab ly ends in despair or destruction.
As we have
seen, in the Ch ristian perspective, a valid
historical sense involves a sense of the ontological r e l a ­
tionship b e t w e e n past and present , w h i c h implies an a w a r e ­
ness of the r el a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n time and eternity.
The
loss or f ra gm en ta ti on of this sense is evident throughout
the modernist perspective.
R ev e l a t i o n preached a limited
and definitive span of history,
the eternal dimension;
open-ended,
secular m o de rn is m views hi story as
an end in itself,
to direct its course.
linked to and purposed by
with ma n completely autonomous
And yet it is a curious paradox of
history that the various doctrines of determinism grew up
with this sense
of human autonomy.
The concept of man
governed by a Di vi n e Plan to w h i c h he responds with limited
freedom was l a r ge l y abandoned.
But af ter an initial e x hi la ­
rating sense of freedom fro m the b u r d e n of revelation,
modernist
s e n s ib il i ty in creasingly found difficulty in dea lin g
with the anguish of time, boredom,
The sense of the absolute
eternal
and the feeling of ennui.
importance of the single
human act di m in is he d proportionately.
ontological
The sundering of the
tie b e tw e en time and eternit y produces,
other effects,
cism:
the
two logical extremes.
among
The first is histori-
the obs es si on with pa st- as - pa s t which appears in m any
literary forms
(Proust,
for example),
in Southern fict io n as a nostalgic
and in many characters
escape.
The second effect
42
is an opposite extreme:
obsession with the present moment
of the type seen in pure existentialism,
or in the actions
of someone like Jason Compson or Rayber,
both of whom cannot
relax their hold on the present,
and whose
fanaticism is
de fe at ed again and again by time.
The loss of historical sense,
as Eliot noted,
is
part of the larger problem w hi ch he described as a "diss o­
ciation of sensibility,"
central
a dissociation w h i c h effects every
theme of the Christian view of history.
ciation means
For d i s s o ­
" d i s - i n c a r n a t i o n ," a movement away from the
kind of ontological unity exemplified p e rf ec tl y in Christ
and to w h i c h man nat ur al l y aspires.
ation of time f r o m eternity,
There is the disso ci­
in which time becomes simply
p r o g r e s s i o n ra th er than genesis and growth toward consum ­
m at i n g a rede mpt iv e history;
and in whi ch e t er ni t y is removed
"out there" a nd seen as "after time," not
as a dimension of
the pr e s e n t n o w whic h gives value to time so that man can
immerse in it creatively, not b u r d e n s o m e l y .
There is the
d is so ci at io n or disincarnation of spirit and matter, where
the fo rm er is vi ew ed abstractly as pure essence,
as sl ig ht ly or wh o ll y despiritualized,
M an i c h e a n extreme,
evil.
inert,
but
or in the
There is the di ss ociation of word
from act, pa r t l y fated since only one perfe ct
has occurred,
and matter
gravely aggravated
incarnation
to the point where
langua ge has b eco me an instrument of ma nip ul ati on- -o f power
for its own sak e--rather than as a vehicle for truth.
One
•
43
form of the ma laise produced searches for lofty essences-for verbal
’’red emp ti on" -- by di sso ci a ti on from the concrete.
One need only point to Quentin Compson,
drowni ng in a deluge
of words cut off from concrete value,
or Addie Bundren's
insight that "words rise up,
go along the ground"
to see Fau lkn er 's
thoughts
awareness of this problem.
Indeed it was
one wh ich he struggled desperately w i t h in his own work,
sometimes only wi t h limited success.
later,
And as we shall see
the degree of dissociation dir ec tl y affects the degree
of dramatic
"motion"--of re ve la tio n th ro u gh word as act--
engendered w i t h i n the creative process itself.
T he re is the dissociation of "pl ace"--the ph enomena
of displacement
already mentioned.
N o w in the Christ ia n
perspective a certain form of this is natural--the
alienation from God brought by the Fall,
for paradise and return to the innocent
in the Divine C o m e d y .
Redemption,
sense of
and the longing
state,
Yet coupled wit h that,
as Dante felt
through the
is the belief in the fundamental goodness of
man's free immer si on in "this pl a ce "- -t he concrete,
limited,
narrow physic al world which is the gate through time to
salvific transcendence.
In the mod er ni st
place, h o w e v e r , there is the sense
di ssociation of
of m a n ’s fundamental
alienation from his own being in the wor ld- -c ut off in time
and space from the eternal.
This d isp la cem ent also induces
an anxious strivin g to conquer "infinite space"
outer),
a sense
bility to accept
of rootlessness and wandering,
(inner and
and an i n a ­
"here" w it h its roots pushing downward
44
through the concrete
sense of rootle ss
of the Pall,
to the
eternal.
Theologically,
s t ri vi ng is d ire ct ly linked to a reject io n
of l i m it a ti on and connection,
of redemptive fr ee d om w hi ch ho lds
action w i th in an eternal
through various
this
and of the kind
that one can effect
f r a m e w o r k w i th ou t m o v i n g an inch,
forms of prayer.
As Miss O'Connor and Eudora
W e lty and others have p o i n t e d out, rootless questing
the novelist also)
(for
is i n d e e d a way of r efu si ng to feel,
of
remain in g in place long e n o u g h to experience the real sense
of loss that brings w i th it a truly r e de em in g sense of human
community.
Finally,
there is the fo rm of dis soc i at io n which is
opposite to the C h r i s t i a n concept
toward immunity.
This
of c o m m u n i t y — the drive
t e r m signifies any mot ion or movement
away from r e c o g n i t i o n of the Fall,
res po nsi bi lit y
dead),
(again,
or re fus al
the
of personal communal
total mystical body in clu di ng the
of grace.
The
term "motion" is appropriate
because t h e o lo gi ca ll y it co ns ti tu te s a cou nter-movement to
the un ify in g agency of grace,
w h i c h as we saw, was bound up
wi th acceptance of ti m e - p l a c e in "the moment."
in characters
Frequently
(Hazel Mot es,
for example), the drive toward
I
immunity is an attempt to pre se rv e a false state of inno. »
cence, which if admitt ed as lost w oul d incur the r e s p o n s i ­
bility of re de mp tiv e freedom.
So the character chooses to
extricate h i ms el f from the w e b of concrete duplicity-escaping in space like H a z e l Motes,
or in time like the
45
G r a n d m o t h e r and Mrs. Compson,
wh i ch seems
to recapt ure another place
b e t t e r to live in, even as in the case of Que n ti n
where it is a "hell" where he and Caddie can live immune
from the fact of her "fall."
ch ar ac te r o u t s i d e
The effect is to place the
"history" in the concrete,
pr esent fluid
s i t u a t i o n - - t h e exact axiological point where grace can only
be o p e r a t i v e - - a n d generative of growth.
Or sometimes immunity
takes the f o r m of a retreat behind language itself,
behind
v e r b o s i t y or rhetoric or cliche or se lf-justificative palaver,
a kind o f "self- red ee min g" mechanism,
his father.
In any of these cases,
as in Jason Co mps on or
immunity is "achieved"
only at a te rr ifi c price to the i n d i v i d u a l , usua ll y a loss
of freedom.
It often requires the action of grace wor kin g
thr ou gh v i o l e n c e
(innocent)
to w r en ch the chara cte r from their fixed
obsession,
w it h all its
forcing them to "be" with in this moment
terrifying possibilities,
as in the case of
Rev. H i g h t o w e r w he n he tries d es p er ate ly to save Joe Christmas
by i n s i s t i n g Joe was w ith h im on the night
In fact,
it is the prevalence of the smug imperturb abi lit y
of the m o d e r n i s t
vi ol en ce
of the murder.
temper w h ic h forces much of the "holy"
in Fa ul kn er and O'Connor.
I have
tives to giv e
tried to sketch the above historical p e r s p e c ­
some philosophical
to the h i s t o r i c a l
and theological dimension
sense operating in Faulkner and O'Connor,
and to t r y to demonstrate the r a m i f y i n g issues at stake for
a w r i t e r c h o o s i n g to reveal in fiction a historical visi on
46
of experience close at hand.
in more detail
Now it is ne c es sa ry to sketch
the parti cul ar ly clo se-at-hand h is to ry through
w h i c h the biblical historical v isi on is t r a n s m u t ed--the
American f r a me wo rk and the South's r el at i on to it.
C H A P T E R TWO
I have tried w i t h o u t much reference to the history
of institutionalized Ch r i s t i a n i t y to sketch some basic themes
and counterthemes wh ich emanate from an authentically
Christian historical vision.
This seemed the best approach
because it is pr ec ise ly that "spirit" of the Christian vision
which the writer respon ds to;
the historical sense is a felt
psychic condition rather th an a conscious intellectual stance
taken.
The fact of the matter,
tionalized Ch ris ti ani ty has
of course,
is that i n st it u­
shown itself again and again
throughout h i st or y to be m a r k e d with innumerable human distortions--with perv er sit y a nd self-deception perpetrated in
the name of the highest
"moral"
goals, with exploitation and
debasement of man, with self-righteous provincialism and
despicable folk worship,
and always with a strain of P h a r i ­
saical r el ig io sit y that w o r k s to diminish human fr eedom and
responsibility.
But the di sto rti on s are human, not Christian.
Writers like Faulkner f re qu en tly exposed these perversions,
and did so I think in the name of that true spirit which
they saw adulterated to the point that the only conscionable
alternative was to depict this so-called "Christian"
in all its st ultifying n e g a t i v i t y and to identify
47
ethos
48
s y mp at he ti ca ll y with its victims.
victim's
situa tio n is like that
For to the no vel ist
of the whore v i n d i c a t e d by
Jesus be f o r e her pharisaical accusers;
which cries out for a witness
face of the deformed,
the
it is a situat ion
to the true spirit in the
sterile de-humanized imi t at io n of it
offered by self-righteous moralists.
All this is to say that m an if est ati on s of authentic
Christian hi st ori ca l v is io n are ha rd ly confined to the
in st it u ti on al iz ed forms which the wor ld has knoivn.
this,
some critics, John Edward H a r d y for example,
that Fa ul kn er ' s
Aware of
argue
spiritual fou ndation is actually "ahistori-
cal," that he takes his stand on the side of c er tai n u n i ­
versal
"eternal verities" and against a n arr ow and debased
i nst itu ti ona liz ed Chris ti ani ty. ^
true, but
This is to a c er ta in extent
to call his p o si ti on "ahistorical"
is to accept a
m i s ap pr eh e ns io n about the authentic Ch ris tia n his torical
vision,
one that
fre qu ent ly occurs.
It is to id ent if y
universal C hr is ti a ni ty ex clu si vel y with the West,
its h i s t o r y only to Europe and America,
to na rr ow
and to judge its
ebb and f l o w only w it h in that limited framework.
In a
recent d i s c u ss io n of the concept of a "post-Christian" world,
F r . W a l t e r O n g , S.J. has co nvi ncingly exposed the cultural
p r ov in ci al i sm of those who judge Chris tia ni ty only in terms
1
John Edwar d Hardy, "Faulkner:
The Legend Behind the
Legend," in Man in the M o d e r n Novel (Seattle:
Univ. of Wash.
Press, 1 9 6 4 ).
Mr. Hardy's essay offers a p rov oca ti ve in t er ­
preta tio n of Faul kne r' s use of Christian materials, one which
shows cl ea rl y the theological analogues in Faulkner's writings
49
of its h i s t o r y in We st er n culture,
and ignore both its u n i ­
versal character and the fa ctual history of its co nt in uin g
global gr ow th --i n Africa,
the West.
2
versalist
the Far East and all areas outside
Fa ul kne r co nstantly identified w i t h this uni"spirit," as evidenced by his insistence
that he
wrote as a "member of the human race" or one of the "family
of mankind."
sense of the t o t a l , single
;
race was a constant v e r i t y wh ich enabled h i m to penetrate
the facade
This hist ori ca l
of debased forms
of "Christianity"
in the South
that were in fact elitist and e x c l u s i o n i s t , r e l i gi ou sl y p r e ­
tentious,
and an tithetical to the true red emptive
spirit.
It is this un ive rs ali st Christian historical sense,
1 would argue, w h ic h imbued the vision of Faulkne r and
O'Connor whe n they in ter pr ete d the hi sto ry of A mer ica n
experience,
classical
the specific
'"foreground" linked ana lo gi ca ll y to
and r e d e m p t i o n history.
What co nstitutes this
"foreground" w h e re in the historical sense operates?
Spe­
cifically, what parti cu lar Christian and secular strains
can be found in the America n vision of its experience, where
contending vi ews of h i st or y and ultimate values take shape?
Here again, we shall try to probe beneath the complic ate d
nexus of political,
social,
economic and relig io us forces
that go to make up the "American experience" in order to
distinguish certain vi tal and opposing differences in the
^Walter Ong, S.J. , In the Human Grain
MacMi ll an Co., I 9 6 7 ).
(New York:
50
ontolog ic al sense
of "our situation," differences which
shape the v i e w of m a n and direction of hi story in this
country.
It is c o mm on among cultural historians to point out
similar it ies b e t w e e n post-colonial New England and the South
as fertile
grounds
for their respective literary flowerings.
There is co mm on to bot h a distinctive regional cohesiveness;
a sense of r e g i o n a l
historical self-consciousness;
of i n d i v i d u a l i s m and ethical sensitivity;
tradition;
d i v e r s i f i e d ethnic,
social,
yet all c o gn iz an t of a certain regional
finally,
a spirit
a vital rhetorical
and religious
identity;
groups
and
a k i n d of inner tension of war rin g values that spurs
vital c r ea t iv e activity.
Looked at in this light the two
cultures share a great m an y s i m i l a r i t i e s , as well as many
obvious diffe ren ce s.
historical
However, when we begin to examine
sense as a felt,
a r a di ca l d i f f e r e n c e
psychic condition,
between the two that,
there is such
for all their
intell ec tua l
similarities,
This ra di ca l
di ff ere nc e can be accounted for primarily by
one h i s t o r i c a l
South.
they are in fact worlds
apart.
f a c t- -t he Civil War and its afterm at h in the
B r o a d l y speaking,
the New England culture from its
ince pti on p o s s e s s e d ideologically the same basic Christian
t ra dit io n that e x is te d in the South,
tions,
but with certain e x c e p ­
this b e l i e f has not been expe ri ent ia lly confirmed in
A mer ica n e x p e ri en ce
outside the South, a fact borne out by
the gradual d e c l e n s i o n of the rigorous,
th eological-centered
51
Pu r ita n culture that oc cu r re d in the face of optimistic
progressivism.
The Providential
co n ce pti on of history,
as an avowed
"policy," was of course the motivating power be hi n d the
P u r i t a n settlement in Ame ric a in both its inc e pt io n and
instit ut ion al ize d government.
Winthrop, W il lia m Hooker,
waves
W il lia m Bradford,
the Mathers,
John
and the successive
of Puritan settlers ven tu r ed to America s pe cif ic all y
to erect
"a city on a hill,"
charged with the c on v i c t i o n
that Divine Providence guided their efforts
Jerusalem"
and Hebraic
in the new world.
to b u i l d a "New
Heirs of bo th the classical
intellectual traditions,
but also imbued with ra tio nalism,
disciples
of reve la tio n
the early Pu ritans
set
about fervidl y to fulfill their appointed role in the ev o l u ­
tion of Christianity in America.
It is important to recall
here the Purit an idea of its own "providential" history,
for odd ly enough it co nta in ed the seed of the gradual
de c l e n ­
sion of the vital faith w h i c h sustained the earl y settlers
amid the distresses of the
early decades,
as well as the
seed of justification for the kind of secular p ro g r e s s i v i s m
and moral benevolence that
evolved.
Puritan th eo cr ac y was
based upo n a rationalistic
and legalistic
"covenant of
grace," wher eby God del ib er at el y bound Hi m s e l f to a c o n ­
tractual agreement
filled His
of salvat ion if the elect ed saints ful­
laws on earth.
to r a d i c a l l y diminish,
One effect of this do ctrine was
both individually and in terms of the
52
whole society,
the concept of supernatural mystery as it
existed at the center of the He braic tradition.
accident,
for example,
years later,
It is no
that slight ly more than a hun d re d
Benjamin F r an kl in r e ad the story of Job,
one
of whose central theses is J o b ’s ren ewe d sense of divine
mystery,
and found the f o l lo wi ng moral:
"Remember Job, who
suffered,
and was afterwards reward ed !" (italics mine).
Secondly,
the Puritan pr ov id en ti al conception of its his tor y
was in fact built upon an act of separation from the Past,
fro m history,
if not l i t er al ly then at least psychically,
an act of dissociation w h i c h on the one hand allowed them to
ide nt ify analogically w i t h the exodus of the "chosen people"
of the Old Testament,
but wh ich also tended to diminish any
un iv ers al ist sense of r e d e m p t i o n by exalting their unique
moral destiny above the Past
they left behind.
Perry Miller has th oroughly documented the subtle
tra ns for ma tio n and decl ens io n that occurred in the Pur ita n
theoc rac y when place d pa ra d o x i c a l l y amidst the bountiful
prospects offered in the n ew continent.
The "covenant of
grace" rei nforced the sense of moral rectitude, yet the
inju nc tio n upon each saint to labor in God's vineyard--this
w o r l d — coincided pe rf ec tly w i t h the opportunities for progress
and w e al th offered in the frontier colonies.
W it h increasing
al arm religious
elders issued jeremiads against worldliness
and secularism,
remin din g m e n of the God of wr ath and d a m n a ­
tion, but everywhere the rigorou s Puritan view suffered
53
gradual attrition.
progress,
Even while attacking the effects of
these elders rarely attacked progress itself.
3
It was n o t that men were abandoning the providential view
in wholesale numbers;
rather,
they felt themselves to be.
inter pr eti ng and designing and f u l fi ll in g it in a continent
whose r es our ce s were direct evidence of God's abundant
blessing up on their works.
Miller records h o w in the course
of a cen tu ry the wrathful God of the Puritans was slowly
translated into a benevolent and r e w a r d i n g Deity, whose
material
be ne fi ce s implicitly testified to His approval
the secular aspects of the covenant alliance.
wore on,
the federal
of
As the decades
theology of N e w England covenanters
was diluted into a kind of buoyant nat io na li sm that saw God
as a co-ar chi te ct
Edwards,
of American aspiration.
Even Jonathan
for all his desperate attempts in the 1740's
revive the Pur i ta n spirit,
to
finally acknowledged a God who
disposed His providence in this world w it h disinterested
benevolence.
By the time of the Revolution,
the theology
of biblical rev el at io n was intellectually and experientially
largely discredited, replaced by a doctrine of prosperity
and se cu la riz ed moral idealism.
Bit b y bit, almost imperceptibly, the benevolent God
who led the Americans to independence was interpreted
as a Being who shepherded this whole co mmu nit y into a
3
P e r r y Miller, N a t u r e 's Na ti on (Cambridge:
The
Belkamp Press, I 9 6 7 ), p. 33.
See also the last chapter of
Perry Mi l l e r ' s The New En glan d Mind : The Seventeenth C e n ­
tury (Cambridge:
Howard University Press, 1 9 & 4 ) .
54
heritage of social prosperity.
Sinners might remain,
but they were no longer in the hands of an angry God;
they were in the midst of an ebullient America, before
wh ich extended the prospect of infinite expansion,
unp re cedented wealth.
In this reach of vision, no
creatures, not even spiders, were any longer poisonous
by n a t u r e . 4
It is not difficult to perceive the variances b e ­
tween the redemptive vi ew of h i st or y and the n e w p r o g r e s ­
sivism that came to prevail in America.
T h r o u g h attrition
the biblica l sense of sin evolved largely into a new ethic
of pietistical
reform.
"d o -g oo d- is m” and benevolence,
and social
The sense of li mitation and spiritual dependence
eroded in favor of a doctrine of independent
self-reliance,
more agreeable to the enter pri si ng N e w M a n in America.
Against
the mysterious par ad o x of Christie time in relation
to eternity, we can measure Benjam in Fra nkl in 's opp or tu n­
istic vi e w of time;
and space,
out, was seen as a limitless
as R.W.B.
L e w is has pointed
frontier against which the New
Adam projec ted an identity of infinite potential.
This
"progressive" vision, movi ng away from the Past,
effaced
its link with the central,
factual event in scriptural
his to ry--Christ and His Red emp tio n- -so mu ch so that in the
"Divinity School A d d r e s s ” Eme rs on c o m pl et e ly absolved C h r i s ­
tianity from its concrete,
historical fo u n d a t i o n by making
Christ into an abstract "essence"
There were,
of the divine in man.
of course, wr iters like H aw tho rn e and Melville
^Nature's Nation,
p.
285,
55
who argued p e s s i m i s t i c a l l y a g a in st this progressive m e t a ­
physic,
but the audience at large was l is te nin g to the
sound of different
drummers, w h o pr eac he d a gospel of r a ­
tional or intui tiv e s e l f - r e d e m p t i o n by following the p r o m p t ­
ings of one's inner being.
P e r r y Mil le r found this ethos
pr ev ailing into the 2 0th century,
a condit io n he termed the
crisis of "w el l- in t e n t i o n e d A m er ic an benevolence."
This is not to say that the American experience through
the 1 9 th century was all b ee r and skittles.
Life on the
frontier was hard; the b u i l d i n g of the West cost health
and lives; m a n y were d e f e a t e d and turned their faces
to the wall.
Then th ere w a s the might y blood-purge of
the Civil War, and the a n g u i s h of a defeated South.
By
the end of the cen tu ry there were ominous ru mb lin gs in
the city, strikes and vio l en ce , and the Chicago a n a r ­
chists.
Still, the ge n e r a l i z a t i o n may stand, that
A mer ica n soc ie ty s u b s c r i b e d to--and on the whole vindicated--the ben evo le nt thesis of Re v o lu ti on ar y patriotism.
Em erson seem ed to d e m o n s t r a t e that, even when traditional
Protestant theolo gy could be dispe nse d with, the economy
of the u niv er se was such that traditional morality was
undisturbed.
By t rus tin g himself, H u c k Finn comes out
mor a ll y inviolate.
D e s p i t e the ordeal of rude pione er ing
and civil strife, the s t e a d y p ro gr ess io n of this society
toward the goals of b e n e v o l e n c e was u n m i s t a k a b l e . 5
Given this p r o g r e s s i v e view,
Henry James'
it is easy to under st and
charge that A m e r i c a posse sse d "no history" vital
enough for fiction.
As much as any th in g else James implied
in that observation, he was p o in ti ng to a lack of "historical
sense" in the culture and mo st of her writers,
of ontological
for what kind
links were to be admitted in a culture w h ic h
turned its b ac k upon the Pa st and cl ung to the belief in its
utter uniqueness
in global ex per ie nce ?
^ I b i d ., pp.
2 8 5 -6 ,
James sensed the
56
l a c k of an added dimension,
s t r u g g l i n g with, without
of "thickness" derived from
trying to level,
h i s t o r y and "the moment," and the
atonement.
the paradoxes
of
etiology of guilt and
And might we not also add:
that James intuited
that su ch a progressive v i e w was ul ti mat el y the enemy of
that f r e e d o m essential to art,
st erile recapitulation,
its monomyth capable onl y of
since it tended to ignore the de pth
and d e ns it y of being where f r e ed om exists as generative of
mo ra l aw ar en ess in experience.
It is clear from our present
standpoint h o w mu ch
20th c e n t u r y Amer ic a has suffered the consequences of the
gospel o f benev ol ent moral
id eal is m and progress--the r a p a ­
cious ex pl oi tat io ns of environment
the fact of h u ma n displacement
in a burgeoning technocracy,
and the de str uc tiv e consequences
pr o vi nc ia l
"manifest destiny"
and natural resources,
of pursuing our curio us ly
on a worldwide scale.
It is
not clear, however, whether these "setbacks" have engrained
in us a suf fic i en tl y critical historical awareness to judge
this p r o g re ss iv e
ethos in terms of larger,
of h u m a n experience.
universal pattern s
In our recent past the kind of e f f u ­
sive self-ri ght eo usn es s
ch aracteristic of the American p r o ­
g r e ss iv e v i s i o n has fre quently made us particularly blind to
"other" h is to rie s than our own,
our own image,
unless they are made over in
a feat we also continue
to attempt.
In lesser degrees of intensity and success,
of the South have shared this progressive vision.
stances
segments
Circum­
and temperament have at the same time produc ed vast
57
cultural differences:
the facts of w id esp re ad poverty,
basic al ly agrarian economy,
a
and the positio n of the Negro
have pr od u ce d problems and responses disti nc tly "Sout her n. ”
This re gio na l hi story alone was no doubt enough to produce
a distinct historical consciousness,
but it is the combined
facts of the Civil War w it h its trauma of Reconstruction,
and the strong biblic al tradition, w h ic h have implanted and
r e in for ce d a theological
sciousness
dimension in that his torical c o n ­
that linked it w i th the universal.
These combined
forces have not of n e c e ss it y resulted in a univocal "Southern
sensibility," but
they have created a his tor ic al situation
which at every turn re i nfo rce d the kind of concrete "Chri s­
tian" ontology discus se d in the prece di ng chapter--the
respect
for mystery,
for the concrete,
for the power of evil,
for the integrity of pl ace and time, and a he al thy suspicion
of abstract and problema ti c
This vas t ly different
solutions to h u man mysteries.
"psychic condition" experienced by
the Southerner in contrast to his no n- So ut he rn neighbors
has been described by histor ia n Richard Wea v er as follows:
If we look at the typical American against the b a c k ­
ground of his experience, his folklore, and his social
aspirations, we are forced to admit that he represents,
more than any other type in the world, victorious man.
He has surpassed the people of every other country in
a ma ssi ng wealth, in rearing institutions, and in getting
his values recognized, for better or worse, throughout
the world.
While he is often chided for his complacent
b e li ef in progress, it must be confessed that events
have conspired to encourage that belief, and to make
progress appear the central theme of his history.
In
all sorts of senses he has never ceased to go forward;
and to much of the world America has come to symbolize
58
that future in wh ich man will be invariably successful
both in combat w i t h n a t u r e and in his struggle w it h the
problems of human or gan iza ti on.
This adds up to saying
that in the eyes of the w o r l d as well as in his own
eyes the typical A m er ic an stands for unlimited success.
But this is the po int where the Southerner ceases to
be classifiable as American.
He has had to taste a
bitter cup which no A m e r i c a n is supposed to know anything
about, the cup of defeat.
Thus in a world where the
American is suppose d to be uni fo rm ly successful, he
exists as an anomalous American.
Mu ch of the Southerner's
no nc onformity and i n t r a ns ig en ce results from the real
difficulty of a dj us tin g a p sy ch ol ogy which has been
nourished upon this e xp er ien ce to the predominating
national psychology, w h i c h has bee n nourished upon
uninterrupted success.
The effects of this adv ers e his t or y upon the S ou th ­
ern mentality have n e v e r been candidly appraised.
For
example, it cannot be wi tho ut significance that the
Southerner today is the on ly involuntary tenant of the
American Union.
I a m not suggesting that there exists
at present a mass f e e li ng of political independence, as
there did at one time; but the re co r d of American h i s ­
tory, w hi ch he has to r e a d along wit h his Northern
brother, says that h e is wh ere he is as the result of
a settlement of force ag ainst him.
To argue that the
resulting condition is e c o n o m i c a l l y or otherwise to his
advantage is beside the point; the book continues to
say that a supreme act of his will was frustrated, and
that as a consequence of that defeat he had to a c c o m m o ­
date himself to an u n w a n t e d circumstance.
And that, of
course, is the m e a n i n g of failure.
Therefore in the
national legend the typical American owes his position
to a virtuous and e f f ec ti ve act of his will; but the
Southerner owes his to the fact that his will was denied;
and this leaves a k i n d of ineq ual it y which no amount of
political blandi shm en t can remove entirely.
Although
there appears today no lively awareness of this f r u s t r a ­
tion, it none the less lies deep in his psychology, a
subdued but ingrown re min de r that at one time his all
was not enough--a remin der , furthermore, that Americans
too can fail.
Pro ba bl y this explains w h y his presence
sometimes irks his f e l l o w Americans.
He cannot sit in
conclave with their u n s p o i l e d innocence, for he brings,
along with a ce rtain outw ard exuberance, these sardonic
me m o r i e s . G
Richard M. Weaver, "Aspects of the Southern P h i l o s o ­
phy," Southern R e n a i s s a n c e , ed. Louis Rubin and Robert Jacobs
(Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press, 1953), p p . 24-25-
59
Thus as W e av er suggests,
the fact of the South's defeat
s t re n g t h e n e d the sense of h um an limitation as a fundamental
co n di ti on of life.
It is a situation which,
the b i b l i c a l tradition,
ment h ist ory .
South's
finds strong p arallels in Old Testa-
This does not mean to suggest
that the
defeat nec ess ar ily produced a sense of corresponding
identity w i t h the scriptural
are also
coupled with
tradition.
Negative reactions
evident in various impulses toward retrenchment:
the ro m a n t i c
(and essentia ll y non-Christian) worship of
S ou the rn "Past"
(a kind of cultural necrophilia),
p r o v i n c i a l i s m and defensiveness,
through se cular progress.
and "modernizing"
Nevertheless,
deep r e l i g i o us -h is to ri ca l instinct,
pr o vi de d an immediate,
bigoted
the South
for the writer of
the defeat situation
concre te analogue of the essential
fallen c o n d i t i o n of mankind.
To Miss O'Connor this c o n s t i ­
tutes a vital link be tween the Southern situation and the
universal.
W h e n Wa lk e r Percy won the National Book A w a r d , newsmen
a s k e d h i m why there were so many good Southern writers
and he said, 'Because we lost the war.'
He didn't mean
by that simply that a lost war makes go od subject matter.
W h at he was saying was that we have had our Fall.
We
hav e gone into the m o d e r n world wi th an inburnt knowl edg e
of h u m a n limitations and with a sense of mystery which
c o u l d not have developed in our first state of innocence--
Faulkner, for example, preferred the Old Testament
to the New.
The latter, he felt, was "about ideas," whereas
the Old Testam ent recorded concrete human struggles like
those he saw around him.
However, the fact that he again
and a ga in ret ur ned to New Testament rev el at i on in his fiction
ind i ca te s his fascination with the analogical possibilities
inhere nt in that "idea."
60
as it has not su ffi ci e nt l y developed in the rest of our
country.
Not every lost war w oul d have this effect on every
society, but we were d o ub ly blessed, not only in our
Fall, but in h a vi ng the means, to interpret it.
Behind
our own history, de ep en in g it at every point, has b een
another history.
M e nc ke n called the South the Bible
Belt, in scorn and thus in incredible innocence.
In
the South we have, in ho wever attenuated a form, a v i ­
sion of Moses' face as he pulverized our idols.
This
knowledge is what makes the Georgia w r i te r different
from the writer from H ol lyw oo d or New York.
It is the
knowledge that the no ve lis t finds in his community.
The striki ng feature of this hist or ica l sense is its
fundamentally religious base;
its very natu re
to a secular "progressive" vie w of man.
is antinomous
The latter tends
to
shrink or dimini sh the ontological depths of b e i n g into
categorizable molds.
defeat,
Paradoxically,
the sense of loss,
of
viewed in the biblical context co n ti n ua ll y reaffirms
and widens
the m y st er y of ma n's being, be ca us e
this loss and
sense of l im it at ion brings wi th it a felt pe rc ep ti on of the"wholeness" of be ing which has been denied man by the Fall.
This is one reas on for the preoc cu pat ion in muc h Southern
literature with grotesque characters
and violent
actions;
it
is a pr eo cc upa ti on ro ot e d in the me taphysical sense of the
wholeness of being,
and should not be int erp re ted sen tim entally
as simply the writer's anguished,
with mode rn man's
"plight."
freak in literature,
romantic
identification
Southern p re oc c u p a t i o n with the
as Miss O'Connor noted,
is possible
g
Flannery O'Connor, My st er y and M a n n e r s , ed. Sally
and Robert Fi tz ge ral d (New York:
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1 9 6 9 ), p. 5 9 .
6l
because of the w r i t e r ’s felt awareness of "the whole man,"
and the whole man given in r e v e l a t i o n is Christ.
Whenever I'm asked w hy So uth er n writers pa rt ic ul ar ly
have a penchant for w r i t i n g about freaks, I say it is
because we are still able to recognize one.
To be able
to reco gni ze a freak, you have to have some conception
of the whole man, and in the South the general con ce p­
tion of man is still, in the main, theological....
approaching the subject from the standpoint of the writer,
I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly
Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.
The Southerner, who is not convinced of it, is very much
afraid that he may have been formed in the image and
likeness of God.
Ghosts can be very fierce and ins tr uc­
tive.
T h e y cast strange shadows, particularly in our
literature.
In any case, it is when the freak can be
sensed as a figure of our essential displacement that he
attains some depth in literat ure .^
The S ou the rn h i s t o r y of defeat, then, provid ed an
analogue for the universal Fall,
and Bible history gave the
writer d im en si ona lit y for in terpreting contemporary ex pe r i­
ence in a u ni ve rsa l light.
nical advantage,
T hi s is both a thematic and tech­
because while biblical history p rov id ed a
living re co r d by which to sound and evaluate the depths
Southern history,
of
it also p r o v i d e d "distance" from that con ­
temporary history,
and "distance"
is related formally to
point of view and the q ue sti on of aesthetic and moral p r o p o r ­
tionality.
Sure ly one r e a s o n for
"dispassionate"
Southern writers'
seemingly
depiction of violenc e and grotesquerie is the
precedent for such treatment in the Bible--in both judgment
and technical han d li ng of point of view.
Moral distance and
aesthetic distance are finally interdependent,
^ I b i d ♦ , pp.
44-4$,
of course.
62
and here aesthetic distance is an evaluative as well as
representa ti ona l instrument
in fiction.
The Bible offers
the same "perspective"--particular action rendered in proper
dramatic pr oportion wi th i n a vision of the w h o l e — that one
finds frequently in the best Southern fiction.
Since the Civil War, and inc re as in gl y in the last
few decades,
the South has felt the pre ss ure of the " m od er n­
ist" spirit in all aspects of its life.
"Modernism," here,
is not equatable w ith simple change, since obviously the
South has undergone constructive alterations
that have not
in themselves eroded the religious s e ns ibi lit y of the region.
Rather,
the term implies
that progressive secular spirit
whose basis is the idea of human p e r f e c t a b i l i t y , an u n q u a l i ­
fied projection toward the future and dissociation from the
past,
and the abandonment of "historical s e n s e ” in the o n to ­
logical conception of the term.
In short,
erners everywhere, m a n y of them writers,
there are S o ut h ­
who are turning
away from the ambiguous burden of their "history" by an
immersion in progressivism.
Yet beca us e the South is still
less "modern" and more traditional,
the traumatic clash of
these two opposing philosophies and va lue systems makes itsel f
especially felt in the region's fiction.
outcome of this clash,
in terms of fiction,
What will be the
both in terms of bel i ef and cu lturally
is as yet undecided.
It may be that
the South will be un ab l e to resist the erosion of historical
sense and the stu lt ify ing of independence under the large
63
trends toward massification o pe ra tin g in America today.
Whatever the outcome, Southern literature with its strong
scriptural base has provided a mos t penetrating and enduring
critique of the progressive secular spirit.
For one of the
paradoxical effects of this pervasive spirit in America has
been to drive Southern fiction wri t er s toward more violent
and bizarre modes of creation,
modes whose freedom,
nality and mystery continually den y the reductive
every turn.
or igi­
impulse at
C H A P T E R THREE
In the i n t r o du ct io n to this study I stressed the
interpenetrative r e l a t i o n s h i p between theme and form in the
Christian historical vision,
"history"
arguing that the manner in which
is reali zed in the fictional work determines its
aesthetic and ontological
validity.
This
must be appr oac hed more clo se l y now:
to live in the created work,
fundamental prob lem
h o w is "history" made
so that it is drama tic al ly g e n ­
erative of values w i t h i n the work and in relati on to the
history it interprets thr ou g h fiction?
be answer ed solely by themat ic analysis.
works, as I have noted,
This
question cannot
Some fictional
i nt ent io nal ly present Christian
history allegorically as axi evaluative n o r m for the literal
action of the story,
his tor y is "dead"
stant
but
it is done in such a way that the
or static within the work,
a kind of c o n ­
(I use the term p e r j o r a t i v e l y ) n orm to which author
and rea de r make mental
of a pa rt ic ula r action.
leaps
to discover the significance
In short,
the h i s t o r y evoked is
actually dissociated fr om the concrete level of the action,
imposed like an ov er- ri din g schema of values , and not g e n­
erated dramat ica ll y from wi th i n the action itself.
In other
cases we find Christian h i s t o r y evoked in s uc h a way that
its full com ple xi ty and m e a n i n g is "shrunken"
64
to fit the
65
demands
of a p a r t i c u l a r viewpoint
of the wri te r -- wh o p r e ­
sents an "al le go ry " which in the pr oce ss distorts and
di mi nishes that history;
one thinks of Cars on M c C u l l e r s '
"The H e a r t Is a Lo ne l y Hunter"
of the Flie s"
in this respect.
and W i l l i a m Golding's
"Lord
To v i e w a w o r k simply in
terms of the t h e m at i c parallels dr awn b e tw ee n the literal
action a n d the C h r i st ia n hi st or y evok ed does not s a t i s f a c ­
torily e x p l a i n the aesthetic and on tol og ica l value of the
work.
T h i s pr obl em ,
I have argued,
by an a n a l y s i s o f form:
seeing the
can best be approached
"history" as an a n a l o g i ­
cal d i m e n s i o n of the literal act i on be ing presented,
by the h i s t o r i c a l
the m a n n e r
being.
sense operating w i t h i n the creative act in
of the metaphysical
T h r o u g h this doctrine
everywhere
achieved
doc tr in e of the an alo gy of
of a n a l o g y the h is to ri cal is
" p r e s e n t ," though it evokes past,
and it is d y ­
n a m i c a l l y c r e a t e d by and in turn creativ e of the density of
value c a r v e d into the work.
In its pop ula r sense the t er m "analogy" may denote
simply the p r a c t i c e of making met aph o ri ca l
dra w in g li k e n e s s e s between different
objects or actions.
The si mp l e m e t a p h o r "my love is a rose"
p o in ti ng i m p l i c i t l y to the beautiful
objects posses s.
i n d i s pe ns ib le
associations,
illustrates
this,
qualities which bo th
This kind of analogizing,
to the symbolical writer.
of course,
However,
is
"analogy"
used in the m e t a ph ys ic al sense co nveys a more important type
of c o m p a r i s o n
than simply metaphor-m aki ng.
The latter tends
66
to suggest parallels whic h are extrinsic
actions bein g linked, whereas
to the objects or
in the ph ilosophical sense
an a log y attempts to describe an intrinsic rel ationship
be t w e e n the nature of the objects
This means
that an inherent
ture of being,
between,
or actions themselves.
simi la rit y of form,
or s t r u c ­
exists between two objects or actions,
or
say, the actions of the life of a thirty-three-
y e ar -o ld idiot named Benjy C o m p s o n and a Na zar ene carpenter.^
A n a l o g y in the sense of met aph or-making, however valuable,
is simply not adequate to e x pl a in the kind of qualitative
and dynamic re lat ionship that
"historical"
levels
exists between the literal and
in a creat ed work.
Only by an intrinsic,
ana logical identification o f the two is the hist ori ca l truly
mad e alive,
generating step by step its own vit a li ty and
that of the action through wh i ch
it is evoked in a c o n t i n u ­
ous dramatic movement.
The doctrine of the a na lo gy of be i n g is a m e t a p h y s i ­
cal answer to the p ro ble m of h o w being can be everywhere
bo t h alike and different.
2
Consequently,
ex p lai n the structure of all existence,
extremes
it attempts to
avoiding the two
of vie win g existence in a univocal wa y
(everywhere
"Analogy," Enc yclo pedia of Re ligion and E t h i c s ,
ed. James Hastings (New York:
C h a s . Scribners S o n s ) ÏT
H a s ti ng s traces this co mmonly he l d distinction to Suarez.
2
Throughout this d i s cu ss io n I am imme asu rab ly indebted
to the discussion of the analo gic al and the Christological
in chapters from Fr. Lynch's Ch rist and A p o l l o .
67
the same) or in an equivo ca l w a y (everywhere different).
According to the analogical principle,
descends or is r eal iz ed
lagon)
the act of existence
"a cc ord ing to a proporti on "
in w h ic h the degree of existence is always
(ana-
in p r o p o r ­
tion to the degree of p os s i b i l i t y of b e in g inherent in the
form of the thing r ec e i v i n g it.
able throughout all being;
to possibility."
Thi s pr op ort io n is invari­
it is always "existence according
As a consequence,
being is everywhere alike,
one and the same in its str uct ur al principle.
does not mean that existent
univocal view).
However,
things are simply the same
it is never the same act of existence.
thing,
action,
is new,
but it is that "chair,"
Each
as existence adapts itself to
each new po ss ib il it y of being.
structural,
(the
Althoug h existence descends and is realized
analogously,
idea,
this
So it is not just "chair,"
in all its unique specificity.
The
formal p r o p o r t i o n remains the same--"existence
a cc ord in g to p o s s i b il it y" -- b ut the two parts of the p r o p o r ­
tion change as existence adapt s
bility,
itself to each new po ssi ­
and so the act of existence is always different.
other words,
every ex ist in g thing,
formally speaking,
In
is the
same and different.
Before pr o c e e d i n g to examine the implications of this
doctrine more fully,
let me state that this seems
exactly how a certain "historical"
biblical,
or otherwise--is
to me
dimension--classical,
"present"
in an authentically
creative way w i th in the literal level of a story.
It is
68
part of the "act of existence" descending and being realized
p r o p o rt io na te ly "according to the possibility"
within the concre te literal action.
of being
What is important to
note here is that the historical analogue is not attached
to the lite ral in a simply metaphorical way,
this occurs
too.
of structural
Rather,
thoug h sometimes
there is an intrinsic
form between the two levels,
similarity
in order for them
to be p r o p e r l y interpenetrative and mutually illuminating.
When this is not so,
of univocal way,
the two levels are related in a kind
similarities being drawn bet wee n them which
are ins igh tfu l but arbitrarily imposed,
and which do not
develop d ra m a t i c a l l y from within the concrete.
The h i s t o r i ­
cal or m o ra l analogue seems to be "tacked on," and this
causes a "dis-propo rti on" between the two levels.
He avily
didactic w ork s are an example of this situation, where the
me aning "hangs over" rather than germinates from the concrete
level.
Perhaps
two examples
the distinction can best be illustrated by
f rom Faulkner,
one in which the C hr is tia n h i s ­
torical level is presented in a rather dissociated,
way,
univocal
and the ot her in w h i ch it seems to me to germinate d ra ­
m a t ic al ly f r om the literal
tion" scene
In the first,
a "te mp ta­
f r o m ^ F a b l e , the priest draws an analogy to
the hi st ori ca l
out of his
level.
Christ while trying to talk the doomed corporal
sacrificial gesture.
'The Book,' the priest said.
The corporal looked at him.
'You mean y ou don't even know it?'
'I can't read,' the corporal said.
69
'Then I'll cite for you, plead for you,' the priest said.
'It wasn't He with his hum il it y and pity and sacrifice
that conver ted the world; it was pagan and bloody Rome
which did it with His martyrdom; furious and intractable
dreamers h ad been bringing that same dream out of Asia
Minor for three hundred years until at last one found
a caesar foolish enough to cruc if y him.
And y o u are
right.
But then so is he (I don't mean H im now, I mean
the old man in that white r o o m yonder onto whose s h o u l ­
ders y ou are trying to slough and shirk your right and
duty for free will and d e c i s i o n . ) Because only Rome
could have done it, acc omplished it, and even He (I do
mean H i m now) knew it, felt and sensed this, furious and
intractable dreamer though he was.
Because He even said
it Himself:
On this Rock
found My C h u r c h , even while
He didn't --a nd never w ou ld -- rea liz e the true si g n i f i ­
cance of what He was saying, b e li ev in g still that he
was speaking poetic metaphor, synonym, parable--that
rock meant unstable inconstant heart, and church meant
airy faith.
It wasn't even his first and favored s yc o­
phant who read that significance, who was also ignorant
and intractable like H i m and even in the end got h i m ­
self also electrocuted by the dreamers intractable fire,
like Him.
It was Paul, who was a Roman first and then
a man and only then a dreamer and so of all of them was
able to read the dream correctly and to realize that,
to endure, it could not be a nebulou s and airy faith but
instead it must be a c h u r c h , an e s t a b l i s h m e n t , a morali ty
of b eha vio r inside w hic h man could exercise his right
and duty for free will and decision, not for a reward
re s em bl ing the bedtime tale wh ich soothes the child into
darkness, but the reward of b e i n g able to cope p e a c e ­
fully, to h old his own, with the hard durable world in
which (whether he would ever kn ow why or not wouldn't
matter because now he could cope with that too) he found
himself.
Not snared in that frail web of hopes and fears
and aspirations which man calls his heart, but f i x e d ,
e s t a b l i s h e d , to e n d u r e , on that r ock whose synonym was
the seeded capitol of that h ard durable enduring earth
w hich man must cope with somehow, by some means, or
perish.
So you see, he is right.
It wasn't He nor
Peter, but Paul who, being only one-third dreamer, was
two-thirds man and half of that a Roman, could cope with
Rome.
Who did more; who, r e n de ri ng unto Caesar, c o n ­
quered Rome.
More:
destroyed it, because where is that
Rome now?
Until what remains but that r o c k , that citadel
Ren der unto C h a u l n e s m o n t . Why should you die?'^
3
W i l l i a m Faulkner,
1950), pp. 364-5.
A Fable
(New York:
Rando m House,
70
This passage,
alt ho ug h r h e t o r i c a l l y effective and reson ant
with several important themes,
dramatic analogical movement
together,
does not contain the kin d of
of the
literal and hi st ori ca l
i n t e r p e n e t r a t i v e l y , w hi ch a fully realize d passage
would achieve.
It bears
the e a rm ar k of added explanation,
of thematic emb ell is hm en t wh ich h el ps
"explain" the p o t e n ­
tial depth of the a c t , but does so by temporarily drawing
our eye away f r o m the concret e situation.
pro p or ti on bet wee n the two levels.
We sense a d i s ­
Contrast it with the
fol l ow in g passage from The Sound and the F u r y , in wh ich we
see a historical
level
fu lly emb od ied in p ro por tio n to the
concrete dramatic moveme nt w i t h i n
the scene.
It occurs whe n
Dilsey takes Benjy to the Easter c h u rc h service,
R e v er en d Shegog begin s his
and the
sermon.
T h e n a voice said, 'Brethren.*
The preacher h ad not moved.
His arm lay yet across the
desk, and he still h el d that pose while the voice died
in sonorous echoes b e tw ee n the walls.
It was as d i f ­
ferent as day and d ar k from his former t o n e , with a sad
timbrons quality like an alto horn, sinking into their
hearts and speakin g there again wh en it had ceased in
fa di ng and cumulate echoes.
'Brethren and sistern,' it said again.
The preache r
re moved his arm and he began to wa lk back and forth
before the desk, his hands clasped behind him, a meager
figure, hunched over upon itself like that of one long
immured in strivin g w i t h the implacable earth.
'I got
the r ec o l l e c t i o n and the Blood of the L a m b ! ' He tramped
steadily back and f o r th b e n e at h the tw isted paper and
the Christmas bell, hunched, his hands clasped behind
him.
He was like a wo rn small r o c k whe lm ed by the s u c ­
cessive waves of his voice.
With his body he seemed to
feed the voice that, succubus like, had fleshed its
teeth into him.
And the co ng r e g a t i o n seemed to w a tc h
w it h its oifn eyes while the voice consumed him, until
he was n o t h i n g and they were n o t h i n g and there was not
even a voice but in stead their hearts were spe ak ing to
one another in ch an ti ng measu res beyond the need for
71
■words, so that when he came to rest against the reading
desk, his monk ey face lifted and his whole attitude that
of a serene tortured crucifix that transcended its s ha b­
biness and insignificance and made it of no moment, a
long m o a n i n g expulsion of breath rose fr om them, and a
woman's single soprano:
'Yes, Jesus!'
As the scudding day passed overhead the dingy
windows glowed and faded in ghos tl y retrograde.
A car
pass ed along the road outside, laboring in the sand,
died away.
Dilsey sat bolt upright, her hand on Ben's
knee.
Two tears slid down her fallen cheeks, in and
out of the myri ad coruscations of immolation and a b n e g a ­
tion and time.
The rea der experie nci ng this passage senses a deeper degree
of "realization"
than in the passage from A F a b l e .
As the
scene unfolds the action proceeds with a point-by-point
in ter pe ne tr at in g correspondence between the literal
and the "history"
the concrete.
evoked through it without
level
jumping off from
We have a fully concretized dramatic movement
wi th the pre acher's voice being incarnated w i t h the audience
in this specific place and moment of co mmunion of spirit,
and w i t hi n that same movement,
cally,
evoked through it a n a l o g i ­
an image of the historical Chris tia n inc arn ation--of
flesh and spirit. Word and Act--signified by the text:
"recollection and Blood of the Lamb."
Moreover,
the
unlike the
passage fr om ^ F a b l e , here the his tor ica l analogue seems so
fully con cr eti ze d that it both gives greater validi ty to and
receives v a li di ty from the literal l e v e l , in the p r e s e n t .
There
is an active dynamism of reciprocal
the two levels.
insight be twe en
One reads the words and the literal is both
^W ill iam Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
R a nd om House, 1929), pp. 310-11.
(New York:
72
"same" and "different" from the hist or ica l analogue, and
the reader experiences the two levels analogously, because
of the intrinsic unity of structural
the "spirit"
nation
form between the t wo —
of divinit y being r e a li z ed in Christ's i nc ar ­
(idea m o v i n g into act),
and the
"spirit" of in ca rn a­
tion b e i ng r e al iz ed in Shegog's physical movements and
vo i ce- -th ou gh on a lesser level.
H e re we have the same
principle of p r o p o r t i o n — existence according to po ss ib il ity —
operating both with in the hist or ica l
and literal levels,
in r ela ti on to each other analogously.
is prese nte d in this manner,
it seems
and
When the historical
to achieve Eliot's
ideal of the pro pe r r e l at io ns hi p be tw ee n "past" and "present,"
creative and vital.
In the pas s ag e from ^ F a b l e , however,
the reader does not experience the same unified,
dramatic moveme nt
concrete
of the h i s to r ic al and the literal.
Their
r el ati on shi p is more ext rin s ic al ly and univocally rendered.
It might pe rhaps be objected that the two scenes use d i ff er ­
ent fictional techniques:
one is p ri mar il y dialogue, while
the other is scene depicted by an outside narrator.
ever,
How­
one can find similar "dis-embodied" historical analogues
in Faulkner's
objective n a r r a t i o n also
(especially in A
F a b l e ), just as one can find fully "realized" analogues
presented by way of monologue or dialogue,
as for example,
Shegog's actual sermon and its subsequent
effect on Dilsey.
The q ues tio n of h o w the historical dimension is
re al ize d in an authe nt ica ll y analogical way in a wo rk is a
73
my st er y w i t h i n the creative decisio n- mak ing process, b o un d
up w i th the hi st ori ca l
sense,
the international sensibility,
and the na tu re o f the free act itself.
Nevertheless,
the
principle of analogy gives several important clues to the
dynamics of this process.
First of all, if "history" is
r eal ize d v a l i d l y in an analogical manner in a work,
can be no que st io n of simply a metaphorical,
statis r e l a t i o n s h i p between the historical
concrete.
there
extrinsic,
or
level and the
'Since analogy of b e i n g is based upon a law of
p r o p o r t i o n a l i t y betw ee n the energy of existence desc en din g
into act and the po ssi bi lit y inherent
ates,
in the form it a c t u ­
the same intrinsic rel at io n sh ip must exist be tw ee n the
histo ric al and the literal it descends into.
The same f o r ­
mal st ruc tu re must be common to the nature of both pa rts-though e ac h is rea ll y a different
tion of "fitting"
thing.
the his to ri ca l analogue to the concrete,
nor ev e n of "heightening"
the concrete to match the d i m e n ­
sions o f the hist or ica l analogue.
limited,
It is not a q u e s ­
The concrete is narrow,
and one might think not large enough to "contain"
the m an y mo ve me nt s and meanings of the historical w h i c h are
being e v o k e d - - o r in p hi los op hic al terms,
of exist enc e des cen din g into it.
But as we shall see in
discu ss ing the Chr ist ol ogi cal idea,
is that
to contain the act
one my ste ry of analogy
the power of po ss ib ili ty of being within the c o n ­
crete is never exhausted by the act of existence,
par adoxically,
and that
it is only th rough fidelity to the concrete
74
literal that co mplex analogical v i s i o n can be fully realized.^
Attempts to "fit"
the historical to the literal,
heighten the concrete,
torting to both,
of course,
invariably are on tol og i ca l ly dis­
creating a kind of rom an ti c
the use of language.
or to
aura through
Faulkner fr e qu en tl y indulged in this,
and it seems to me that it was his sense of a na ­
logical action w h ic h often saved h i m from the abuses of his
own rhetorical power.
A second
observed is that
important ch ara c te ri st ic of the analogical
the relationship bet wee n the historical
the literal levels
in a wor k is not static or passive.
heart of analogical movement,
dynamic and dramatic.
passage quoted,
That
as Fr.
is why,
the reader is not
Lynch notes,
and
The
is a c t i o n ,
in the R eve ren d Shegog
just int ellectually o b ­
serving the passage unfold different levels of meaning (as
in the passage from A F a b l e ), but is ac tu all y experiencing
through the language the same structural movement
of inc arn a­
tion Reverend Shegog embodied in front of the congregation.
Hi st or y descends
into the literal in all its possibilities,
the literal in turn "validates" that h i st or y because of
their intrinsic
identity of structural
levels interact dynamically.
their re lationship
form,
and the two
Or to state it differently,
is one of mutual and co ntinuing revelation.
Miss O'Connor, dis cussing the creative process,
once expressed this idea as follows:
"It seems to be a p a r a ­
dox that the larger and more complex the personal view, the
easier it is to compress it into fiction."
75
each incarnating and a u t h e n t i c a t i n g the form and mea ni ng of
the other in a dramatic and o n go in g manner.
to recall,
in this respect,
It is important
the H eb ra ic -Ch ri sti an noti on of
creation as a process of c o n t i n u i n g genesis cited in C h a p ­
ter I.
This re la tio nsh ip of co nt in uin g rev elation between
the literal and the hist ori ca l
levels is,
it seems to me,
the essence of "discovery" w i t h i n the creative act, and the
core of an incarnational
sensibility.
It also helps
explain,
I think, why so many wo rk s w h i c h invoke a Christian or c l a s ­
sical historical
level to the literal action fail to d r a ­
matically generate the v al ue s in ten de d to be created in the
work by invoking those parallels;
the levels
is static and fixed,
Understandably,
the relationship bet we en
to the diminishment of both.
it is in these works
level tends to exist only as "past,"
that the historical
a dated norm used to
impose value on a work r a t h e r than discover it creatively
through the concrete.
Fau lk ne r' s ^ F a b l e , for example,
seems to me ae sth etically u n s a t i s f a c t o r y for one reason
because there is a di sp ro po rt io n bet wee n the various
between insight and action,
levels,
so that it is not realized and
moving with a sim ultaneity of re ve la tio ns on all levels.
The kind of dynamic
i nt er ac tio n and mutual r e v e l a ­
tion in analogy is best exe mp l if ie d by the practice of f o u r ­
fold exegesis
common in scriptural
analysis.
in the Old Testament n a r ra t iv e of the Jews'
Egypt,
For example,
liberation from
there is first of all the literal text which points
76
to a h i s t o r i c a l
fact, and the allegori ca l
levels which it
contains b y an intrinsic identity of form.
The Jews of the Old Testam ent are liberated from
Egypt a n d f r om the waters of the Red Sea.
This is more
than just a word, it is also an h is torical fact.
Yet
w i t h o u t b e c o m i n g less of a fact, it is also a sign, a
type, of a n o t h e r reality to come, the liberation of
Christ f r o m the dead.
Yet it is more than an historical
metaph or , or an artificial si gn im planted in a fact,
chos en at r a n d o m to be related to something else.
For
it has the same concrete structure, though on a poorer
and less important level, as that greater thing toward
w h i c h it points.
And the deeper one goes into the whole
h i s t o r i c a l c on cre ti on of the ear lie r reality, the more
insight t he re is into that w h i c h is to come....But the
r e v e r s e is also true.
If one brings the Re sur re cti on
b a c k over against the liberation of this ancient people
f r om the wa ter s, that first act of li b er ati on is i l l u m i ­
n a t e d as ne ver before.
There is a m u t ua li t y of forces
for insight o pe rat in g betw ee n the +wo events.
Each is
b o r r o w i n g light from the other....®
To these leve ls m a y also be added the tropological
(moral),
w h er ei n the l i b e r a t i o n story is a type of man's being freed
from the b o n d a g e
points
of sin,
to m a n k i n d ' s
It should be noted,
are not h e l d by
so m e t i m e s
the sp ec if ic
F a ul kn er and,
sometimes
text.
final r e s u rr ec ti o n at the Last Judgment.
however,
that the
four levels of me aning
Sometimes only one is intended,
two or three,
the
and so on, de pending upon
This also seems to me to be the case in
to a lesser extent,
o n ly one or two levels
O'Connor's
fiction, where
can be dem onstrated without
u n j u s t i f i a b l y ov e re xt en di ng the literal
^L ynch,
where the story
scriptural scholars to be operating in every
case in the Bible.
literal,
and the analogical,
text, wh ich is to
Christ and A p o l l o , p. l84.
77
say of adding meanings ext ri ns ic a ll y wh ich do not grow
analog ic all y from the concrete level.
But in the best
symbolical fi ct io n of Faulkner and O'Connor, we have a
similar pr ocess of mutual ill umi n at io n going on.
Th ere is
the literal level of the story, and presented through it
analogically is the moral h i s t o r y of the South and American
society past and present;
there is also classical and r e d e m p ­
tion h i s t o r y evoked, which the mselves possess a literal level
with allegorical
dimensions
man (past, present,
that e vo ke the universal life of
and fu tu re) --a nd all giving and ga in in g
insight by their mutual dynamic
story contains this many levels;
interaction.
some,
Not every
like "A Rose for
Emily," simply do not convey that density of historical
meaning.
But such is the vital f u n c t i o n i n g of the h i s ­
torical sense in the analogical creat ive act that all d i m e n ­
sions of po ss ib il it y should be exp lo re d so as not to diminish
the various levels at which the w o r k can be experienced.
One p r o b l e m which the doctrine of analogy helps
clarify is that of the r e l at io ns h ip between classical,
Testament,
and New Testament an al o gu es
Old
in a par ticular work.
«
They are his to ry which is "made present" within the action
as it unfolds sequentially,
but this does not mean that
they
need be rig id l y arranged in a tempora l order, w ith classical
analogues first,
followed by Old and New Testament.
Rather,
under ana log y they exist si m ul ta ne ou sl y as "levels of being"
possible of recei vin g and giving insight,
and each level
78
has its appropriate intrin si c s t r u c t u r e .
T he classical mold
can only "contain" so much wi th i n its limited ontological
structure,
as il lus tr ate d by the quote from Romano Guardini
in Chapter I, wh ereas
the divine revelation considerably
widened the p os si bil ity of being.
ancient pagan ritual
Ike McCaslin,
but
illuminates
In "The Bear," for example,
the hun ti ng initiation of
then the Christian level of initiation
into redemptive freedom a n d historical consciousness is
added to the concrete action,
deepening its meaning in ways
the pagan mold simply c oul d not.
And further, by referring
the analogues of R e v e l a t i o n in the story b a c k to the pagan
primitive mold, we illuminate and further clarify the d i me n­
sions and possibilities of insight contained in each level.
The p r ob le m wh ic h n o w confronts us for co nsidera­
tion is what radical effect on the structure of being, with
its analogical principle of "existence ac cording to p o s s i ­
bility," is caused b y the immersion of Christ into human
history?
We have seen that in anaJogy there is a pro p or ­
tionality between the act of existence and the form it a c t u ­
ates,
an intrinsic r e l at io ns hi p between the two parts.
in the case of Christ's
Incarnation --d iv ine existence a c t u ­
ating human forin--the proportion,
is radically altered.
duced,
or "possibility" of being,
What new "level of being"
and what n e w intrinsic
seen to exist between
But
structural
is intro­
identity can be
the human and the divine nature?
Furthermore, how does this change in the formal structure
79
of being r e l a t e to those themes w h i c h I have out li ned in
Chapter I as central
to a C h r is t ia n historical vision?
I
have ar g u e d that the two writers under consideration employ
a Christian
i nt er pr et ati on of hi s t o r y in their fiction.
Now we shall have to examine what
that phrase can mean:
by trying to discover the intrinsic relationship b et we en
the formal an d the thematic in the Christian viewpoint, how
the m e a n i n g of those
themes is creat ed by the w a y in which
they are pres ent ed.
Fr.
Chr i st ol og ic al
Lyn ch states the prob lem of the
dimension in the following manner:
In our ch a p t e r on analogy,
we saw that it was an act
ca ll ed exi st en ce
which was des cen di ng deeper and
de e pe r into the po ssibilities of the wo r ld to take on
the p r o p o r t i o n s of these possibilities while retai nin g
an identity.
No t hin g stopped it from rema ini ng the
same; no difference was lost through being organ ize d by
it.
T h i s is the action of creation, and of the endless
d y n am is ms set in m oti on w it hi n the created world....
Ye t there has been a second and new creation.
And
n o w the fo r m whi ch shapes it is no longer an existence
wh i c h b ec o m e s different in everything it touches, leaving
only the pro por tio n the same, the proportion betw een
the act of existence and the possibi lit y of the essence.
N o w the ac t i o n is Christ, r ig i d l y one person, born in
that place, at that t i m e , with all those specificities,
w i t h this body.
H o w energetic (and esemplastic) will
he be, h o w malleable to him will the world be?...
It is n o w demanded of a new imagination that it use this
•hopel es sly rigid' form as a n e w analogical instrument
w i t h w h i c h to enter into the shapes of all things w i t h ­
out c a n c e l i n g them out.
....For Christ, we have said, is not another item of the
first creation, to be used as any other item by the old
im ag ination.
The real point is ever so much more cr u ­
cial.
F or he has subverted the whole order of the old
im ag ination.
Nor is this said in the sense that he
r e pl ac es or cancels the old; rather, he illuminates it,
and is a n ew level, identical in structure with, but
80
h i gh e r in energy than,
old.7
As Fr.
Lynch points
analogical because
tory.
out,
every form or p o s s i b i l i t y of the
a n e w dimension is added
of the immersion of Christ
There is still
in h u m a n h i s ­
the proportion of "existence according
to possibility," but because the act of existence
is greater--the divine
to the
descending
Christ--the possibilities of being
are immeasurably increased.
No one knows how much.
The
relat io nsh ip b et w e e n Christ and h u man hi st ory is an ana­
logical one:
he descen ds as the energy of e x i st enc e to
fulfill perf ec tly all the possibilities of b eing w i t h i n
history.
W ith re spe ct to creation and history, he himself
is an analogical
deepest meaning.
analogical
instrument reshaping it and g i v i n g it its
However,
instrument
the uniqueness
of Christ as an
is that he is a single,
concrete,
historical person w h o claims to be the ne w shape of all
things,
yet he does not change by b eing re al ize d in dif-
g
ferent things in creation,
the different
nor are they obliterated.
Rather,
elements and acts in creation and hi st o r y are
"gathered up" in h i m and linked together meaningfully.
his analogical union with creation is complete;
all the p ossibilities
in existence,
And
it fulfills
such as time,
death.
n
I b i d . , pp.
185-87 passim.
g
This idea is analogous to the Catholic idea of
transubstantiation in the Mass--the substance of bread and
wine changed into Christ's body and blood w hile ret a i n i n g
its physical appearances.
81
rebirth, mystery,
identity,
and matter,
This
etc.
the h y p os tat ic union of spirit
is the m y s t e r y of the Incarnation.
Because of this total anal ogi ca l
identity of a s pec ifically
historical Christ and s pec if ic h u m a n history,
things and
acts in creation are r a i s e d t o a n e w level of meaning,
and
the precise mea n i n g of the c o n c e p t of Providence becomes
clear:
that e v e r yth in g in e x i s t e n c e
"counts," and that
Christology n o t h i n g is to be n e g l ec ted .
seen the res p e c t for c o n c r e t e de tai l
lectual tradition.
in
We have already
in the Hebraic i n t e l ­
N o w the s i g n i f i c a n c e of the no velist's
task of gro und in g me an i n g in the specific becomes a b u n dan tl y
clear.
His creative act is a n a l o g i c a l l y like Christ's
"redeeming" the
concrete,
the
in
i m p o rta nce of which is i m m e a ­
surably h e i ght ene d s p i r i t u a l l y b y Christ's total un ion w i th
it.
This is the "sacredness"
of thj^ngs" w h i c h I have tried
in Chapter I.
harp,
light,
"Thus Christ
medicine,
risen sun, way,
of creation,
to e xplain in another context
is wate r,
oil, bread,
arrow,
salt,
Q
food,
a
turtle,
This is not a
it p r o c l a i m s the intrinsic m e t a ­
physical identi ty be twe en Christ
by
gold, butter,
and man y things besides."
metaphorical expression;
or the "integrity
and creation brought about
his i ncarnation into history.
A second important p oint w h i c h should
is
that,
just as in analogy,
the
as
energy de sc ending and the n e w
be n o t ed
re l a t i o n s h i p
here
between Christ
creation he shapes is not
^ L y n c h , Christ and A p o l l o , p. l88.
82
static and fixed.
The relationship,
t e m p o r a l l y fixed event,
so it is possible
is a dynamic and on g o i n g process,
to s p ea k of the evolution of Christ in
the w o r l d throughout history,
course,
a lt ho ugh rooted in a
directing and shaping its
or of the "Christianization" of m a t t e r and c o n ­
sci ous ne ss th rou gh grace;
or contrarily,
of a devolution of
the s pir itu a l i t y of "things" through debasement.
seen that because there is more energy
into existence,
bility"
(Christ)
descending
each existant is charged with more
of being.
"pos si­
In the theologian's terms this increased
po s s i b i l i t y w o u l d be calle d redemptive freedom,
of grace within nature.
existant
We have
or the action
But this does not m e a n that the
simply tr anscends
its limited form;
the effect of
C h ris t's in carnation is the opposite under analogy.
than subsume
things,
or o b l i t era te the unique id e n t i t y of existing
it allows
identification,
them to be deepened more fully in self-
to be "recovered" from the effects of the
Fall b y gradual process
Consequently,
Rather
on the concrete h i s to ric al level.
this n e w creation within h i s t o r y is char ac­
terized b y "openness"
and "possibility," in c l u d i n g as well
the p o s s i b i l i t y of r e j e c t i o n of freedom.
We are n o w in a position to see,
I think,
the vital
intrinsic conne cti on b e t w e e n the central themes of a C h r i s ­
tian h i s t o r i c a l vis ion and the formal m e t h o d of their
"presence"
in a w o rk of fiction.
I have argued that the
hi s tor ic al
level in Faulkner and O'Connor,
w hen a uthentically
83
realized,
is present as an analogical dimension of the c o n ­
crete, m ut ua lly illuminating each other in a dramatic,
unfolding action.
In addition,
I have also argued that some
works of both writers embody a sp ecifically Christian i n t e r ­
pre t a t i o n of the historical process.
Our discussion of
analogy showed that there is an intrinsic structural c o r ­
resp on den ce between the act of existence and the material
it descends
crete,
into--in this case the historical and the c o n ­
so that b o t h levels are formal ly proportionate and
dy n a m i c a l l y interacting.
However,
now C h r i s t ’s Incarnation
into h u m a n history alters the formal proportion of "existence
a c c o r d i n g to possibility."
His union w i t h history is the
p e r f e c t l y realized analogical action--the
greatest energy
pr o d u c i n g the greatest "po ss ibi li t y " - - a n d those Christian
„ themes enumerated
mystery,
(spirit and matter,
community,
"redeemed")
ontological place, word and act, history
are themselves the h ighest expressions of that
pe rf ect analogical union.
To state it differently,
are the fullest "possibilities"
tion,
time and eternity,
they
opened by C h r i s t ’s I n c a r n a ­
against which their fractured,
diminished reality on
the h u m a n level--dissociated but struggling toward union-can be absolutely identified and measured.
Since there is
an intrinsic structural similarity betw ee n the new energy of
existence
(Christ)
and actual history,
these themes express
the perfect possibilities of identity between the two as
form and content.
T he se themes can only be embodied fully
84
in fic tio n through the analogical
human history,
form of Christ wedded to
for w h e n they are not imp lic it ly "brought to
life" in this way,
there cannot exist the kind of intrinsic,
dramatic r el ati o n s h i p b e t w e e n the concrete and the h i s t o r i ­
cal w h i c h gives mutual
illumination.
Th e n the themes are
not "alive" in the work.
A b r i e f example m a y help cla ri fy this difficult
problem.
In
Fa ul k n e r has
the Q u e n t i n section of The Sound and the Fury
p r e s e n t e d us with a c o m p e l l i n g portrayal of
d i s s o c i a t i o n - - o f word fro m act, of time,
of thought from
concrete r e a l i t y - - i n the life of Q u e nti n before his suicide.
We r e c o g n i z e
this as the madness of d i sso ci ati on as the
action u nfolds,
but,
and this is the crucial question, h o w
do we r e c o g n i z e this for what
dissociation,
it seems
it is?
We r ecognize this as
to me, because of our consciousness
as we r e a d of its opposite analogue which
luminates
it
reader says,
for what it is.
"He is mad."
informs and i l ­
Even the most uninitiated
But we only k n o w this because
the w o r k d i s s o c i a t i o n is realized as dissociation,
because F aul kn er measu res
ible but everywhere
of wor d and act,
a "historical"
in
possible
it ana logically against the i n v i s ­
"present" p o ss ibi lit y of perfect union
thought and the concrete.
f r a mew or k for the action,
There is, then,
rooted in the h i s ­
torical a na logue of p e r f e c t l y realized u n i o n and action.
He c o u l d not do this if he himself as author were i ndulging
in an act of d i s s o c i a t i o n as he wrote
(though I think F aulkner
85
sometimes did this too).
Quentin experience
No,
the value and m ea n i n g of the
is illumi nat ed for the r ead e r by the fact
that Faulkner stands implicitly committed here
to a p e r ­
fectly r ea li zed analogue of those themes , against w h i c h he
dramatizes and measures this parti cul ar diminished,
"history."
flattened
We see this focus especially clear in Faulkner's
handli ng of the concrete w o r l d outside,
the wo rld which
Quentin cannot keep a grip on; point by point that wo rld
illuminates and judges the d i s t o rt ion s of his warped inner
world.
The same is true of each of the other counterthemes--
d i s s o c i a t i o n , false innocence, reductivism,
immunity,
etc.--
all are movements away from the Christian a n a l o g i c a l , yet
all are illuminated by it for what they real ly are--sterile
and fixed denials
of the actual.
The central
themes e n u me rat ed as the core of a C h r i s ­
tian int erpretation of history,
then,
themselves express and
embody the m axi m u m "possibility" wrought by Christ's
sion into history.
immer­
T he y are the historical ac tua lization of
w h i c h Christ is the form or energy,
and there is an intrinsic
analogical m o v e m e n t , one in w hich he took on all the
of h is t o r y and fulfilled them ontologically.
tian" themes can be p r es en ted in a passive,
univocal way in fiction
These
"forms"
"Chris­
dim i n i s h e d or
(as in falsely pietistical passages),
but then the history is not "continuing," realized.
In order
for them to be dramatically generative of v a l u e s , even if
fr eq uently by showing their n e g a t i o n in co nt emporary ex pe r i ­
ence,
as in the case of Quentin,
there must be the intrinsic
86
identity of structure b e t w e e n the act des cending (Christ)
and the concrete literal,
occurs, h i s t o r y "lives"
and w h e n this analogical action
in the w o r k and dynamically carves
out the spiritual value of the concrete.
CHAP TE R FOUR
F r o m our discussion of the metaphysics of analogy,
we see t he extreme difficulty of classifying a writer as
’’Ch ristian"
in any meaningful way.
Indeed,
if the Christian
me t a p h y s i c is nurtured in mystery— the Incarnation— then it
seems to me we can only finally approximate to what degree
a single w o r k reveals such a metaphysic.
This is certainly
true of so complex and various a writer as William Faulkner,
a n d this
chapter merely offers some reflections on F a u l k n e r ’s
h i s t o r i c a l consciousness at w or k analogically in several
important writings.
F a u l k n e r ’s own statements about Christianity in essays
a n d i n t e r vie ws tended to be casual and misleading.
Occasion­
al l y he a c kn ow led ged traditional Chri sti ani ty as his inherited
past— part of the "lumber room" of collective experience he
u s e d in fiction.
He preferred the Old Testament of the New,
a n d r e m a r k e d at least once about Christianity,
Chest er ton ,
that "we h a v e n ’t tried it yet."
believe his major fiction,
echoing
Nevertheless,
I
in both theme and technique, reveals
h i s t o r y i n an incarnational and redemptive way,
in creating
a n d t r e a t i n g those themes I have tried to define in Chapter i.
At its best F a u l k n e r ’s wor k realizes those themes analogically,
87
88
so that they simultaneously inform and are informed by the
literal action of the story.
But this is not always the case;
we can also find works in which some dissociation between
historical v is i o n and the dramatic concrete occurs, to the
diminishment of both.
One difficulty in analyzing Faulkner's historical vision
at work in a novel is the fact that he involves the reader so
dramatically in a particular character's heroic struggle to
come to terms w i t h his history— witness,
for example, Gail
Hightower or Quentin Compson or Isaac McCaslin.
One apparent
reason for this strategy lies in Faulkner's ontology of time:
"...time is a fluid condition w hich has no existence except
in the momentary avatars of individual people.
such thing as w a s , only is.
There is no
If was existed, there would be
no grief or sorrow." But the avatars of individual characters
stretch back into time and history as know and understand it
at that particular moment of revelation;
the avatar is, in
fact, a revelation of one's place in history.
And most impor­
tantly, how the character sees himself in relation to that
history becomes the touchstone of his moral choices in the
present,
especially in those crucial acts which form identity.
M u ch of the struggle for viable identity,
then, among Faulkner's
major characters involves their coming to terms with history
in a creative, non-destructive way, and this implies both
understanding and acceptance.
"place"
In fact, acceptance of one's
(in history and in being) seems a necessary pre-condition
89
f or the free act,
that gr atu it ous acceptance of "the moment"
found in characters like Lena Grove and Dilsey,
Contrariwise,
charaters like Quentin C o m p s o n and Hightower show us the tragic
failure to achieve this identity,
and as a consequence the
burden of their history t h rea te ns them with extinction at every
turn.
T h e r e is a natural t end enc y for the reader to become
mesmerized by the internal d rama of a particular character's
struggle w i t h his history,
p a r t l y because of the grandiloquent
rhetoric used by Faulkner to evoke their situation.
quence itself can become a n indulgence,
Grandilo­
as Faulkner astutely
perceived in the cases of Rev. Hightower or Ike McCaslin's
Uncle Hubert Beauchamp,
for example.
Thus while intensifying
through language the drama of a character's struggle with
history,
Faulkner himself created the corresponding problem of
having to somehow balance and evaluate this internal drama he
immersed the reader in,
be conveyed.
so that some overall perspective might
This he a ch i e v e d partly by the ever-present,
authorial voice, partly b y act i o n external to the character
w h i ch implicitly or explicitly measures that internal struggle.
In this w a y Faulkner created a total perspective for the work
f r o m man y limited ones, as for example in Light in A u g u s t ,
where the final comic chapter w i t h the furniture dealer implic­
itly measures and objectifies the struggle in Hightower's
consciousness which precedes it.
Faulkner's major works derives,
This total perspective in
I believe,
from his commitment
90
to a m e t a p h y s i c s of analogy, which enabled him to "create”
h i s t o r y v i t a l and ongoing in the present.
W e b e g i n our discussion with "The Bear" because it is
Faulkner's most explicit treatment of redemption history,
re n d e r e d t h r o u g h Ike McCaslin's growth to manhood.
As I
have a l r e a d y noted in Chapter I, Faulkner created specific
analogues of classical,
Old Testament and N e w Testament his­
tory w i t h i n the h istory of Ike's growth to maturity.
is the classical,
There
primitive ritual of the hunt in the wil der ­
ness, w h o s e spiritual meaning is amplified by Ike's link with
the s a c r i f i c i a l Isaac of the Old Testament.
This analogue
is d e e p e n e d b y Ike's identification with the Christ redeemer—
the N a z a r e n e
carpenter whose trade he follows in manhood.
F u r t h e r m o r e , these analogues are rendered dramatic within
the m o r a l h is t o r y of Am erica and the South,
so that the total
effect is a m ode r n retel lin g— a dramatic revelation— of the
hi st o r y of the Fall and the quest for redemption.
unfolds
As the story
Ike becomes more and more aware of his position, his
"place," v i s — a—vis history,
minates when,
and the initiation process cul­
fully aware of his past heritage, he must choose
what his re lationship to it is going to be.
choice w h i c h determines his identity,
It is a crucial
and in it Faulkner reveals
the w h o l e h ist or y of the redemptive process at work.
I n the long debate that runs throughout Part Four,
Ike
a n d his cousi n Cass Edmonds review the M cCa sli n heritage and
the h i s t o r y of the South and America in the light of the
91
biblical history of the Creation and Fall.
discussion,
Throughout their
there is no dispute between them over the moral,
analogical nature of history;
both explicitly reject any
notion of secular progressivism.
Ike identifies the sin and
guilt in his own past wi t h the universal fallen condition
of man,
and while disavowing that he can ever "repudiate" it,
h e does choose to sever himself from the tainted legacy.
In his experience in the wilderness he has undergone a series
of temptations which teach h im the humility and sacrifice
neces sa ry for spiritual freedom.
And so n ow he is capable of
making that free act of renunciation:
"Sam Fathers set me free."
B y this act of atonement Ike both divests hims el f of the
guilt— stained farm and also sacrifices his marriage and chance
for a son.
Throughout Part Four Faulkner makes it clear that
Ike's decisive act of renunciation is inseparable from his
historical consciousness of his "place" vis-a-vis both his
heritage and universal history.
of his own personal,
Pushing beyond the bounds
immediate situation,
Ike chooses finally
to see his "place" and the root of his identity in the
Redemption,
linking his own decision and freedom to Christ's
sacrificial act.
tion,
So although Ike accepts man's fallen condi­
in a w ay for example that Quentin Comp son never can, he
nevertheless chooses to transform the b ur den of guilt by an
act of spiritual freedom.
This is the fulfillment of the
destiny whic h has prepared him throughout a lifetime to accept
92
this role and identity.
However,
Faulkner obviously brooded
long over the implications of Ike's decision, and through the
"voice" of Cass Edmonds, we see h i m deepening the mystery of
Ike's moral predicament.
Against Ike's stance his cousin Cass raises the crucial
question of responisibility— and "escape," He argues that Ike's
r e n u nci ati on is in effect a refusal of responsibility,
a with­
drawal from the tainted h u m a n community on the basis of some
absolute,
idealistic principle,
innocence.
Is not Ike a c t u a l l y trying to absolve himself from
the fallen human community,
perfection?
and an "inhuman" grasping for
in pursuit of some gnostic personal
Doesn't his dec i s i o n place him effectively out­
side the community,
so that w h e n we meet him as an old m a n in
Delta A u tum n he seems a n anachronism,
caught put of time and
do omed to relive the n o w— empty rituals of his youth?
In connec­
t i o n wit h this, Faulkner impl ic itl y raises the question of
w h e t he r Ike's renunciation might be an act of dissociation
f r o m hu manity which atrophies his moral potential and denies
h i m full opportunity to exert some positive spiritual influ­
ence on the community.
If so, isn't this a denial of the
process of redemption in its concrete reality?
Faulkner h im­
self seemed to suggest such a vi e w in his famous "triun of
conscience" statement concerning Ike,
Q,
Mr, Faulkner, Isaac M c C a s l i n in "The Bear" relinquishes
his heredity.
Do y o u thin k he may be in the same pre­
dicament as m od ern man, under the same conditions that
he can't find a h u m a n i t y to fit in with?
93
A.
W e ll , there are some people in any time and age that
cann o t face and cope with the problems.
There seems
to be three stages; The first says, This is rotten, I
don't like it, I will take death first.
The second
says. This is rotten, I don't like it, I can't do any­
t h i n g about it, but at least I will not participate in
it myself, I will go off into a cave or climb a pillar
t o sit on.
The third says. This stinks and I'm going
t o do something about it. M cC a s l i n is in the second.
H e says. This is bad, and I will withdraw from it.
W h at w e need are people who will say, This is bad and
I ' m going to do something about it.
I'm going to change
i t ,1
In considering this critical view of Ike's decision, we should
keep in m i n d that it was expressed by the "social— minded"
Faulkner of the later interviews, w h e n often he seems con­
sciously tryi ng to instruct as well as entertain his audiences.
This c r i t i c i s m of Ike's renunciation stresses only one aspect—
the h u m a n i s t i c — of his choice, and should be,balanced I think
by the s t o r y itself, where not only the author's emotional
loyalties but also the spirit of his interpretation of history
are w e i g h t e d on the side of the resigning hero.
If w e v iew the story typo lo gic all y, which I think we
must,
Ike's decis ion must be placed in relation to Christ and
re d e m p t i o n history.
In this light, rather than dissociating
himself f r o m humanity,
edge of history,
Ike is acting creatively u pon his knowl­
and in so doing he widens the possible dimen­
sions of humanity,
specifically, b y demonstrating a new role
and attitude toward the "Southern" history,
all moral history.
and by extension
He chooses not to follow the sterile forms
of the past b y passive acceptance of his heritage, but instead
^Faulkner in the Un i v e r s i t y , ed. Frederick L. Gwynn and
Joseph L. Blotner (New York: Random House, 1959), pp. 24$-6.
94
he rises above historical necessity by free choice.
On the
metaphysical level, he introduces a n e w p o s s i bil it y of being
and action into the situation,
that of the r ede em ed New Man
following the form of Christ.
He may not be able to change
the community in a sociological sense, but he exists in its
midst as an exempl um who has transfigured its his t o r y by
his life,
tion.
showing forth the possibilities of moral r e d e m p ­
Ike's life is an analogue of Christianity because,
unlike say Jason or Q ue nti n Compson,
and truly act in a free way.
he can accept history
In the Ch ristian metaphysic
freedom and action are, paradoxically,
reception and acceptance--the
and thus tied to historical
into history,
A.
gratuitous gift of insight--
consciousness.
With this insight
Ike acts selflessly out of a center of peace
and contemplation,
Q.
muc h a matter of
and so he achieves serenity.
Mr. Faulkner, do ybu look on Ike M c C a s l i n as having
fulfilled his destiny, the things that he learned
from Sam Fathers and from the other men as he did-when he was 12 to l6?
Do you feel that they stood
him in good stead all the way through his life?
I do, yes.
They didn't give hi m success but they
gave him something a lot more important, even in
this country.
They gave h i m serenity, they gave hi m
what w ould pass for w i s d o m — I mean w is d o m as contradistinct from the schoolman's w i s d o m of e d u c a ­
tion.
T h e y gave him that.^
In The Picaresque
S a i n t , R. W. B. Lewis has commented
brilliantly on the aptness of form in Part Four of "The
Bear," arguing that
^ I b i d ., p.
"its mode of existence is as important
54.
95
as its c o n t e n t . ”
Lewis p o i n t s out that Part Four is p r e ­
sented not so much as a n a r r a t i v e of events,
intense,
suppose
but as "an
translucent v i s i o n of the f u t u r e , ” a ll ow ing us to
that it is "a dr e a m , "
a "true prophecy" d est in ed to
occur but prese nte d n ow as it exists
possibility."
And this is fitting, he argues,
the transcendent,
decision.
"only in a state of
because of
v i s i o n a r y c haracter of Ike's nature and
In this Lewis sees Faulkner as d a n g e r o u s l y close
to overst epp ing the line b e t w e e n prophetic vis io n and l i t e r ­
ary credibility.
The transcendence e n a c t e d in "The Bear," to put it d i f ­
ferently, was if a n y t h i n g too successful and complete.
It carried Ike out of the quicksand of history, but at
the same time it n e a r l y carried h i m out of the co mpany
of mortal men.
He has m o v e d d an ger ous ly close to the
person of the s av ior -G od, to the person of Jesus;
da ng ero usl y close, at least, for the purposes of f i c ­
tion.
It is w o r t h i n s i s t i n g that the life of Christ
is not u n de r any c i r c u m s t a n c e s a fit subject for l i t e r a ­
ture:
no t because s u c h a subject would be irreverent,
but because w i t h i n the limits of literature it w ould be
impossible; or, what is the same thing, it w oul d be too
easy.
And this is e x a c t l y why the quality of the fourth
section of "The B e a r " — its mode of e x i s t e n c e — is so
un c a n n i l y a p p r o pr ia te to its content.
It was perhaps
Faulkner's most e x t r a o r d i n a r y poetic intu it ion to p r e ­
sent the a f f inities b e t w e en a h uman being and a d i v i n e -a Mis s i s s i p p i hunter a n d the figure of Christ -- nut
an
a c t u a l i t y , but as ^ f o g g i l y seen prophetic p os sib ili ty :
something longed for and even implicit in the present
circumstances and c ha r a c t e r , but so mething that has
decidedly never yet h a p p e n e d . "The Bear," R e a c h i n g to
the edge of h uman l imits, does the most that literature
m a y w i t h p ro p r i e t y a t t e m p t to do. (Italics mine).^
Lewis'
r em a r k is not
Four of "The Bear,"
an atypical response
and it is w o r t h examination.
R. W. B. Lewis, T h e P ica resque Saint
J. B. Lippencott Co., I 9 6 I ) , p. 209.
to Part
In the
(New York:
96
first place, what are we to make
of his assertion that
F a ul k n e r ma na g e d to "present the affinities between a h u m a n
being and a divine"?
tion here,
Lewis seems
to make a dualistic
separa­
w h e n in the light of the Incarnation Christ
the God-Man,
is
and h u m an nat ur e is interpenetrated with and
tr a n s f o r m e d by this union w i t h the divine.
m a n i c h e a n separation;
There is no
the u n i on of divine and human and the
m y s t e r y of rede mpt ive f r e e d o m and grace is the essence of
the re d e m p t i o n .
And it seems to me precisely that m y s t e r y
that F a u l k n e r is str ug gli ng to present in "The Bear."
F u r the rm ore ,
and Chri st
to argue that these affinities between Ike
should not be seen as "actuality, but as a f o g ­
gily s e e n p rophetic p o s s i b i l i t y ... something that has d e c id edl y
ne ver yet ha ppened,"
seems too ingenious a reading.
Ike r e n o u n c e s his legacy or he does not.
Either
Either Faulkne r
and Ike p r e s e n t as just ifi ca tio n for that decision a r e d e m p ­
tive c o n c e p t i o n of hi st o r y and sp iritual freedom or they do
not,
and to deny their a c t u a l i t y seems to me to deny much of
the m e a n i n g of the whole
Lewis
story itself.
is correct in p o i n t i n g to a certain t r a n s l u ­
cent q u a l i t y in Part Four of the story.
But what gives part
of that se ct ion its "visionary"
it seems to me,
is that Fa ul k n e r perhaps
to yoke
together
the literal
quality,
too d i r e c t l y and explicitly tried
the hi storical
level of the story.
to just let the historical
analogues of re demption and
Rather than being satisfied
analogues work dramatically through
97
the concrete action,
Faulkner achieves the
by he igh te ned rhetorical
"transcendence”
skill and a d az zli ng v i r tu osi ty of
language, wh i c h tends at times to detach itself from dramatic
action.
Thu s the sense of it be ing "too successful and c o m ­
plete," to use Lewis' phrase.
Paradoxically,
to render such a v is ion more successfully,
Faulkner seemed
I think,
in
treating themes and situations w h i c h do not d irectly evoke
that v i si on and its redemptive analogues,
are often antinomous to its values.
and whi ch in fact
Such themes and s i t u a ­
tions dem and ed more fo rcibly that the act of fictional c r e ­
ation itself be a redemptive act im pli cit ly achieved,
that the r e d e m p t i v e vision might be the analogical
which shines
throu gh and illuminates
is the case in Light
In the story
so
form
those situations.
This
in A u g u s t .
of Joe Christmas Faulkner set
depict "the most tragic
condition a man could find
out to
himself
in--not to k n o w what
he is and to k n o w that he will never
l^
know."
Born po ss i b l y a mulatto and o rph an ed at birth, Joe
finds it impossible
or Ne g r o race,
to accept an identity in either the white
and so chooses to "deliber at ely evict(ed)
himself from the hu ma n race."
He is without any place in
being,
that
and Faulkner emphasizes
this
is an ontological
rather than just a social condition b y the fact that although
Joe once thinks
"even God loves you," he cannot accept it.
F aulkner in the U n i v e r s i t y , p. 72.
98
and so becomes a "ghost"
lost world.
and "a phantom" strayed out of a
His tragic dis placement
in his anguished,
r e s t l e s s movement
is manifested overtly
in space,
always on the
fringes of s o c i e t y - - d o w n "the road that was to run for f i f ­
teen years."
Yet for Joe the road also becomes an image of
time which circles b a c k on itself,
bringing h i m back in the
end just before his d e a t h to the exact point, metaphysically,
from which he sta r t e d his career.
shows us that,
in the d ee p e s t
in trying to solve
Through this image Faulkner
sense, Joe has
the p a r a d o x
"gone nowhere"
of his identity.
Hav ing e v i c t e d h i m s e l f from the human community,
Joe Christmas can def i n e h i m s e l f - - c r e a t e an identity--only
by vehement r e a c t i o n aga in st
all those natural forms and
bonds of h um a n i t y s i g n i f i e d b y the concept of community-an acceptance of l i m i t a t i o n and mutual dependence,
and change,
and the m y s t e r y o f h u ma n relationships.
of time
In
other words, he is d r i v e n on an inhuman quest for innocence,
for immunity from n a t u r a l limitations and dependencies,
and
most importantly,
d r i v e n by a desire for reprieve from the
5
m y stery and a m b i g u i t y of h i m s e l f and experience.
Basically,
Joe's manner of u s u r p i n g time and the natural
order and
I am u s i n g the terms "innocence" and "immunity"
interchangeably to de s c r i b e that drive to absolve oneself
from all the natural limiti ng realities of the fallen human
condition.
To a c k n o w l e d g e that situation fully is to be
sensitive to the m o r al claims of the commun al situation, and
to history.
As we shall see, various Faulkner characters
choose different m e a ns to t r y to escape full acceptance of
the basic human condition.
99
ambiguity,
non e of which he can rest in,
is by violence,
yet since he has chosen to evict h i m s e l f fr om humanity, he
must r ep e a t v i ol enc e again and again in order to "guarantee"
his identity.
Thus
throughout the novel p a t t e r n s of re bellion and
u s u r p a t i o n of the natural order serve as emblems of Joe's
d e s per at e quest for innocence,
outside h i s t o r y and community.
These a r e dep i c t e d clearly in his violent reactions
to women
(and f o o d and religion when they are as so cia ted with w o m e n ) ,
p a r t i c u l a r l y in those matters re lated to sex and the rhyth m
of time,
all of w hich he comes to rega rd as "traps" which he
must r e p u d i a t e in order to preserve his
inviolability and
de m o n s t r a t e n o dependencies on the w eak ne ss
of hu man nature.
As a c h i l d at the orphanage he vomits
on toothpaste while
o b s e r v i n g the dietician making love.
A l t h o u g h Joe does not
understand what
they are doing,
the su bsequent terrorizing
of h i m c r e a t e s a sense of revulsion in c o n ne cti on with the
incident w h i c h reoccurs several times throughout the novel,
and is s y m p t o m a t i c of his violent attempts
natural.
to reject the
Later, while living with the McEacherns,
boy expla ins
the menstrual cycle to him,
and Joe's
an older
"denial"
of this m y s t e r y of nature drives him to sodomy as a way of
v i o l e n t l y i m m u n i z i n g himself against
its ambiguity.
He w a s not three miles from home w h e n in the later a f t e r ­
n o o n he shot a sheep.
He fo und the flock in a hidden
v a l l e y and stalked and killed one w i t h a gun.
Then he
knelt, his hands in the yet w a r m b l o o d of the dying
100
beast, trembling, dry-mouthed, back-glaring.
got over i t , r e c o v e r e d . (Italics mine)
T h e n he
Joe tries to re p u d i a t e the bonds of nature by acts of v i o ­
lence which, paradoxically,
are intended to assert his own
inviolable i de n t i t y and insulate him against involvement
ambiguous experience.
can now tolerate
After the episode with the sheep he
the knowledge of sexuality,
it, as seen w h e n the waitress
menstrual
in
but not accept
Bobbi Allen explains the
cycle to him.
'I m ade a mistake tonight.
I forgot something.'
Perhaps she was wai t i n g for h i m to ask her what it was.
But he d id not.
He just stood there, with a still,
downspeaking voice dying somewhere about his ears.
He
had forgot about the shot sheep.
He had lived with the
fact the older boy had told h i m too long now.
With the
slain sheep h e had bought immunity from it for too long
now for it to be aJ i v e ....
She told him, halting, clumsily, using the only
words w h i c h she kne w perhaps.
But he had h e a r d it
before.
H ^ had already fled b a c k w a r d , past the slain
s h e e p , the price paid for i m m u n i t y , to the aftern oon
w h e n , sitting on ^ bank c r e e k , he had not been hurt or
astonished so much as o u t r a g e d .
(Italics mine)?
Nevertheless,
im m e d i a t e l y after Bobbi's departure Joe vomits
again, r evu ls ed by the
despises and fears.
Burden,
"trap" of nature and h u m an fr a i l t y he
A similar reaction occurs with Joanna
es pe cially when, nea r i n g menopause,
she attempts
trap him into marri ag e by i n si sti ng she is pregnant.
rejection of food,
House,
another ingratiating
^Will iam Faulkner,
1 9 3 2 ), p. 1 7 4 .
^ I b i d . , pp.
1 7 6 -7 *
"kindness"
Light in August
to
Joe's
offered
(New York:
Random
101
by women,
n o t a b l y J oa nna B u r d e n and Mrs. McEachern,
of the same p a t t e r n of vi ol e n c e .
dependency,
T o Joe it signifies natural
and a t h r e a t e n i n g "soft" relat ion sh ip w i t h women,
which he cannot
abide.
Thi s
p r e f e ren ce for the strict,
" justice"
is part
of Mr. M cE achern,
sought through violence,
in vi olable identity:
fe a r of mystery underlies his
s implified,
though harsh
and of m e n in general.
Immunity
v i o l e n c e as a means to assert
this p a r a d o x amounts to a drive for
s e l f - r e d e m p t i o n in Joe that can on l y end in destruction.
And yet Joe C h r i s t m a s w i s h e s for peace,
some sense
of int erior solidity w i t h his o w n b e i n g and with the world
that c a n only come,
time and place,
Fa ul k n e r implies,
by an acceptance
and the m y s t e r i o u s natural
order.
of
Ea r l y in
the n o v e l Joe watches a g r o u p of w h i t e people ca sua ll y playing
cards on a s creened porch,
wanted,'
ask.'"
he thought.
'That
a nd observes:
don't
S u c h a feeling of pe a c e
s e e m like a whole
m o m e n t a r i l y at one with hi ms elf ,
lot to
comes to Joe only once,
du ring the w e e k of his f u g i t i v e running,
r e t u r n to M o t t s t o w n and capture.
" ‘That's all 1
just before his
Significantly,
he feels
accep ti ng time and n at ure
without violence.
It was just dawn, daylight: that gray and l onely s u s p e n ­
sion f i l l e d with the p e a c e f u l a n d tentative w a k i n g of
birds.
The air, i nbreathed, is like spring water.
He
brea t h e s deep and slow, f e e l i n g with each b r e a t h him se lf
dif fus e in the n eutral grayness, becoming one wit h
l o n e li nes s and quiet that has n e v e r known fury or despair.
'That was all I wanted,' he thinks, in a quiet and slow
amazement.
'That was all, for thirty years.
Th a t didn't
102
g
s e e m to be a w h o le lot to a s k in thirty years.'
But Joe
cannot abide in the p e a c e of the moment; he is driven
b a c k onto the
"street w h i c h ran for thirty years," which has
no w b e c o m e a circle of the past
trapping him in time.
"'And
yet I h a v e be en further in these seven days than in all the
thirty years,'
that circle.
he thinks.
'But I have never got outside
I have n e v er bro k e n out of the r in g of what I
have a l r e a d y done
and cannot
ever undo,'
he thinks quietly....'
T h e immunity sought by Reverend Gail Hig hto we r assumes
a d i f fe ren t form and d i rec ti on than that of Joe Christmas,
but it is n o less
intense and u lti mately self-destructive.
Like Joe, H i g h t o w e r ' s displ ace me nt seems already a fait
accompl i
at birth,
doom in g h i m to non-identity,
"as though
the seed w h ic h his g r a n df at her had transmitted to h i m had
been on the horse too that night
and had been killed too and
time h a d stopped there and then for the seed and no thi ng had
happened
in time since,
n ot even h i m . ”
What has happe ned
to H i g h t o w e r in time, his marri age failure and career as a
preacher,
"heroic"
both of which he used to evoke the mem ory of his
grandfather,
has caused hi m so much suffering that
he has w i l l f u l l y evicted h i m s e l f from the community.
Byron B unch
tries to involve h i m in the present difficulties
of Lena Grove and Joe Christmas,
won't!
1 won't!
1 have bought
have p a i d . . . . I paid for it.
price.
Ifhen
No man can say that.
Hightower protests:
immunity.
"I
I have paid.
I didn't quibble about the
X just wanted peace;
X paid
I
103
them their price without quibbling."
(p.
293)
We recognize
in H i g h t o w e r the same cry for peace v oic e d by Joe,
but it is
the "peace" of immunity from time and c h a n g e , suffering and
na t u r e - - t h e "death" of anonymity.
Hi g h t o w e r ' s means of c a p ­
turing this immunity and reprieve from the present is by
escape
into time, the past, where his ident it y is subsumed
in the image of his grandfather.
Highto wer 's escape
9
into time,
of course,
depicts
the most violent and radical disso ci ati on of past from present
in Light in A u g u s t .
One result
of this is that the past
which he identifies wit h is a romantic illusion--his vision
of his
grandfather's h e r o i s m in the Civil Wa r so glorified
in mem o r y that the fact of his ludicrous
behind while stealing chickens--becomes
death--shot from
totally obscured.
This distortion of h istory has profound effects on Hightow er 's
identity and sense of the world in the present,
for he sees
it through manichean eyes as a w orld so saturated with s u f ­
fering and defeat that action is unr ed eem in g and u n r e d e e m ­
able.
Nevertheless,
through his fri end sh ip with Byron Bunch
he is for ced out of his
shell of immunity and into involvement,
I am arguing here and elsewhere that the desire for
annihilation, or immolation, of identity is in fact a desire
for innocence, for repri eve from ambiguity.
Joe Christmas
strives for this through violence, as in a sense Joanna
Burden finally does.
Her extreme d u a l i s m causes her to see
h e r s e l f and Joe as finally unredeemable, and suicide the
only "logical" alternative.
Similarly, Quentin Compson uses
alle ge d incest and f inally suicide as a w a y to immunize h i m ­
self against the fact of Caddie's loss of virginity.
104
Against his instincts
(he w as already once accused of m i s ­
c e genation a n d c h i ld -mu rd er b y the gossiping town for aiding
a Negro woma n in labor), H i gh tow er helps deliver Lena Grove's
baby,
and the effect on h i m is a re sur rection into life
again.
*I ought to feel w o r s e than I do,' he thinks.
But
he has to admit that he does not.
And as he stands,
tall, misshapen, lonely in his lonely and illkept
kitchen, h olding in his hand an iron skillet in whi ch
y e ste r d a y ' s old grease is bleakly caked, there goes
th r oug h h i m a glow, a wave, a surge of somet hin g almost
hot, almost triumphant.
'I showed them,' he thinks.
'Life comes to the old m an yet, while they get there
too late.
T hey get there for his leavings, as Byron
w o u l d s a y . ...
He goes to the study.
H e moves like a man with a p u r ­
pose now, who for tw enty-five years has been doing
n o t h i n g at all between the time to wake and the time to
sleep a g a i n . ...10
Like Joe Christmas, H ig h t o w e r has come to a brief acceptance
of "the moment,"
of his place and identity in the present,
through a r e c o g n i t i o n of his
fundamental link with humanity.
His d i s c o v e r y is like that which Ike Mc Cas l i n made;
that
in spite of the past of suffering and evil, h i s to ry is not
irrevocably fixed,
now.
because he can act in a new w a y here and
In his creative res ponse to the situation he m o m e n ­
tarily b e c o m e s the new man.
Yet even though Hi gh t o w e r is
able on one other occasion to creatively "match the moment,"
in his b e l a t e d attempt
Percy Grimm,
to save Joe Christmas by lying to
in the end he sinks back into the past,
^ ^Light
in A u g u s t , pp.
382-3.
a n d in
105
Faulkner's eyes
"destroyed h i m sel f. "
W hen we last see him
the po ssi bilities of hope and creative action s eem to have
completely atrophied,
as he sits h el plessly in the twilight
glow before his window, w a i t i n g for the vision of his
father's gallant
g r a nd­
ride into Jefferson.
In answer to the que s t i o n whether Light in August
argues for the acceptance of an inevitably tragic v i e w of
life, Faulkner once replied:
"I wouldn't think so.
That
the
only pe rs o n in that book that
accepted a tragic v i e w of life
was Christmas because he didn't k n o w what he was and so he
deliber at ely re pudiated man.
a very fine belief in life,
happiness
Th e others seemed to me to have
in the basic p o s s i b il ity for
and goodness--Byron Bunch and Lena Grove,
gone to all that t r o u b l e . P e r h a p s
Hight owe r here,
to have
Faulkner is overlooking
but the re ma r k does point to the positive
re de mptive forces at work th roughout the s tory in Lena Grove
and Byron Bunch.
Lena,
a p r im iti ve earth mother linked
symbo li cal ly to the world of a ntiquity a n dye ter ni ty
denced,
for example,
(evi­
in Faulkner's opening d e s c r i p t i o n of
her on the r o a d ) , lives comp let ely at peace wi th h e r s e l f and
the world.
She seeks no s el f-r ede mp tio n or imm u n i t y by
retreat into the past or by violence,
do.
Instead,
the present
kind.
as Hig h t o w e r and Joe
she completely accepts her place and acts in
through a simple
faith in providence
and h u m a n ­
E arly in the novel she assures the wo r l d - w i s e Mrs.
Armstid that God will see to it that
the fa mi l y is together
llpaulkner in the U n i v e r s i t y , pp.
96-7»
106
when "a c h a p is born," and com i c a l l y enough, he r prophecy is
fulfilled.
Although she
is her total
is naive, Lena's pa rti cu lar grace
trust in the pr ese nt
is never " time-haunted"
like Joe
Faulkner has conveyed this
situation,
and thus she
or H i g h t o w e r or Miss Burden.
te c h n i c a l l y b ÿ the fact that the
stories of Lena and B yron are almost c o m p l e t e l y told in a
continuous
"present," w i t h only n e c e s s a r y brief informational
excursions
into their pasts,
narratives
of Joe and H i g hto we r,
in contrast
to the fractured
shifting back and forth in
time.
In contrast to J o e ' s lack of identity,
tual s tre ng th of character
identity, her acceptance
Lena's s p i r i ­
comes from he r sure sense of
of h e r place in being.
Consequently,
though like Joe she is tr a v e l i n g and s u p e r f i c i a l l y an o u t ­
sider,
Lena is a ct u a l l y at ho me
matter wh ere she is.
N o t o nly does she
situation Lena witnesses
and seems
in the h u m a n community, no
"fit in," but by her
to the fact of communal dependence,
to exercise a r e d e e m i n g influence on the community,
drawing out the es sential kindne ss
of those she encounters.
There is n o question of i s o l a t i o n in Lena Grove,
or dis p l a c e ­
ment, because
of her f u n d a m e n t a l acceptance of life,
quality which
itself awakens
Th ro ugh his
a
Byron Bunch to a n e w life.
involvement w i t h Lena G r o v e — t hrough love--Byron
moves f rom the b ack w a r d - l o o k i n g ,
his sole friend in Jefferson,
isolated w o r l d of Hightower,
to the doubtful but n e v e r t h e ­
less "creative" world of Lena and the future.
In danger
107
h i ms e l f of b e c o m i n g another Hightower,
reason and p r u d e n c e in choosing
Byron acts against
to follow Lena, and Faulkner
makes v e r y c l e a r the significance of that choice w h e n Byron
tries to stop Brown's escape.
For Byron,
it is a choice
either of a n o n y m i t y and "death" by retreat into the past,
or of f u r t h e r involvement with Lena,
real e x i s t e n c e nonetheless.
possible failure,
but
And By ron a c t s .
The hill rises, cresting.
H e has never seen the sea,
and so he thinks, 'It is like the edge of nothing.
Like
once I p a s s e d it I would just ride right off into nothing.
W h e r e trees w o ul d look like and be called by so mething
else exce pt trees, and m e n w o u l d look like and be called
by s o m e t h i n g else except folks.
And Byron B unch he
w o ul d n ' t e v en have to be or not be Byron Bunch....
Byron looks b a c k to see Brown e s c a p i n g again from Lena out
the b a c k door of the cabin.
T h e n a cold, hard w i n d seems to blow through him.
It is at once violent and peaceful, bl ow ing hard away
like c h af f or trash or dead leaves all the desire and
the d e s p a i r and the ho p e l e s s n e s s and the tragic and va in
i m a g i n i n g too.
With the v e r y blast of it he seems to
feel h i m s e l f rush back and empty again, without a n y ­
t h i n g in h i m n o w which had not been there two weeks ago,
befo re he ever saw her.
The desire of this moment is
more than desire:
it is co nv ict ion quiet and assured;
bef ore h e is aware that his b r a i n has telegraphed his
h a n d he has turned the mule fr om the road and is galloping
a l o n g the ridge which p a r a l l e l s the running man's course
w h e n he e nte r e d the woods.
He has not even n a me d the
m a n's n a m e to himself.
He does not speculate at all
upon w h e r e the man is going, and why.
It does not enter
his h e a d that Brown is f le e i n g again, as he hims el f had
p r e d ict ed.
If he thought about it at all, he probably
b e l i e v e d that Brown was engaged, after his own peculiar
fashion, in some thoroughly legitimate business having
to do w i t h his and Lena's departure.
But he was not
t h i n k i n g about that at all; he was not thinking about
12 L i g h t in A u g u s t , p. 401.
108
Lena at all; she was as c o m p le te ly out of his mind as
if h e had never seen h e r face nor heard her name.
He
is thinking:
'I took care of his woman for him and I
horned his child for him.
And now there is one more
thing I can do for him.
I can't marry them, because I
aint a minister.
And I m a y not can c atch him, because
he's got a start on me.
A n d I may not can whip h i m if
I do, because he's b i g g e r than me.
But I can try it.
I can try to do i t . '^3
Thus,
as Cleanth Brook s has illustrated,
an essential redeeming force
the condition of community,
Byron Bunch.
if there is
in Light in August it lies in
e x e m pl if ie d by Le na Grove and
For in spite o f viciousness,
hostility,
mob action,
in spite of the s u f fe ri ng it inflicts
individual,
the c om mu nit y c o n ti nu es to abide,
those w h o accept
it.
and
on the
and it heals
F a u l k n e r ' s belief in this is d emo n­
strated by the m agn if ice nt c o mi c ending of the novel, where
life and h i st or y are ong oin g a nd full of possibility, while
the tragic alternatives of is ol a ti on and w it hd raw al seem to
diminish into memory.
Tha t vision of h i s t o r y which informs
Light in August
is pre se nt in a far more
the action of
complicated and
oblique way in A b s a l o m , A b s a l o m , mainly be cause
the sheer
technical vir tu os it y of the n o v e l e xce ed s-- by demanding
more--that used to tell
the s t o r y of Joe, Lena,
To tell the story of Thomas
S u t p e n Faulkner elected to use
four m a in "voic es" --R os a Co ldfield, Mr.
Compson,
and Hightower,
Compson,
Quentin
and Shreve M c C a n n o n — all committed in various
l^ibid., pp. 402-3.
109
deg re es to r e c o n s tr uc ti ng the me ani ng of Sutpen's history.
Co nsequently,
the reader must consider not only those themes
evoked in the story itself,
but the fact that Faulkner is
also p r i m a r i l y concerned w it h the act of imagination wh ere by
h i s t o r y is recreated,
Brooks has
or "how we know the past," as Cl eanth
suggested.As
we shall see,
there is a c o m p l i ­
cated and dynamic relatio nsh ip between those themes created
w i t h i n Sutpen's story and the particular "voice" imaginating
them,
but for the moment we can isolate the dominant thematic
strains
before turning to the difficult thematic problems.
" S u t p e n ’s trouble was innocence,"
says Mr.
Compson,
and thr oughout the novel we discover Faulkner's co nception
of this;
a sense of immunity from nature and history,
bl i nd ne ss
to moral
in the limitless,
ambi gui ty and complicity,
a
and a bel ie f
independent assertion of personal will.
Like Joe Christmas,
Sutpen is both outsider and usu rpe r of
the natu ra l order,
ru th le ssl y and innocently pu rs ui ng his
d r e a m of a dynasty wi thout regard for the human ity around
him.
T hr oug ho ut his career Sutpen is a "foreigner" who
enters
the South and imposes his will upon it, but this in
turn is an analogue of his fundamental isolation,
his
"innocence,"
from the human community itself.
because of
To Faulkner
this is the same pitiable condition as Joe Christmas's.
(Sutpen) was not a (sic)
C o u nt y
"He
depraved--he was amoral, he was
^^ C le an th Brooks, Wi ll ia m Faulkner : The Yo kna pawtapha
(New Haven:
Yale Univ ers ity Press, 19&3).
110
ruthless,
pitied,
completely self-centered.
To me he is to be
as anyone w h o ignores man is to be pitied, who does
not believe that he belongs as a me mb e r of a hu man family,
of the human family,
is to be pitied.
S u t p e n ’s isolation precludes any hist or ica l c o n s c i o u s ­
ness on his part,
since time "stopped" for h i m during that
one unendurable moment
in the past w he n he was first turned
away from the front door of the mansion.
In essence, his
life is an attempt to "correct," rathe r than accept,
that
mo ment--his Fall-- an d so time is inured for him and e v e r y ­
thing is seen in r e la ti on to that m o m e n t . T h u s
he acts
in
a v a c u u m of immunity without consciousness of place or h i s ­
tory.
In creating Sutpen's Hundred,
he apes
the manners
of aristocratic re sp ect ab ili ty wit hou t concern for the moral
and social underpinnings
of that order.
His marriage and
begetting of Judith and Henry are necessary,
incidental
facts
to the achievement of his "design," as is his outrageous
suggestion later of a "trial" marria ge w i t h Rosa Coldfield.
Similarly,
Sutpen regards the Civil War as an unfortunate
^^Fau lk ne r in the U n i v e r s i t y , p. 80.
^^The same p r o b l e m of identity is at w ork here in
Sutpen as in Christmas, Hightower, and Quentin Compson.
Rather than accept the fact of the fall, they try to deny
or correct it by cutt in g off from its effects, but this
only leads to a spiritual "freeze" in time.
Like many
Faulkner characters, they become fixed on a moment in the
past, and hence doom ed to rec apitulative attempts to escape
or correct it in some way.
As a result, their whole " i n v i o ­
lable" identity becomes fragilely dependent on that single
point of time; they refuse to "fall."
Ill
interruption of his per so n al p l a n to establish a dynasty,
and after the war he re tu rn s
to b eg in resurr ec tio n of the
"H u n d r e d ” as though the h i s t o r y of 1 8 6 I -65 had almost ne ver
occurred.
Sutpen;
It is as thou gh time itsel f were meaning le ss
he seems
as de t a c h e d from it as he is impervious to
"place"--the actual
c o n di ti on of the fallen South at this
time, which for him h o l d s no more ties of human values
his brutal pra gma tis m chooses
his dream.
to
to accept
than
in order to achieve
Even in old age he cont inu es to usurp the natural
order, begetting a daught er by M i l l y Jones, but it is the
figure of Time itsel f in the p e rs on of Wash Jones wi t h his
scythe which finally cuts S u t pe n down.
Sutpen's r u t h l e s s quest for self-redemption,
to
redress the moment of the " f a l l ” in his past he cannot accept,
causes him also to deny c o m p l i c i t y in ambiguous guilt as
well.
We recall in Light in A u g u s t how Joe Christmas p r e ­
ferred his re lat io nsh ip w i t h Mr.
McE ac he rn -- on e of h a rd but
unequivocal " j u s t i c e ” in r e w a r d and punishnient--to the w a r m t h
and sympathy of Mrs.
M cE ac he rn.
Sutpen holds
to a similar
kind of ” justice”--an exact, p r a gm at ic balance sheet of
"mistakes" which can b e c o r r ec te d by him,
is seen especially in his attitud e
toward Bon.
repud iat ed him and h is m ot he r as not
Sutpen nevertheless regards
of his support for them,
and this impulse
Having
fitting into his design,
the mi st ake as "paid for" because
as he
tolls Mr.
Compson.
112
'And y e t after more than thirty years, more than thirty
y e ars a f t e r my conscience had finally assured me that if
I h a d d o ne an injustice, I had done what I could to
r e c t i f y it--' and grandfather not saying 'Wait' n o w but
saying, ho ll er in g maybe even: 'Conscience?
Conscience?
Go od God, man, what else did you e x pe ct ? . . . .what c o n ­
s c i e n c e to trade with wh ic h wo uld have warra nte d y o u in
the b e l i e f that you co uld have bought immunit y from her
for no other coin but j u s t i c e ? '^7
Still,
S u t p e n admits no com plicity in his denial
of Charles
Bon, and t h o u g h it ulti mat ely destroys him and his design,
he dies
innoc ent , without self-knowledge,
and the meaning
of his h i s t o r y is only fin all y discovered through the n a r r a ­
tive " v o i c e s " who recreate his life.
H o w do we arrive at the "total"
story?
Faulkner
and b r o u g h t
truth about Sutpen's
in one stroke b oth c om pl ic ate d the matter
it vitally to life by using four narrative
"voices" w h o remember a n d recreate the hi st or y from fragments
of facts.
This
device all owe d him to dramatize, rather than
simply p r e s e n t by recollection,
n a rr at or
to Sutpen's career.
the re lat io n sh i p of each
For example,
there is the
"i d e n t i f i c a t i o n " between H e n ry Sutpen and Quentin, both
doomed b y
chivalric codes of ho nor r e l a t i n g to sisters,
and
at least p a r t i a l l y between Shreve and Mr.
Compson,
alt h ou gh S h r ev e is a Canadian and outside
the history of the
South,
b o t h he and Mr.
somewhat
Co mpson tend to take a detached,
iron ic view of Sutpen's history.
recreating
for
However,
the story each narrat or tends to "verify"
^ ^ W i l l i a m Faulkner, A b s a l o m , Abs alo m
R a n do m H o u s e , 1936), p. 26$.
in
its
(New York:
113
<
meaning only in terms of his or her own p ar ti cu lar rea din g
of the events,
the tale,
and while this may help to pa rti all y enlighten
it also imposes all the limitations
particular viewpoint.
There is a t end enc y on the part of
each narrator to try to "contain"
Sutpen's history,
of their own
the actual mys te ry of
dep en di ng on their degree of involvement
in that history and the particular sense of values they
br ing to bear wh en interpreting it.
For example,
to Rosa
Coldfield Sutpen is a "demon," while to Shreve he is at times
a tawdry buffoon and serio-comic
Mr. Compson holds this view,
opportunist
too),
(to some extent
and both are reductive
views which do not represent the final "tragic" Sutpen
Faulkner makes
the reader see.
As Cl eanth Brooks
suggested,
Faulkner's concern in A b s a l o m , Absalom m ay be equally on
Sutpen and "how we k n ow the past," but rega rdi ng the latter
he shows the single imagination to be limited and subject
to distortion w h en "recreating" history,
Gail Hightower's
as in the case of
"historizing" imagination in Light in A u g u s t .
In Hi ght ow er Faulkner was concerned with the d i s s o ­
ciating historical
imagination,
one in wh ich the ontological
balance between past and present,
s en si bil it y and action,
insight and fact had somehow become tipped,
true in the case of eac h of the narrators
too.
Sutpen's outrageous
and this seems
in A b s a l o m , Abs alo m
suggestion to her has become Rosa
Coldfield's idee fixe ; she cannot
"get beyond" that moment
in her past to see h i m in any larger pe rsp ect iv e of history.
114
Quentin C o m p s o n ’s id en ti fic at ion vrith the past
"imagines"
it)
(as he
is so close and complete that it produces
romantic dis tor ti on similar to Hightower's,
a destructive
obsession whic h Faulkner des cr ib ed as Quentin's "ophthalmia."
Mr. Compson and Shreve, b o t h inter est ed in and involved in
S u t p e n 's history,
tend to "contain"
cosmic vi ew p oi nt of sardonic,
H o w does Faulkner,
it within their larger
somewhat world-weary fatalism.
then,
create perspective in
A b s a l o m , Absal om whic h bo t h presents
the mysterious truth of
Sutpen's career and at the same time implicitly measures
distortions and limitations of the narrat in g "voices"?
is by his
the
It
own authorial v o i c e wo v en in and through the v a r i ­
ous voices of the narrators,
a voice whi ch creates Sutpen's
mystery by r e v e al in g its dynamic re lat ion sh ip to the ch ar ­
acter "voice"
trying to ex pl ai n and un de rst an d it.
In each
case Sutpen's hi st or y cannot be "contained" by the single
narrator voice,
and the sense of overflowing,
truth is con veyed by the h e i g h t e n e d rhetoric
the novel.
In addition,
F a ul kn er uses
of Kings I I , the story of Absalom,
of revenge,
the great man brought
onrushing
and style of
the explicit analogue
and the classical pattern
down by the retributive
hand of Fate, whose canons he has violated.
These analogues
serve to measure the action of Sutpen's history,
from the in te rp ret ing narrators,
and also serve as a formal
touchstone to correct the distor tio ns
voices.
Thus
as distinct
of their particular
through Faulkner's use of analogical techniques
115
and rhetoric,
of Sutpen,
resists
we are finally left with the ab iding my ste ry
multifarious,
dramatic a nd "ongoing" because
the ca teg or i zi ng impulses of its various
A b s a l o m , Absalom is perhaps
major novels;
it
interpreters.
the "darkest" of Faulkner's
it is as though in it history were c i r c u m ­
scribed and turned inward upon itself p a r a l y t i c a l l y ,
Th ere
is a cer t ai n amount of rede emi ng action in the novel,
as
Brooks has
s h o w n , par tic u la rl y in the lo ng-suffering hum a ni ty
of Judith,
w h o lives through,
understands,
si on ate ly in time and history.
and acts c o m p a s ­
But the weight is upon the
forces of d e s t ru ct iv e innocence and dissociation throughout
the novel,
a nd they are intensified by Faulkner's
torical flights
however,
and immersions.
In The Sound and the F u r y ,
the forces of destruction are more
positive, r e d e mp ti ve
energies at work,
spiritual power exerted by Dilsey.
focuses
Moreover,
speaking from
it seems
to me
vision informing The Sound and the Fury
the po sit iv e and negative themes upon one another
in a more
recall
"balanced" by
in pa rt ic ula r the
the s t a n d p o i n t of the analogical aesthetic,
that the his to ri ca l
own r h e ­
concrete,
that
dramatic,
mu tu all y- rev eal in g way.
the essence of the analogical
involves
nating" v i s i o n dra matically in the concrete,
We
"in c ar ­
and evolving
mea ni ng in the concrete through evolving action.
Of Faulkner's
major n o ve ls The Sound and the Fury seems to achieve this
most succ ess ful ly ,
and for this reason it actually seems
more C h r i s t i a n in its rende rin g of hi sto ry than the over tl y
116
allegori ze d A F a b l e , whose vision of his tor y suffers,
think,
I
in exact proportion to its failure to dramatically •
embody that visio n in the concrete.
It is also,
curiously,
more "dated" than The Sound and the F u r y , 1 think because
at times the vital historical sense fails to wor k in the
creative act.
Thus its ov er -ri din g allegorical vision seems
part ly unrealized, whereas The Sound and the Fury possesses
the f re sh dramatic power which enriches
again.
In other words,
its vision again and
The Sound and the Fury formally
embodies mystery, whereas A F able is about the mystery of the
Incarnat io n in history,
values
and the l a tt er is no guarantee of
that must be discovered and cre at ed with in the work.
The story of the decline of the Compson family,
a
decline epitomized by the tragedies of Caddie and Quentin,
is an analogue of the fallen co n d i t i o n itself,
and Faulkner's
vis i on is worked out brilliantly in the way each character
res po nds to that condition.
is the idiot Benjy,
of their decline.
The to uchstone
of their response
for in one sense he is the living emblem
At the same time,
however, he embodies
rede mp tiv e possibility in the sense that his very presence
is a demand upon the deepest s pi ri tua l caapcities of the
other characters,
and how they "see"
the gauge of their own humanity.
He
and respond to h i m is
is the crucible in
w h ic h the me aning of human "being-ness"
extension,
becomes
the me an in g of human history.
is tested,
and by
For some Benjy
a medium of grace, of acc ep ta nc e of the mystery of
117
suffering,
of time,
of the idea of spiritual community
linking all cr eat ur es
he em bod ie s all
history,
For others,
the irrational absurdity of existence,
and una b le
escape it, but
in the redemptive process.
to live with this,
of
they try to deny or
in so doing they re li nqu is h the redemptive
p os si b i l i t i e s as well.
W i t h the
takes m e a s u r e s
fall,
exception of Caddie,
each of the Compsons
to immunize themselves from the fact of their
c e n t e r e d in Benjy.
This is the same quest for i n n o ­
cence a n d s e l f - r e d e m p t i o n seen in Joe Christmas and Hig ht ow er
and Sutpen,
the same
denial of hi story and spiritual
community,
and it p r o d u c e s mu ch
the same forms of dissociation,
only
perhaps mo re
i n t en se l y extreme.
Caddie,
the "girl brave
enough to climb that
tree" and look in the forbidden
that
d e a t h — accepts both her individual and
is,
to stare at
the f a m il y' s
co ll ec ti ve
window- -
fall, and she along with Dilsey are
the ones m o st c a r i n g for Benjy throughout the novel.
the ot her Co mp so ns
the mse lve s
try to deny this reality,
out of this historical
larity fr o m its suffering.
ment and an affliction,
into the past,
To Mrs.
and to project
and achieve i n s u ­
Co mps on Benjy is a j u d g ­
and so she retrea ts ne u re st he ni ca ll y
the ro man ti c memory of her hig h- bo r n family,
and into c o m p le te self-pity.
about B e n jy 's name change,
of him,
"present"
But
She par ti ci pa te s in b r i ng in g
a fact w h i c h reveals her denial
and in a similar impulse,
she denies the fallen
Caddie b y r e f u s i n g to allow mention of her name in the
118
Compson household.
Havin g r e t r e a t e d into the past,
she has
relinq uis hed any capacity for act i on in the present;
completely runs
house.
the family affairs,
Jason
and Dilsey manages
the
Nevertheless, Mrs. Co mp s on talks continually about
her suffering,
but in fact she has cut herself off from even
that, r et rea ti ng to her room w hen ev er some crisis is imminent.
For Mrs.
Compson,
as well as her husband and sons,
only an emblem of dissolution,
time is
and they all remain time-
obsessed in their inability to accept the "fall" in their
his to ry gr acefully
(in the theological sense),
and act with
some degree of effectiveness in the present moment.
The
idea of actual ly suffering through time,
"here,"
is largely inconceivable to them,
and yet this is where
redemptive grace is actuall y operative,
To the Compsons
escape its flow,
Mr.
the present
time is unredeemable,
as Dilsey demonstrates,
and since they cannot
time becomes meaningless progression,
as
Compson informs Quentin wi th the gift of his father's
watch.
I give you the m au so leu m of all hope and desire; its
rather exc ruc iat in gly apt that you will use it to gain
the red uct io absurdum of all human experience w h i c h can
fit your individual needs n o better than it fitted his
or his f a t h e r ’s.
I give it to you not that you m a y r e ­
memb er time, but that you might forget it n o w and then
for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to
conquer it.
Because no battle is ever won he said.
They are not even fought.
The field only reveals to
man his oim folly and despair , and vi cto ry is an i l l u ­
sion of philos oph er s and fools.
18
The Sound and the F u r y , p. 95*
119
For Mr. Compson,
past,
in ad d i t i o n to a retreat into the
the quest for immuni ty p r e e m i n e n t l y takes the form of
a retreat behi nd language itself.
effects his
dissociation.
T h ro u gh ta lk~-vords— he
Gif ted v i t h eloquence and morbid
sense of irony, Mr. Co mp so n uses it to construct his own
despairing, m a n i c h e a n vis io n of history,
"safe" O ly mpi an po sture which he uses,
and yet this is a
along with drink,
to detach him se l f from the re al ambiguities of history,
most importantly,
and
from the p e rs on al demands and re s po ns ib il i­
ties it places befor e h i m in the present.
is totally corrupt to Mr.
Since the world
Compson, he is not called upon to
act, since actio n is now lar ge ly meaningless.
Language
becomes the act of self -hy pno si s by w h i c h he convinces h i m ­
self of this.
Yet it is language dissocia te d from fact--
the antithesis
of the i n c a r n a tional ideal which implicitly
informs and judges his di ss oc ia ti ng speech--and this c o n d i ­
tion simil arl y hau nts Q u e nt in thro ugh out Section 11, where
we see h i m ac tu all y drownin g in a deluge of disembodied
language and insight he cannot ef fe ct iv el y handle.
For Quentin,
language,
time,
and the concrete present
re ality of the fal len Co mps on state becomes an unbearable
burden of un r e m i t t i n g s uf fe rin g and loss.
cessfully seeks
fact of Caddie's
immuni ty from history,
loss of virginity,
Yet he too u n s u c ­
specifically from the
by trying to project
himself and Caddie into a state of m ock damnation by incest.
In Quentin's mind,
this would, not so m u c h give mean in g to
120
her af fa i r w i t h Dalton Ames
me ani ng le ss ),
(his father assures h i m it is
but preserve them together in a state of frozen
i n v i o l a b i l i t y before her "fall," and thus keep them immune.
This is
the famili ar quest for innocence
do xi cal ly sought through damnation,
in Fa ulk ne r
(para­
like Joe Christmas),
but g ive n the fact of the fall it n o w be comes
spiritual f i xi t y that Quentin desires.
the death of
19
It was a while before the last stroke ceased vibrating.
It s t a y e d in the air, more felt than heard, for a long
time.
Like all the bells that ever r a n g still rin gi ng
in the long dying light-rays and Jesus and St. Francis
t a l k i n g about his sister.
Because if it were just to
hell; if that were all of it.
F i n i s h e d . If things just
f i n i s h e d t h e m s e l v e s . N o bo dy else but her and m e . If we
c o u l d h a v e just done somet hin g so dreadful that they
w o u l d h a v e fled hell except u s . Tltalics m i n e .) ^ have
c o m m i t t e d incest ^ said Father it was I it was not
D a l to n Ames And when he put Dalto n Ames Dalto n Ames
D a l t o n Ames wh en he put the pistol in my hands I didn't.
T h at 's w h y I didn't.
He w o u l d be there and she wo uld and
I w o u l d . 20
This i n n o c e n c e - b y - d a m n a t i o n , the so ug h t- fo r reprie ve from
suffering,
temper,
time and change,
is the essence of the manich ea n
and it leads "logically"
to Quentin's
Yet Quentin's tale of incest
give s o me rational,
suicide.
is also an attempt to
ethical meaning to human behavior,
by
c o n s t r u c t i n g a personal code of ethics and "justice" with
19
T h is idea of fixity is the antithesis of the notion
of grace as "spiritual motion" outlin ed in Chapter I.
This
spiri tu al motion, as noted, often takes the form of a new
insight into the meaning of history, and ac cep ti ng it, as
Dilsey does in Part IV.
20
T h e Sound and the F u r y , pp.
98-99»
121
which to "balance out" action on a clear scale of sin and
retribution.
In this respect it is like Joe Christmas'
preference for the unambiguous
" justice"
of Mr. McEachern or
Hi ghtower's plea for a clear b a l an ci ng of his relationship
with the com mu ni t y by saying:
immunity."
ence.
mys te ry
I have bought
But all these attempts at persona l ethic are
doomed to fail,
attempts
"I h ave paid.
because they are e s s e n t i a l l y reductive--
to eliminate the fundamental m y st er y of h u m a n e x p e r i ­
To reject that is to attempt to live "outside"
that
(a subtle form of i m m u n i t y ) , but the price of this
isolation fr om ongoing history is s p i ri tu al paralysis and
inevitable defeat.
On the other hand,
accepting the myst ery
involves ac ce pt in g the paradox of inequity,
suffering,
and
loss in exp erience and at the same time r e s p on di n g actively
to the wor k in g of grace within ongoing,
nature.
Faulkner's phrase "to endure"
acceptance and spiritual adaptability,
sive stoicism.
changing fallen
implies this kind of
rath er than just p a s ­
Quentin Compson cannot accept
ters like Dilsey,
this;
c h a ra c­
Lena Grove and Ju di t h Sutpen do.
Ja son Compson's lust for i m m u n i t y from history is as
intense as his parents'
and brother Quentin's,
fested in different ways.
There is the same ontological
di sso ci a ti on of past from present,
but Ja son tries to manage
time and events not by retreat into the past,
h i ms el f totally in the present.
past are irrelevant
only m a n i ­
but by immers in g
To J as on history and the
except as they rel a te
to his immediate
122
pragmatic concerns in the present.
is strictly functional
That his v ie w of matters
is evidenced by his re a di ne ss
commit Benjy to the J a c k s o n asylum.
or even familial,
to
He admits no spiritual,
ties w i t h the idiot, nor that Benjy has
any identity withi n the
community.
And yet ironically,
Jason's desire to r e p u d i a t e his connection wit h the Compson
fall is ma ni fe s te d by his
obsessive concern wi th their
"place"
and how he appears
eye.
in the community,
This is of course
Quentin II's behavior,
in the public
the real re as on for his concern with
a n d Benjy's also.
Jason's r e l a t i o n s h i p w it h Benjy is symptomatic
another destructive t r a it he
to create a rational
the attempt
p e r so na l ethic that will serve as a
bulwark against forces
ambiguity.
shares with Quentin:
of
of mystery,
He rega rds it as "just"
the unpredictable,
and
that he steals from
Quentin II as payment f o r the bajik position he lost, his
idee fixe in the past.
he tries
to control
By this k i n d of n a rr ow ra ti on al ism
eve n ts i mm ed ia tel y around him,
Quentin II's mi sb e h a v i o r to Benjy's desperate howl
final scene of the novel.
"ethic" and asserts
wh ich reveals
from
in the
Ja so n feels justified in his
"I can take care of myself ,"
a remark
that he sees hi mse lf as mo r a l l y independent,
immune to h i st or y and loss,
rede mpt ion outside himself.
and thus not in any n eed of
Yet throughout his section of
the novel Jason is d e f e a t e d again and again by those m y s t e r i ­
ous forces of life he c a n no t control;
and yet he learns
123
n o t h i n g f r o m these defeats, r e m a in in g "i nn oce nt" like Sutpen
to the end.
His logical scheme
to rob Caddie's daughter is
d e f ea te d by his own misreading of her daring,
nature;
he c an no more control her r at ion all y than he can
his s to ck m a rk e t investments.
of his c o n t r o l
time.
capricious
The
image of the breakdown
is his frenzied in a b i l i t y to keep up with
A n d it is time without any supernatural construction;
the p r o v i d e n t i a l
sparrows of the Quentin section have no w
become the p e s t e r i n g pigeons Ja son cannot control or destroy.
It is Dilsey,
of course,
who embodies most of the
p o s it iv e r e d e m p t i v e forces in the novel.
im po rta nt
that she
t hi ng that can be said about her initially is
lives through all the ang ui sh ed moments of the
Com p so n h i s t o r y ,
unlike the members
re treat
or esca pe
This is
to say,
fall,
Perhaps the most
in the various ways I have indicated.
then,
o f the fall,
of the family, who
that Dilsey accepts the fact of their
accepts time
and place realistically,
and ex h i b i t s non e of the forms of dissociation so evident
in the Co mp son s.
social c o n t e x t
eternal
Book,"
Her strong sense of place goes beyond
or immediate hi st or ic al
o n t o l o g i c a l roots.
as she
situation to its
She knows her name is in "de
tells Caddie,
and she intends to answer for
her s el f
at the Final Judgment.
Dilsey's universal and
eternal
s e ns e of community derives
from this faith.
Her
sense o f c o m m u n i t y is not drawn in up on itself narcissistically a n d ma d e
exclusive,
like the Compsons'; her community
124
is truly universal,
a fact revealed by her v ie w of Benjy
as one of God's créatures and her inclusion of him in the
Negro Easter service.
Christ's Redemption,
accept
The center of her vie w of history is
and her faith in it enables her to
and act co ns tru ct ive ly in and through time,
suffering and loss,
to b ri ng about some me asure of good.
Time does not haunt her as it does the Compsons.
strikes
through
inaccurately but Dilsey knows what
The clock
time it is; lik e­
wise, w h en the children are curious about D a m u d d y 's death,
she tells them they will know "in de Lord's own time."
Because her acceptance of time and hi st o ry is not manichean
or detached,
like Mr.
the present.
cally,
Compson's,
she can act "gracefully" in
Her presence in the Compson midst,
is a vital,
analogi­
dramatic and informing counterpoint to
their negative dissoci at ion from his t or y as meaningless,
redemption-less,
tual community,
and absurd.
Her faith in an ongoing sp iri­
centered in Christ, and her actions continu­
ally testify to redemptive p o s s i b i l i t i e s .
Dilsey's acceptance of the red em pt iv e
tory,
ideal of h i s ­
and of her concrete place in it, is demonstrated most
clearly in her relat io nsh ip with the idiot Benjy.
the Compsons,
Unlike
she will not leave him out of the human family;
she is aware of his place--the place of all irrational
suffering--in a divine plan.
She knows intuitively that to
deny h i m is to deny "the least" in the kingdom,
focal point
and so the
of irrationality and menain gle ss nes s for others
125
becomes for Dilse y a m e d i u m of grace,
achieves next
to Benjy in church.
the "vision" she
Thus she refuses
ticipate in the various C o m p s o n "denials" of him:
not refer to him as "the b a b y , " as Mrs.
opposes his name change f r o m Maury;
day party,
to p a r ­
she will
Compson does;
she
she organizes his b i r t h ­
a fact r e v e al in g h e r total acceptance of their
condition in time.
21
To D i ls ey Benjy is not an "affliction"
or a no n-functional dependent,
but a soul, and to him she
attributes the kind of d i v i n e prescience familiarly attributed
to idiots--"precious"
in the sight of the Lord.
Dilsey's ac ce pta nc e o f their condition,
neither stoical nor p a s s i v e .
then,
is
The Compsons seem condemned to
being able only to react di ss oc ia ti ve ly from their historical
fall, but
she acts c r e a t i v e l y and in so doing transforms
meaning of their experience.
the
H er ability to do this d e m o n ­
strates one of the central paradoxes of redemption history:
that complete acceptance of the fall,
time and this place linked
liberating gift of freedom,
of lim itation--of this
to Christ and eternity--is a
and that her spiritual
tra n sc en ­
dence grows out of fi d e l i t y to the present and the limited
concrete.
Thus
Dilsey is m os t free of anyone in the novel,
not burdened by time, nor de lug ed by language, nor driven
by a desire for personal
imm un i ty and self-redemption.
She
accepts suffering cr e a t i v e l y without desire for reprieve,
believing that it has a l r e a d y been paid for,
21
Similarly,
after she is gone.
already redeemed.
D i l s e y re fuses to deny Caddie's
existence
126
As she stands next to Be nj y in church,
l is te nin g to
the R e v e r e n d Shegog's Easter sermon,
she experiences one of
those s p i r it ua l
"motions"
and
of a h i s t o r i c a l
insight
of
into
grace,
their
true
it comes in
the form
condition. She
"sees" the c o n n e c t i n g link b et wee n the historical Christ and
His l i v i n g image in the idiot standing next to her, and
me a ni ng of huma n
suffering.
she tells Fr on y later.
first and
the
"I've seed de first en de last,"
It may l ik el y be a re ference to the
the last of the Compsons.
But her freshly i l l u ­
m in at ed sense of histo ry stretches beyond that.
We recall
that R e v e r e n d Shegog's sermon topic was "the r e c o l l ec t io n
and the B l o o d of the Lamb," and as he incarnated that vision
into the N e g r o dialect,
col le c t i o n --the
idiocy,
and
Dilsey also experiences that r e -
"gathering together"
of all the
suffering,
loss in history in the person of Christ.
The
grace of this insight makes h i s t o r y profoundly clear to her,
so that
she can accept it,
"e n d u r e ," and continue
w i t h f r e e d o m and faith to justify that perception.
to act
C H AP TE R FIVE
I.
The vision of Fl an n er y O'Connor was that of an
al l ego ri st who saw h uman h i s t o r y as a commedia divina
centered
in Christ's Redemption,
a mys te r y which she
a c c e p t e d as literal truth and then pr oc ee de d to explore
in such a way that the form and mea ni ng of her stories
evolved
inseparably from the fundamental mystery of Christ's
conti nu ing presence in h u m a n affairs.
The Christian d o c ­
trinal interpretation of h i st or y which she accepted w h o l e ­
h e a r t e d l y led her to see all things
together" by the Redemption,
in creation "linked
and given that vision,
she
set about the task of dr ama tiz in g its themes and counterthemes as she saw them ref le ct ed
in con temporary experience.
Her doctri nal viewpoint,
her historical sense,
aesthetic
"of one substanc e:"
sense were all
b e l i e f in the analogical nature of reality,
and her
a firm
a reality
ex t en de d to infinite depth by the "added dimension" of
superna tu ral mystery inc arnated in Christ.
To an audience
larg el y indifferent or ev en hostile to this added d i m e n ­
sio n of my stery in hu man reality,
rationalism,
an audience imbued with
the action in Miss O'Connor's
127
stories often
128
seems bizarre,
grotesque,
and absurd.
But bene at h the
surface di s cr ep an ci e s
lies an awesome wholeness of vision
and form,
integrity that derives,
a n a rti sti c
I believe,
from the fact that both her vision and the act of writing
grew f r o m the same source:
Christ.
Thus,
the analogical my st e ry of
the subject matter of her best fiction and
her m e t h o d of p en e t r a t i n g it became indivisible :
an "iden­
tity" ex is ts b e t w e e n them which gives the stories the i n vi ­
olable c ha rac te r of living mysteries.
in the de ep es t sense because,
T he y are comedies
unlike some of her fellow
c on t e m p o r a r y wri te rs who chose to focus upon the absurdity
of ma n' s con di ti on in itself,
she chose to examine the
"absurd" m y s t er y of the divine incarnating Hi mse lf in
h u ma n form,
tionality,
w h i c h creates a higher perspective for irra­
violence,
suffering,
and death--a perspective
in w h i c h the stakes of h um an action are ultimate and e ter ­
nal.
Fr om the outset of her career Miss O ’Connor made
plain the d oc tri nal foundation of her vision.
from the sta ndpoint of Christian orthodoxy.
"I see
This means
that for me the me an i ng of life is centered in our R e d e m p ­
tion b y Christ an d what I see in the w or ld I see in its
r e l a t i o n to t h a t .
of our
first parents,
"We lost our innocence in the fall
and our return to it is through the
Fla n ne ry O'Connor, "The Fiction Writer and His
Country," The Living N o v e l , ed. Granville Hicks (New York:
Coll ier Books, 1962), pp. l6l-2.
129
redemption w hi c h was brought about by Christ's death and
by our slow participation in it."
themes of her fiction--the Fall,
2
All of the central
the quest for innocence,
the acceptance or rejec tio n of redemptive grace,
judg-
ment--are focused by the hi st or ic al fact of Christ's
incarnation,
death, and resurrection.
It is the light
which shines through the immediate context of the con ­
temporary South in her work to link it with the u n i v e r ­
sal struggle of man for re d e m p t i o n re pr e sen ted in the
Old and New Testament.
To illuminate this meaning through
fiction po sed tremendous problems for her as an artist,
for she we ll recognized that her a u d i e n c e - - i n d e e d , much
of the m o d e r n western w or ld -- po ss es se d attitudes inimical
to her own beliefs.
was not enough,
She r e c og ni ze d that "moral vision"
that for her the artist's spiritual views
must also coincide with his "dramatic sense" and his
"vision of what is" in the creative act, else both the
moral and the dramatic wo uld suffer diminution.
To
achieve this identity of visi on and dramatic immediacy
meant to create a "violent" fiction.
Thus,
she fused
together in a radical way (in the manner of a m e t a p h y s i ­
cal poet,
I believe) m any different elements:
analogues and Biblical history,
of Dante,
2
Hawthorne,
classical
the allegorical tradition
and the America n romance,
the regional
Flannery O'Connor, "The Church and the Fiction
Writer," A m e r i c a , XCVI (March 30, 1957), PP* 733-4.
130
traditions of the comic and the grotesque,
and the
prophetic tradi tio n of cont in uin g revelation.
But what
makes these elements w o r k dr am ati ca lly and concretely,
what fuses them creatively,
Christ's redemption,
is her doctrinal belief in
w h i c h centers her aesth eti c as well
as theological vision:
th ey are one.
Miss O'Connor in sis te d up on the identity in the
concrete be twe en th eo lo gi cal vision and artistic practice
again and again in her essays,
lectures,
and interviews.
If y o u shy away f r o m sense experience, you will not
be able to rea d fiction; but you w i l l not be able to
apprehend a nyt hi ng else in the world either, because
every mystery that enters the human mind, except in
the final stages of co nte mplative prayer, does so by
way of the senses.
Christ didn't r e d e e m us by a
direct intellectual act, but became incarnate in
human form, and He speaks to us now through the m e d i ­
ation of a vis ibl e Church.
All this m a y seem a long
way from the subject of fiction, but it is not, for
the main concern of the fiction writ er is with m y s ­
tery as it is in ca rna ted in hu ma n l i f e . 3
The Man icheans s ep ara te d spirit and matter.
To them
all material things we re evil.
They sought pure
spirit and tried to ap pr oa ch it without any m e d ia ­
tion of matter.
This is pretty much the modern
spirit, and for the s en si bi lit y infect ed with it,
fiction is hard if not impossible to wr ite because
fiction is so v ery much an inc arn ational art.^
For Miss O'Connor,
the incarnational aesthe ti c and the
re ve lation of mys ter y thro ug h the concrete in fiction was
linked to the In ca r n a t i o n of Christ in history.
3
We recall
Flannery O'Connor, "Catholic No velists and their
Readers," Mystery and M a nners (New York:
Farrar, Straus,
& Giroux, 1 9 0 9 J , p. 17^
L
Flannery O'Connor, "The Nature and Aim of Fiction,"
Mystery and Manners (New York:
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux,
19&9), p% 58.
131
from C h a p t e r s One and Three that in the Christian view of
history,
Ch r i s t ' s Incarnation is an analogical a c t i o n
•which c o n ti nu es
to occur th rough the mysterious o p e r a ­
tion of grace in nature.
on go in g process,
Miss O' Co nno r believe d in this
its concrete
per s on a n d as an artist.
It account s for the p e c u l i a r
in t en si ty of he r stories.
that Ch ri s t
"possibility," bot h as a
Critic Robe rt Drake has
said
is the hero of all her s t o r i e s , and this
p r o f o u n d l y true,
tral theme;
is
because all h er fic ti o n embodies one c e n ­
the encounter w i t h Christ and the " p o s s i b i l ­
ity" of grace,
a violent encounter wh ic h is often br ought
about p a r a d o x i c a l l y through the a g e nc y of the devil.
at its best,
And
her fiction is not o nl y about the my s t e r i o u s
e n c o u n t e r w i t h Christ;
rather,
w h i c h the r e a d e r experiences,
it is that s hoc ki ng encounter
be ca u se of the id en t it y that
exists b e t w e e n for m and v i s i o n in her work.
Onl y by this
un it y c o ul d she avoid what for her was the greatest danger
in " r e li gi ou s" writing;
bec o me
that the m ora l sense of the artist
d e t a c h e d from the dramatic
in the act of creation.
She k n e w that w h e n dis sociation occurre d it p r o d u c e d a
M a n i c h e a n a n d un -i nc ar na te d fiction:
on the one hand,
on the
falsely pietis ti c
or falsely de mea ni ng of physic al re al it y
other.
Li ke Jo se p h Conrad,
she be li ev ed the h i g h e s t
task
of the w r i t e r w a s to render justice to the created u n i ­
verse , a n d for her this included mys te ry and the
"added
132
dimension" of the supernatural.
how to render
The q u e s t i o n then became;
justice to mystery.
Miss O ’Connor recalled
wi th a d m i ra ti o n H e n r y James' way of d e a l i n g with unsolicited,
inferior manuscripts.
James w ou ld r e t u r n t h e m with the
r e m a r k that the wri t er had chosen a good subject and had
tre at ed it in a direct,
s tra igh tf orw ar d way.
perhaps flatt ere d the author,
noted,
the truth,
While this
as Miss O'Connor
was that it was proba bly the worst thing James could
hav e said about the manuscript,
since a direct,
straight­
for w ar d approac h was the least capable of reve ali ng the
mysteries of concrete reality.
What she understood,
then,
was the need for indirection as a means of creating de nsity
and depth in her
fiction,
of r en d e r i n g justice to mystery.
But this was not to be a strategy for looking beyond or
a r o u n d the concrete;
it to the larger,
rather,
one of pe ne tr ati ng through
invisible reali tie s
it embodied.
Ground­
ing the vi si o n of mys t er y in the concrete was ult imately
a matter of trust and faith,
made pos si b le by her belief
that physical c rea tio n is redeemed,
good in itself and
re v el at or y of something of the ab sol ut e and the eternal,
like Blake's
infinitesimal grain of sand.
Metaphysically,
this belief is ground ed in the an al ogi ca l principle of
being,
through w hi c h the widest p oss ibl e visi on can be
contained in a concrete,
narrow,
limited reality.
Belief
in the anal og ica l nature of r e a li ty led her naturally to
typolog ic al vi si on in fiction as a w a y of dramatizing
133
" h i st or y” and the un i v e r s a l through the concrete present.
The kind of vision the wr it e r needs to have, or to
develop, in order to increase the me aning of his
story is called a n a g o g i c a l vision, and that is the
kin d of vision that is able to see different levels
of re ali ty in one image or one situation.
The m e d i ­
eval commentators on Sc ripture found three kinds of
meaning in the literal level of the sacred text:
one
they called allegorical, in which one fact pointed to
another; one they c a ll ed t r o p o l o g i c a l , or moral,
w hi ch had to do w i th wh at should be done; and one
they called anagogical, which had to do wi th the
Divine life and our pa rt i c i p a t i o n in it.
Although
this was a meth od a p p l i e d to b ib l i ca l exegesis, it
also was an attitu de tow a rd all of creation, and a
w a y of rea din g nature that included most p o s s i b i l i ­
ties, and I think it is this enlarged view of the
h u m a n scene that the fict ion writer has to cultivate
if he is ever going to write stories that have any
chance of becomin g a perm ane nt part of our literature.
It seems to be a p a r a d o x that the larger and more c om ­
p l ex the personal view, the easier it is to compress
into fi ct i on .5
Foll ow ing the manner of the typological,
prophetic crea­
tor, Mi ss O'Connor made h e r stories aboun d w ith scriptural
and literary allusions,
c la ss ica l motifs,
and the al l e ­
gorical structuring of a c t i on s- -t o "compress" the larger
and more complex person al
vision of history.
She r e c o g ­
nized early in her caree r that these devices could not be
used merely to serve as extrinsic points of reference
for illuminating m e a n i n g in the story.
To w o r k truly
w i t h i n and through the li teral level--to be truly typological--there ha d to be a n intrinsic identit y of for m between
the various levels of the story, w hi ch is the essence of
^Flannery O'Connor, "The Nature and Aim of Fiction,"
M y s t e r y and Manners (New York;
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux,
1 9 6 9 ), pp. 7 2 - 3 .
134
the a n a l o g i c a l mode.
B e c a u s e her stories
Christ,
center in the encounter with
the acceptance or re j e c t i o n of supernatural grace
w o r k i n g in nature,
they ne c es sa ri ly presuppose violence.
As a t e c h n i c a l means she u s e d violence as a means--not
as an e n d
in itself--to sh oc k an audience wh ic h she felt
was i m p e r v i o u s to the deepest mysteries of the religious
experience.
Th e novelist with Ch ris ti an concerns will find in
m o d e r n life distortions which are repugnant to him,
a n d h i s p r ob le m will be to make them appear as d i s ­
t o r t i o n s to an audience which is used to accepting
t h e m as natural; and he ma y well be forced to take
e v e n m o r e violent means to get his vision across to
this h o s t i l e audience.
When you can assume that your,
a u d i e n c e holds the same beliefs that you do, you can
r e l a x a little and use more normal ways of talking to
it; w h e n you have to as sum e that it does not, then
y o u h a v e to make your v isi on apparent by shock--to
the h a r d of hear ing you shout, and for the almost
b l i n d y o u draw large and startling p i c tu r es .&
The m o s t
im po rta nt
j us ti fi cat io n for her use of violence,
h o w e v e r — the theological one --l ay in the very nature of
the i n c a r n a t i o n a l vi si on itself.
of h u m a n nature,
the pre sence of grace is forced to make
itself k n o w n in bizarre and
that is,
prelude
Due to the intractability
to non-believers).
"grotesque" ways
(grotesque,
Violence occurs often as a
to the shock of conf ro nta ti on w i t h the Divine in
hu m an ex pe ri en c e,
burning a w a y pride and self-will,
in the case of Mr. Head in "The Artificial Nigger,"
^ F l a n n e r y O'Connor,
Country," pp. l62-3.
as
On
"The Fiction Wr it er and His
135
the other hand,
there is also the violence produced by
a r e j e c t i o n of grace,
such as Rayber's violent,
dest ru cti ve ration ali sm and r ef usa l to love.
self­
Thus the
mystery of violence is part of the mystery of Christ
Himself:
it could lead creatively to an acceptance of
grace as in T a r w a t e r ’s final acceptance of his v oca tio n
as a prophet,
or contrarily,
it could be the destructive
violence of the Misfit's refusal of re demption wh en he
shoots the Grandmother.
T h e critic M ar i on M on t g o m e r y has suggested that
one fu n da me nt al identifying point of true Southern f i c ­
tion is a "sense of v i o l â t ion"--an ingrained metaphysical
n
awareness of incompleteness and limitation.
Miss O ' C o n ­
nor's C h r i s t i a n perspective w o u ld attribute this to all
crea ti on- -t he mys te ry that,
things
on the one hand,
persons and
("precious objects"X^in creation are sacramental
and redeemed,
and on the other hand,
marked with i n c o m ­
pleten es s b y the radical vi ol at ion that occurred in the
Fall,
the
acter.
ters,
initial "violence" done to true spiritual c h a r ­
But what
if, like many of Miss O'Connor's c h a r a c ­
one chooses to deny this rea li ty of metaphysical
li m it at io n and incompleteness?
person al
What if one presumes to
"wholeness," a spiritual self-sufficiency wi thout
the n e ed for outside "help"
7
(i.e.,
grace),
or if one
M a r i o n Montgomery, "A Sense of Violation:
Notes
Toward a Def in it io n of Southern Fiction," Georgia Review
XIX (1 9 6 5 ), pp. 2 7 8 -8 7 .
136
cHiooses to see physic al cre a ti on as str i ct ly material,
wzLtbiout sacrame nta l value ?
a:gaà.ti in her stories
Then what occurs a ga in and
is the "holy violence"
of Christ
p*en«trating the false sense of wh ole ne ss and self-sufficdency,
a:ri«s,
grace v i o l e n t l y pulveriz ing the false sanctu-
exposing man's r a d i c a l li mitation and need for
redemption.
The am bi gu ou s agents of violen ce in her f i c ­
t i o n also b ri ng w i th th e m paradoxically,
O'lf grace.
the possibilities
Christ then is the vio lator-redeemer,
s h a tt er ­
ing the illusions of Na tur al Man, w h o thinks he is whole
i*mt 0 h i ms el f an d at one w i t h his world.
In this violent
esaic o u n t e r , m a n is made to see the divine po ten ti al it y w o n
fT'or^ h i m by Christ and his true place
in the eternal king-
<a oirm.
Tak in g the C h r i s t i a n co nception of his to ry as her
■ftou»chstone, then,
and the analogical mode of b rin gi ng it
'''to life" in her work, M i ss O'Connor us ed classical,
Old
T e s t a m e n t , and New T e s ta m en t analogues to depict the uni■veirsa 1 struggle over the Fall and Redemption.
■netr,
Like Faulk-
she saw the m o d e r n South as a ba t tl eg ro un d for con-
"tending ph il os op hi es of history,
•Clijristian and redemptive,
the one essentially
the other secu lar and anti-
ttheoLogical.
She shared w i t h Faulkner and other S o ut he rn ­
ers the same
spiritual "temper" about their immediate his-
tozry and its un iv ers al implications.
oof the Catholic novelist
Speaki ng of the role
in the Pr ot es tan t South,
she
137
remarked :
I t h i nk that Catholic novelists in the future will be
ab le to re i n f o r c e the vital strength of Southern lit­
erature, for they wi ll know that what has given the
South h e r identi ty are those beliefs a nd qualities
w h i c h she has absorb ed from the Scriptures and from
h e r own h i s t o r v of defeat and violation:
a distrust
of the a b s t r a c t , a sense of h um an dep endence upon the
grace o f God, and a knowledge that evil is not simply
a p r o b l e m to be solved, but a m y s t e r y to be endured.®
She chose,
however,
to represent the So uth er n situation
from a di f f e r e n t artistic pe rspective than that of F au lk ­
ner,
i n f o r m e d as hers was b y the doctrinal acceptance of
C h r i s t i a n ort hodoxy.
Her pe rspective is that of a con­
scious and d el i b e r a t e ordering of a l l eg or ic al patterns
in the m a n n e r of Dante and Hawthorne,
though certainly
w it h mo re a t t e n t i o n to surface rea li s m than the latter
romancer.
Co nsequently,
in her stories the
as the c o n c re te hi st ori cal
South appears
’’place," w ho se extensions
st re tc h into the "true country" of the eternal and the
divine w h i c h m a n is destin ed for.
displacement
ro ot ed
fr om it.
All h u m a n i t y suffers
Faulkner's South is similarly
in the eternal, his
place d and dispossessed,
characters are likewise dis­
but the focal po int each writer
uses to pr e s e n t that visi on is different.
One r e a s o n for the difference in perspe cti ve has
bee n suggested,
correctly I think,
by M a r i o n Montgomery,
who has p o i n t e d out that F a u l k n e r ’s aff in it ie s were
o
F l a n n e r y O'Connor, "The Catholic Novelis t in the
Pr ot estant South," M y st er y and M a n n e r s , p. 209.
138
es s en ti al ly wi th the Old Testament,
wher ea s Miss O'Connor's
9
were ro ot ed in the gospels of Christ.
In Faulkner's
works,
the Chri sti an analogues se em to be
"present" as
an in visible spiritual form w h ich envelopes and illumi­
nates the action,
but more as an a s p i r a t i o n he strives
to conc ret iz e rather than an ac c om pl is he d fact.
This may
p a r t ia ll y account for this strai nin g the limits of language
and rhe to ri ca l form to plumb me an i ng from the concrete
action.
His stance as a writer is w i t h man,
inside,"
stru gg lin g with tragicomic dignity.
O'Co nnor's starting point, however,
fact of Christ's Redemption,
on "the
Miss
is the accomplished
and her perspective is the
"c om ic-divine"
one which illuminates h u ma n folly with
ha rs h clarity,
u n s e n t i m e n t a l l y , but w it h m er cy too.
There is no straining of language or rheto ric al form in
her fiction.
This
is due,
I think,
to her belief in the
In c a r n a t i o n and Redemption, w hi ch p r o mp te d her as an
artist
to try to approximate that myst eri ous union of
Word and Act of which Christ is the most perfect analogue.
Hence
there is little rhetorical embel li shm ent in her
fiction,
but there is concern for the my steries language
can evoke;
her prose possesses the fierce lucidity of a
me t ap hy si ca l poem.
Her theology made he r fearful of
m a n i p u l a t i n g the word (she expressed stro ng distaste for
9
M a r i o n Montgomery, "Flannery O'Conno r and the
Nat ur al Man," Mississ ippi Q u a r t e r l y , XXI (Fall, I9 6 8 ),
pp. 235-42.
139
"experimental" fiction), k n o w i n g full w e ll the dangers
of its s e p ar at i on from co nc re te act.
Consequently,
her
emphasis is to ta l ly u p on the a ct i on- -th e sp iritual motion-within the piece,
a chi ev ed t h r o u g h concrete language,
bringing the reade r into e n c ou nt er w i th mystery.
She
knew that wit ho ut this p r o p e r ana lo gi ca l a c t io n no amount
of rheto ric al skill could m a k e the story work.
It is not surprising,
the theme of the
Language was
"Word"
then,
given her vision,
that
is a central one in her fiction.
the concrete in st ru me nt for re v ea li ng m y s ­
tery, an d f i d el it y to it c on s t i t u t e d a theological as well
as an ar ti st ic principle.
T h e Bible and the Hebraic in tel­
lectual t r a di ti on of r e v e l a t i o n through concrete language
were for her a central s o ur ce of visio n and technique.
In a similar vein,
she was p r e o c c u p i e d w ith the theme of
silence as a mys ter y co -eq ua l w it h the mys te ry of language,
espec ia lly in The Violent B e a r It A w a y .
ously su gg es te d both the invisible,
Silence m y s t e r i ­
divine Presence and
the void w h e r e i n spiritual choice must be st ruggled over
and created.
It becomes the sh adowy "emptiness" which
Hazel M ot es and young T a r w a t e r try to fill up wit h their
loud denials.
The test of comm itm en t
is the wo r d united
in the a c t , a nd Motes and T a r w a t e r must a c t , at the risk
of their souls.
The ta sk which M i s s O ’Connor set for her se lf as
an artist,
then, was the c r e a t i o n of the my st er y of human
140
experience.
She wanted her fiction to illuminate c o n t e m p o ­
rary h i s t o r y with perspective and depth both spi rit ua ll y
and artistically.
to be
In other words,
she wished her fiction
" p r o p h e t i c " --and in her sense of the term this meant
fiction w hi ch revealed "things close at hand" with all their
my s te ri ou s "extensions" of meaning,
through time and h is tor y
to th eir ultimate source in the eternal dimension.
II.
M i s s O'Connor's first novel. Wise B l o o d , bristles
with all of the major motifs of the redemptive con cep tio n of
history,
suffers
and though successfully comic,
from a certain straining for effects.
of Hazel Mote s
lui"
it nevertheless
she presented the quest of a "Christian maigre
for innocence and immunity from the past,
history,
then,
dox of Christ,
escape,
but
dramatic
cated,
and
The central
is Hazel's constant encounters with the p a r a ­
the "shadow" he tries with great integr ity to
this action is not always rendered with complete
success.
The action is at times episodic and t r u n ­
esp e ci al ly regarding minor characters like Enoch
Emery an d the false preacher Asa Hawks,
Hazel Mo t es
and the story of
is told with such relentless persistence
it pr odu ce s a single,
novel.
guilt,
but the quest leads iro ni ca ll y to his final a c c e p ­
tance of the Fall and the need for redemption.
action,
In the story
that
rather strident tone throughout the
It is almost as though Miss O'Connor were pu rsu in g
her sub jec t
too directly,
generating an overabundance of
I4l
dramatic energy which is not artis tic all y measured and paced
throughout the story.
Furthermore,
the language does not
always create my stery !in the concrete in Wise B l o o d , a
skill that was to become a mark of her mat ure r writings.
Hazel Motes begins his quest by repudiating his past
history of sin, Christ, and redempt ion -- the legacy of his
believing mother and grandfather,
a circuit preacher.
His
repudiation takes the form of a denial of "place," both
physical and ontological.
While in the army Hazel insists
that he will retur n home after his discharge and mind his
own business, but upon returning he finds his home abandoned;
there is to be no safe retreat from the spiritual struggle
with his destiny.
Hazel informs
As he rides the train to Taulkingham
the Negro porter that
a former place and condition.
"you can't go back"
In his oifn case. Hazel's denial
of his past place is a crucial part of his
agnosticism,
to
self-redemptive
since to admit that past would be to acknowledge
a link with the re demption preach ed by his mother and g ra nd ­
father.
To avoid this he adopts a pure existentialism that
in effect tries to deny history.
'Nothing outside you can give you any place,' he said.
'You needn't to look at the sky because its not going to
open up and show no place behind it.
Y o u needn't to
search for any hole in the ground to look through into
somewhere else.
You can't go neit her forward nor b a c k ­
wards into your daddy's time nor your children's if you
got them.
In yourself right n ow is all the place you've
got.
If there was any
Fall, look there, if there was
any Redemption, look there, and if y o u expect any
Judgment, look there, because they all three will have
to be in
your time and your body and where in your time
and your
body can they be?
142
'Where in your time and y o u r bo dy has Jesus redeemed
you?' he cried.
'Show me w h e r e because I don't see the
place.
If there was a p la ce w he re Jesus had redeem ed
y o u that wo uld be the p l ac e for you to be, but which of
you can find it?'^®
There is an important t rut h c o u c h e d in Hazel's words,
at this point he is un aw ar e of it.
those tepid, nominal
though
Hazel is reacti ng against
" be li eve rs " w h o accept Christ's R e d e m p ­
tion as only a historical
event
its immediate relevance
in th eir present lives, characters
like the Mrs.
h e meets
Hi tc hc oc k
in the past and then ignore
on the
train.
For Hazel,
the Fall and the R ed e m p t i o n must have concrete meaning in
the present,
and since he
de ni e s
this, he goes to the o p p o ­
site extreme of denying c o n n e c t i o n w it h any historicalontological
"place"
outside
"doubting Thomas," a pure
the pr esent
self.
He is a moder n
e xi st e n t i a l i s t who believes in
"creating" his own i d e n ti ty t h r o u g h freedom of action in a
present
situation,
but in fact he
is haunted by the past at
every turn of the road i n his quest.
Hazel's goal is
Fall and r e d e e m himself
personal
integrity.
soul and sin,
to esc ap e
the moral hi story of the
by a b so lu te
fidelity to his own
Th us he denies the existence of the
for to ad mit the latter would be to acknowledge
imp licitly the nee d for the grace of redemption.
'Listen, you people, I'm g oin g to take the truth with
me w h e r ev er I go,' H a z e called.
'I'm going to preach
it to w h o e v e r '11 list en at w h a t e v e r place.
I'm going
0'Connor
^^Flannery O'Connor, W i s e B l o o d , in Three by Flanner y
(New York:
Signet Books, 1964), p. 90.
143
to pr each there was no Fall because there was nothi ng
to fall from and no Redemption because there was no
Fall and no Judgment because there w a s n ’t the first two.
Nothing matters but that Jesus was a liar.'^^
When his
quest for self-redemption begins to falter in c o n ­
tradiction, Hazel shifts to total nihilism,
ironically,
only to discover,
that even to hold this stance with integrity
requires the existence of an opposite be l ie f to give validi ty
to his denial.
This
is the reason for his
obsession with
the "blind" preacher Asa H a w k s , and when Haze discovers that
Hawks has not blind ed himself in testimony to Jesus, his
own no n-b el ie f- -t he
"innocence"
of his nihilism--is u n d e r ­
mined as well.
Haze's integrity,
meaningful commitment
ably disbelief.
focused,
The
then,
derives
from his desire for
to whatever pos it ion he takes--preferintegrity of his fierce commitment
significantly,
is
in the union of word and act, even
in his denial of Christianity.
Th ro ugh ou t his progress
Haze continua lly meets people whose verbal
Christianity is separated from action:
commitment
to
Mrs. Hitchcock,
and Sabbath Lily Hawks, his landlady M r s . Flood.
Asa
His own
"Church Without Christ" is based upon living out his denial,
as opposed to the parody of belie f he recognizes in Onnie
Jay Holy's
"Church of Christ Without Christ," which grafts
the husk of nominal Christianity onto a false doctrine of
salvation by "natural
sweetness"
^ ^ I b i d ., p. 6 0 .
(i.e.
a belief in the
144
personal, innocence of " n a t u r a l ” man).
Prophet of Onnie Jay Ho ly ' s church,
Haze sees that the
Solace Layfield,
true," that his words do not m a t c h his actions;
"ain't
in fact,
only after being run ove r by H a z e ' s Essex does Layfield
admit personal
innocence,
Motes,
guilt and the f a l s i t y of his doctrine of
and he dies a s ki ng God for forgiveness.
commitment must be
For Hazel
to tal ly co nsummated in action, a
belief which leads u l t im a te ly to his own act of blinding.
Hazel Motes'
a t t em pt ed denial of the Fall and R e d e m p ­
tion also includes a complete rej ec ti on of mystery.
His self-
pro cl aim ed Church W it ho ut Chri st is to be one in which all
belief is "clear," where n o one
he "can't see."
is obliged to accept what
"He said it w a s not right to believe a ny ­
thing you couldn't see or h o l d in your hands or test with
your teeth.
He said he onl y a few days ago believed in
blas phe my as the w a y to salvation, but that y o u couldn't
even believe in that bec aus e
somet hin g to bl aspheme."
his attempt
to repudiate
has inherited,
then y ou were believing in
His denial
of my s t e r y is part of
the h i s t o r y of "unnamed guilt" he
for to admit
that would be to acknowledge that
he suffers the effects of a c o nd it io n he inherited and which
are therefore beyond his c o n t r ol -- th at is,
original sin.
Haze will not accept
the condition of
the mys t er y of the r e d e m p ­
tive process going on bey on d h i m in time and space, with
himself as part of it.
Nev er th el es s,
he is constantly faced
with the presence of Christ in oblique ways
throughout his
145
progress:
in the used car lot boy's habitual swearing
"Christ n ail ed, "
in Asa Hawks,
and in the irreconcilable
co n tr ad ic ti on s of his own agnosticism.
Hints of the u n i ­
versal r ed e m p t i v e process at w o r k mysteriously confront Haze
w he rev er he
goes.
When he first arrives in Taulkingham,
however, he
is impervious to it.
"His second night
in
Taulki ng ham , Hazel Motes walke d along downtown close to the
store fr on ts but not looking in them.
The black sky was
u n d e r pi nn ed w it h long silver streaks that looked like sc af­
folding and de pt h on depth behind it were thousands of stars
that all seemed to be moving slowlt as if they were about
some vast
construction w o rk that involved the whole order of
the u niv ers e and would take all time to complete."
mine)
Haze
ignores
this now,
(Italics
as he does the familiar "Jesus
Saves" ro a d s i g n s he passes while
trying to escape in the
out-m od ed Essex, but by the end of the novel he has accepted
his
"place"
in this cosmic process,
and he dies,
signifi­
cantly, n e a r a construction site.
Th r o u g h o u t Wise B l o o d , the antithesis
of the d o c ­
trine of the Fall and the n e ed for Redemption is the idea
of "natural man";
state,
that is, of man being good in his
and co nsequently without
grace.
This
sentimental
innocent
"natural"
the need of supernatural
idea is best depicted in Onnie Jay Holy's
doctrine of "natural
sweetness"--man originally
in childhood and "corrupted" by maturity (in direct
o p po sit io n to the Christian doctrine of original
sin,
of
146
course).
"Natural" man is parodie d throughout the novel in
the pe rvasive animal imagery and especially in the moronic
Enoch Emery,
who acts mi ndlessly according to "his blood"
and finally reverts to the natural state by donning the
ape-suit.
The concept of "blood knowledge," the instinctive
"wisdom" wh ic h Enoch follows without
is opposed to the higher,
thinking in his actions,
supernatural mystery of Christ's
redemptive sacrifice of b lo od- -a source of grace wh ich acts
as enlightenment and enables man to transcend the natural
order and participate in the divine life.
not accept
this throughout most
Though Haze can
of the novel, he is wise
enough to reject the reversion to the "natural" state s i g ­
nified by the shrunken "new-jesus" ape-man which Enoch w o r ­
ships.
And finally, w h en Haze does come to accept
the blood
of Christ's Redemption and begin his oivn life of pu rifying
penance,
he informs Mrs.
"normal,"
Flood that this is "natural"
the true condition of man.
The primary symbol of Haze Motes'
for moral
and
immunity is his outmoded Essex,
unsuccessful
quest
and only when this
means of physical locomotion is destroyed does he accept the
ine sca pab il ity of personal guilt.
needs
"No one with a good car
to be justified," he has proclaimed,
is demolished,
the authentic
begins to operate.
Haze gains
but when the Essex
"spiritual motion"
Paradoxically,
of grace
the grace and "insight"
of personal evil and his place in redemption
hist ory leads to his act of physical
blinding.
Miss O'Connor
147
invokes the classical ana lo g ue of Oedipus,
and greater meaning,
since Ha z e ' s
but with a n e w
act of blinding is linked
to the m y s t er io u s process of su p e r n a t u r a l redemption.
classical
analogue
the natural
is thus w i d e n e d by the Christian,
concept of " blo od k n o w l e d g e "
myste ry of Chr ist's r ed emp li ve blood.
Haze ex t e r n a l l y acknowledges
sign) hi s own "fall."
u n s e e i n g Mrs.
Flood,
The
just as
is widen ed by the
In blinding himself.
(in the manner of a sacramental
"You ha v e
to pay," he tells the
whose " re as on ab l e" mind cannot grasp the
my s te ry of his penance.
Th us
in the end Haze comes to accept
the ver y h i s t o r y pr eac hed by his
he set out
12
grandf ath er and mother wh ic h
to repud iat e at the b e g i n n i n g of the novel.
He
n o w sees and accepts his pl ac e in the e t e r n a l , beyond the
immedi ate ph ysi ca l world,
Mrs.
and it is this journey
Flo od imagines as a j o u r n e y to Bethlehem)
(which
that Haze is
be gi nn in g when he is fina lly killed.
In most of the st or ie s
in her
first collection, ^
Good M a n Is Ha r d To F i n d , "nine st o rie s about original sin"
she ca lle d them, Miss O ' Co nn or
subtle art of dramatic
d is p l a y e d a deeper and more
t y p o l o g y than
in Wise B l o o d .
The
analogical dim ensions of r e a l i t y she w a s pursuing are r e n d e r e d
more skillfully;
there is an i n c r e a s e d use of classical
m y t h o l o g y and Biblical a n a l o g u e s , litera ry and philosop hic al
12
In his in tro du cti on to Ev e r y t h i n g That Rises Must
C o n v e r g e , R obe rt Fit zge ra ld has i n di ca te d her reading of the
Sophocles trilo gy at this time.
148
motifs.
The
tration a n d
short story f o r m allowed for gr ea te r conce n­
impact;
at the same time,
she was developing
greater p r e c i s i o n in grou nd ing the mys ter io us dimensions of
m e an in g m o r e organically in the concrete action.
Thus while
her e s s e nt ia l vision of h i s to ry remai ne d unchanged, her art
in r e p r e s e n t i n g it deve lop ed consistently.
to R o be rt Fitzgerald,
is,
As she remarked
”I ke ep going d e e p e r " - - d e e p e r , that
into the mystery of her art and the fa ith that illuminated
it.
In ” A Good Man Is H a r d To Find,"
Hazel M o t e s
cal Ch ri st
the Misfit resembles
in that he too cannot accept eit h er the h i s t o r i ­
or redemption outside himself.
He is burdened
by a c on sc i o u s n e s s of guilt which he cannot eradicate,
since he
"thown
ca nn o t accept Christ,
(sic)
the Incarnate Mystery who has
everything off balance,"
live b y a rationalistic
but
the Mi sf i t tries to
code of human "justice"
(much like
Thomas S u t p e n and Jason C o m p s o n ) , where he can hold up the
crime to the punishment and
"balance out" his actions.
But
he is n e v e r t h e l e s s aware of personal guilt beyond t h i s , and
since he ref use s Jesus'
"hep," he is forced to adopt
m a n i c h e a n p o s i t i o n of unredeemable
but m e a n n e s s . "
accept
it.
He
suggests
"Ain't no pleasure
The Misfit accepts the Fall,
Redemp tio n.
the dead,"
evil.
"Jesus was the only One
the Misfit continued,
the
but he cannot
that ever raised
"and He shouldn't have done
t h o w n everything off balance."
W hen the Grandmother
that perhaps Christ didn't raise
the dead,
the
149
Misfit be comes
historical
mystery.
the doubting Tho ma s who will not accept the
fact of the r ed emp tio n without proof,
"I wasn't there so I can't say He didn't,"
Misfit said.
wisht I had of been there,'
the ground with his fist.
because
devoid of
the
he said, hitting
'It ain't right I wasn't there
if I had of been there I would of known.'"
The real mysterious action incarnated in the story,
however,
is centered in the Grandmother.
A nominal Christian,
/
she act u al ly believes in a sentimental
wh ic h she
innocence
("goodness")
identifies with the romantic past and gentility.
History for her is the happy illusion of a time and place
where people were "good," and by dissociation she tries to
retreat into a glorified past
involvement
in the present.
through memory,
The
away from moral
"mistake" in her memory
about the plantation brings about their fall.
with the Misfit
the present,
Her encounter
shockingly returns her to her true place in
where she comes to acknowledge her complicity
with a fall en humanity.
sense is warped,
T h o ug h the Grandmother's historical
she nev ertheless does possess
"conscience."
In contrast , her son Bailey and his family are modern s e c u ­
larists w ho are impervious
the mysteries
to time, history,
of the spiritual;
the past, and
they die without ever c o m ­
pre h en di ng the meaning of their encounter with the Misfit.
T he meeting with the Misfit immediately destroys the
Gra ndm other's false innocence,
a necessary prelude to her
acceptance of her true identi ty in the present fallen world.
150
This ac ce pt an ce constitutes
the central action of the story--
the motion of grace w it hi n h e r
that erupts
in the insight:
"Why you're one of my own ba bi es !"
The price she pays for
this acknowledgment
for the Misfit,
is life
itself,
still
violently ref us i ng the bo nd of human com pli cit y outside h i m ­
self, reacts
ins tan ta n eo us l y b y shooting her.
violent renunciation, h o we ve r ,
Even in this
there is the glimmer of hope
that a tro u bl ed conscience m a y ul timately lead him to admit
the nee d for outside
"hep."
He concludes
sour dissatisf act io n and the
the episode with
abiding moral
insight that "She
would have been a good w o m a n if it had been somebody there
to shoot her every minute o f her life."
While
"A Good M a n Is Hard To Find" depicts the
state of false innocence an d immunity largely in terms of
the d is so ci a ti on of time,
Own" treats
"The Life You Save Ma y Be Your
the same theme
spirit and matter,
in terms of the di sso ciation of
the M a n i c h e a n dichotomy.
the f a r m wife of the story,
Mrs.
Crater,
is a co mpletely pragmatic m a t e ­
rialist who sees her "pl ac e," her idiot daughter L u c y n e l l ,
and the one-armed ca rp en t er Mr.
be manipulated.
tion;
Shiftlet only as objects to
She d is av ow s any spiritual element in cr e a ­
wh e n Shiftlet m ar v el s at the glorious sunset,
remarks laconically that it
on the other hand,
asserts
she
"does it ever evening."
Shiftlet,
the existence of mystery,
particu­
larly the mystery of the i n c a rn at io n of matter and spirit.
He tells her
that an At l a n t a physician who has operated on
151
the h u m a n h ea rt
Shiftlet
"don't k n o w more about it that y ou or me."
thus proclaims the ambiguity of good and evil in
the h u m a n heart, hinting at his own mysterious character,
wh ich " s h i ft s" as the story progresses from that of a p o t e n ­
tial C h r i s t - f i g u r e - - r e s u r r e c t i n g the automobile, replenishing
the farm,
t e a ch in g the idiot
to say "bird"— to that of a
Satanic
agent who undermines Mrs.
alistic
"innocence."
Crater's h a v e n of m a t e r i ­
T h o u g h he acknowledges the existence of mystery,
Shiftlet
does not reall y hav e faith in the actual,
long-
s u f fe ri ng in ca rn ati ona l p r o c e s s , in which m a tt er and spirit
int erp ene tr ate .
rialism,
Faced with Mrs. Crater's intractable m a t e ­
he rev e al s h i m s e l f to be a M a ni ch ea n questing for
u n c o n t a m i n a t e d spirit,
When Mrs.
Crate r c on ti nua ll y denies spirit by her scheming
m an ip u l a t i o n s ,
Mrs.
pure innocence dissocia te d from matter.
Crater
Shiftlet turns to evil in revenge.
that he wants an "innocent" wife,
riage to the
anywhere;
but
but his m a r ­
idiot daughter Lucynell does not satisfy his
desire for pure essence.
succinctly:
He informs
"The body,
He expresses
lady,
the spirit,
on the m o v e , a l w a y s ."
the Man ic he an dichotomy
is like a house:
lady,
it don't go
is like a automobile:
always
13
^^ The opposite t h e m e — the incarnation of spirit and
ma t t e r - - i s convey ed in "A Temple of the H ol y Ghost," where
the carniv al herma phr odi te symbolizes the "grotesque" union
of the ph ys ic al and the divine.
The freak proclaims that
God has mad e h i m that way, and he honors God by accepting his
c on dit ion wi thout "dispute," an analogue of the Incarnation
which the y o u n g girl in the story recognizes in the image of
the sun as a bl oo d-d ren ch ed Host at the end of the story.
152
Shiftlet's
’’faith," then,
is a sentimental,
vague desire for innocence which does not
in a concrete situation.
vi e w of his
abst ra ctl y
suffer incarnation
Its prime symbol is his nostalgic
"dear old mother" as an "angel of Gawd," an
illusion which is rudely shattered by the mean, realistic
hitch hi ker who calls his mother a "stiniing pole cat."
violent
denial of "pure spirit"
This
finally leads Shiftlet to the
)
m an ich ea n re jection of mattfer as evil.
to escape it by spatial movement
In the end he attempts
in the car,
like Hazel Motes.
As he races toward Mobile under a th re at en ing sky he asks
God to b r e ak forth and wash the slime \from the "evil" world,
a plea which presumes his own innocent
of course.
detachment
His positi on is much like that
Brown at the end of Hawthorne's
tale;
been pulverized by concrete evil,
his
from it,
of Young Goodman
token faith has
and so he retreats to the
opposite ha rd ene d extreme of vie w in g all the wo rld as c o r ­
rupt .
That Miss O'Conn or was conce rne d about false p e r s p e c ­
tives on history,
particularly the tendency toward romantic
idealizing of the Southern p a s t , and that
as a form of escapist
f rom the comedies
she regarded this
search for moral im mu ni ty is evident
"A Late Encounter with the Enemy" and "The
Partridge Festival."
"A Late En cou nter..." was perhaps
partl y intended to correct the inflated g lo ri fic ati on of
Southern past created by "Gone with the Wind"
(particularly
in the story's satire of the movie premiere), w it h its
153
gr a nd io se history of the Ci vil W a r packaged b y H o l ly wo od
image-makers.
But b e ne at h that
level,
con c er n with the spiritual m a l a i s e
there is a deeper
of the disso cia ti on of
past f ro m present,, and h ow it affe ct s the ontological r e l a ­
t ion shi p between time, history,
Once again,
him se lf
suffering,
it is human pride w h i c h causes man to detach
in an idealized w a y f r o m the harsh,
ties of time and concr ete his to r ic al
General Poker Sash,
Civil W a r veteran,
limiting r e a l i ­
process.
a on e-h un dre d- and -fo ur year old
does not "have any use for history because
he n ev er expected to meet
su f fer in g and personal
it again."
guilt
cent basking in the present.
the same thing to him,
bered;
and true identity.
He ignores
the past of
in favor of a timeless,
a d ol es ­
"The past and the future were
one f o r g o t t e n and the other not r e m e m ­
he had no more n o t i o n of dying than a cat."
fers movie premieres wi t h " p re tt y guls"
He p r e ­
to processions
b e c a us e the latter are c on n e c t e d with his tor y and the past.
But the price of his de ta chm en t
touch ground)
h e cannot remember any of his
career in the Civil War,
co ncr ete about his family,
he cannot recall anything
and he allows hi mse lf to be "made"
into a General by his gra ndd au ght er,
only an infantryman in the war.
Poker
feet do not
from h i st or y is a loss of a sense of reality,
of true identity and place:
actual
(his "dead"
though in fact he was
His gr and daughter Sally
is herself draivn toward ro ma nt i ci zi ng an idealized
past against a crass m o d er n world;
General Sash is the
154
abstract
symbol of "what was b e h i n d her."
h i m to fe ed "her own prideful illusion.
She manipulates
Ironically,
it is
her p lan to use h im at her gradu ati on as evidence of h e r
"heritage" w h ic h brings about General
Sash's har ro wi ng
encoun te r w i t h the realities of time and history he has
avoided.
Ge ne ra l
Sash's at te mp te d escape from the "dead past,"
from h i s t o r y and the ontological relationship between past and
present,
is destroyed when the graduation speaker begins.
H i st or y r is es up to assert its living reality in the present,
and it is t h r ou gh the my sterious power of language that
General S a s h is forced to ack no wle dg e it.
The w or ds began to come toward him and he said. Dammit!
1 ain't g oin g to have it! and he started edging backward
to get out of the w a y . . .He couldn't protect himself from
the w or ds and attend to the procession too and the words
were c o m i n g at him fast.
He felt that he was run nin g
b a ck wa rd s and the words were coming at him like musket
fire, just escaping h i m but getting nearer and nearer.
He t u r n e d around and began to run as fast as he could
but he fo und himself r u n n i n g toward the words.
He was
r u n n i n g into a regular v o l l e y of them and meet ing them
w i t h qu ick curses.
As the music swelled toward him, the
ent ir e past opened up on h i m out of nowhere and he felt
his b od y ri dd le d in a h u n d r e d places with sharp stabs of
p a in and he fell do^vn, r e t u rn in g a curse for every hit.
He s a w h is wife's na rr o w face looking at him critically
th ro ug h h e r round gold-ri mme d glasses; he saw one of his
s q u i n t i n g bald-headed sons ; and his mother ran toward
h im w ith an anxious look; then a succession of places-Chicka mau ga, Shiloh, M ar th as v il le -- ru sh ed at him as if
the past were the only future n o w and he had to endure
it.
T h e n suddenly he saw that the black procession was
al mo st on him.
He r e c o gn iz ed it, for it had been dogging
all his days.
He made such a desperate effort to see
over it and find out what comes after the past that his
h a n d cl en c he d the sword until the blade touched b one. ^4
^ ^ T h r e e by Flannery 0 ' C o n n o r , p . 241.
155
In short,
all of the concrete realities of his t or y he has
e ’5caped--su ff eri ng , memory of the past, his
place,
death,
true identity,
and language as a "living" incarnation of truth
--rise up to make their cl aim upon General
Sash,
overwhelmed and dies in a final desperate attempt
and he is
to escape
history.
Miss O'Connor's treatment of hi st or y in "A Late
Encounter with the Enemy" places the Southern experience
directly in the foreground.
This is not the case in "A
Circle in the Fire," which in many ways can be seen as a
prototype of her complex typological vision of the modern
situation.
The story is ba sed upon the O ld Testament analogue
of the three prophets cast into the pit of fire by King
Nebuchadnezzar,
but this analogue is wid en ed to the point
of my st er y by her Christian,
As a result,
tion":
po st- Redemption point of view.
the story becomes a true "continuing r e v e l a ­
modern experience
is "informed" by analogical ties
that link together Old Testament history,
Christ,
the redemption by
and at the .ame time point an agogically forward to
the apocalypse of death and final judgment.
As in many O'Connor stories,
the protagonist Mrs.
is a typical modernist who has created a private,
"kingdom"
on her farm.
materialistic;
Like Nebuchadnezzar
Cope
self-enclosed
she is idolatrously
she wages a constant battle to obliterate evil
from experience,
and to immunize herself and her daughter
from the universal hi sto ry of suffering,
rep re sen ted by
156
experience outside the farm.
tic fervor of the poor,
She speaks of ten with pietis-
s u ff er in g Europeans,
is only a sentimental verb al
but that this
gesture is borne out by her
actual self -ex cl usi on fr om the larger hu man community o u t ­
side.
against
H e r "wall" against
the ambiguous w or ld outside,
the process of h i s t o r y and the thr ea ten in g knowledge
that she is not morally self-sufficient,
line of trees.
is her fortress
T y p o l o g i c a l l y , the story depicts the n e c e s ­
sary de str uc tio n of this false,
protective "kingdom"
innocence w h i c h she has cre at ed before Mrs.
of
Cope can truly
feel the h um an condition of derpivation and limitation.
When this illusion of s el f -s uf f i c i e n c y is destroyed,
she is
implicitly united to uni ve rs al humanity in its need for
redemption.
Loss of i n n oc en ce through vi ol en ce
is the s p i r i ­
tual m o t io n of the story that provides her with this be ginning
"grace" of knowledge.
Mrs.
Cope's farm,
then,
is a physical
embodiment of
a false ontological p l a c e — an isolated E d e n — and her belief
in in nocence is reflected also in her protective attitude
toward her daughter Sally Virginia.
child to "confront"
wor l d- -t he city,
the
She does not want
three destroyers
from the outside
yet it is through Sally Virginia's eyes
that the final insight of the story is presented,
her moral
the
initiation.
The
suggesting
three b o y s - - P o w e l l , Garfield,
H a r pe r- -h av e also come b a c k to the farm in search of the
lost "state
of innocence,"
seen pa rti cu l ar ly in Powell's
and
157
nosta lg ia about his earlier life there.
Initially,
the farm
represents for them that longed-for time and place before
the Fall; yet they are also conscious of the Fall and its
irrevocable effects.
outside world,
Powell has experienced evil in the
the "development," and with this know led ge
burnt into him, he sees no w that a retu rn to innocence
impossible,
that Mrs.
false and unhuman,
is
Cope's evil-excluding "kingdom" is
and that
it must be destroyed.
this place was no t here anymore," he
have to think of it anymore."
said,
"If
"you w ou ld never
The false lust for innocence
must be sh attered to attain more "balanced" moral vis io n and
make moral
growth possible.
T h r o u g h the analogical action,
then,
the s to ry a c t u ­
ally
creates the my ste ry of
the role of evil in the divine
plan
of redemption.
and his two friends are agents
of destruction,
Powell
but at the same time divine scourges who,
like the prophets,
bring wrathful vengeance against the
N e b u c h ad ne zz er -l ik e Mrs. Cope,
ido latrously fixated in her
belief that she owns and rules the material wo rld
woods").
("her
And of course her belief implies her own po wer of
se lf -re de mpt ion and ability to "cope" with evil wit hou t
divine grace.
boys
In disrupting her kingdom,
also d e s tr oy her false
fallen mankind,
then,
sense of moral
the three
immunity
from
and she is forced to see her true place in
the larger c o m mu ni ty of universal suffering humanity,
po ssessed of E de n and longing for redemption.
dis­
The "grace"
158
of vi ole nc e,
paradoxically, brings about a purging of her
belief in self-salvation.
of the story,
Mrs.
Whe n her woods burn at the end
Cope is r u d e l y u n i t e d with the rea lit y
of h i s t o r y she has desperately tried
came to
to escape.
"The child
a stop beside her moth er and stared up at her face
as if she h a d never seen it before.
It was the face of the
n e w m i s e r y she felt, but on her m ot he r it looked old and it
looked as if it might have be lo nge d to anybody,
a Negro or
a E u r o p e a n or to Powell himself."
The
of Mis s
theme of displacement is the focal point of one
O'C on no r 's most complex typological allegories of
h i s t o r y — "The Displaced Person."
modern South,
Liter all y a story of the
the tale br il li an tl y telescopes classical
pagan a n d Ch ri s ti an red emptive analogues to depict a c o m ­
p e ll in g drama of the universal struggle of the fall and
redempti on .
As in "A Circle in the Fire," the farm run by
Mrs, M c I n t y r e and her employee Mrs.
k i n g d o m of materialism,
against
a false E den which is self-enclosed
the ambiguity and guilt
condition.
Shortley is an idolatrous
of history and the true human
The authentic h um an cond iti on --f al ien yet r e ­
d e e me d— is identified in the story w it h Europe
to th eir
"evil,"
A m e r i c a n innocence), w h i c h Mrs.
"the devil's experiment
by her v i s i o n of a war newsreel
heaped
her own
in piles.
Mrs.
(as opposed
Shortley sees as
station," a view epitomized
sh owi ng European bodies
Shortley's view,
self-righteous innocence;
of course,
indeed,
implies
she sees herself
159
as a h o v e r i n g "angel"
chosen to save the Negroes from the
c or rup tio n of the Polish family.
Only in death is this
false v i s i o n of herself apocalyptically destroyed, when her
true i d e n t i t y and place is revealed to her.
V i e w e d o n t o l o g i c a l l y , then, Mrs. McIntyre's farm is
a ha ve n of im munity fr om history,
one in wh ic h she is the
ruling d e i t y who controls matters by the ri go r ou s efforts
of her o w n will.
She is practical and apparently self-
s u f f i c i e n t — in short,
however,
like Mrs.
moral b l i n d n e s s
person Mr.
growth,
a "self-redeemer."
Shortley's,
to history,
Her true condition,
is one of sterile fixity and
and the arrival of the displaced
Guizac brings the possibil it y of a n e w openness,
an d redemptive
grace,
with h i s t o r y — in other words,
of acknowledging their link
of Clirist.
But this can on ly
occur a f t e r a disruption of their self-sufficient kingdom,
and w h e n fa c e d with this possibility, Mrs. McIntyre reacts
wi t h v i o l e n c e
to "preserve" her ordered place.
In Part I of the story,
Miss O ' C o n n o r
centered on Mrs.
develops the typological
structure that makes
the s t o r y a universal vision of human history.
open ing sce ne Mrs.
goddess Hera,
recall,
Shortley,
In the
Shortley is identified with the pagan
the "giant wife of the countryside," who, we
wa s outwitted by Europa for the love of Zeus.
"outw it tin g"
Shortleys
suggests
The
the Guizac's displacement of the
as workers on the farm,
and perhaps ty pologically
the p a r t i a l or temporary "displacement" of pagan idolatry
by r e d e m p t i v e Christianity.
At any rate,
they are es t ab li sh ed
l60
as antagonistic,
is also stalked
contending visions of history.
Mrs.
throughout the story by a peacock,
symbol which to Mrs. McIntyre and Mrs.
istic eyes represents just another
Shortley
a complex
S h o r t l e y ’s m a t e r i a l ­
"peachicken"
to be fed,
but which to the priest is a symbol of Christ and the T r a n s ­
figuration of the material world by the spiritual,
and thus
linked to the transforming "presence" of Mr. Guizac.
farm,
then,
is an analogue of classical paganism,
its modernist form of secular materialism,
for Christas redemption.
The
but in
denying the need
Mrs. Mc In t yr e speaks of the d i s ­
placed pe rson Guizac as her "salvation," but she is referring
only to his practical economic value.
Part I of the story
depicts the gradual displacement of Mrs.
Shortley from her
illusions of personal innocence and self-sufficiency
(she
feels that re ligion is necessary for those people not smart
enough to avoid evil),
and with that displacement her bond
with fallen humanity is revealed to her.
This is the "true
country" whose frontiers she sees only at the moment of
death,
after bein g symbolically "linked" with the he ap ed
bodies in the newsreel of European history.
this moment
of grace--and the insight is a perception of
her place in history--when she begins
the car d ur in g their departure,
Shortley's head,
to violently disrupt
"clutching everything she
could get her hands on and hugging
bedding,
She achieves
Sarah Mae's leg,
it to herself, Mr.
the cat,
he r own big moon-like knee...."
a wad of white
Displaced from
I6l
the farm by the Guizacs, Mrs.
she is not
mankind,
Shortley in death sees that
"above" history goddess-like,
but one of all
suffering the essential displacement
from that
spiritual k i ng d om that can only be gained through fa ith in
C h r i s t ’s redemption.
As Part I of the story depicts Mrs.
Shortley's r e c o g ­
nition of her true place. Part II shows a contrary a n a l o g i ­
cal m o v e m en t -- th e violent and sacrificial "displacement"
Ch r ist -Gu iz ac
is "extra,"
from Mrs. Mc In tyr e' s
secular world, wh ere he
a "DP" who has upset her order and control.
The Guizacs'
arrival from "guilty" Europe links Mrs. M cIn tyr e
with true universal history;
he brings with him the r e d e m p ­
tive p os s i b i l i t y for destruction of false,
innocence.
and unlike
of
self-enclosed
She has hired h i m for strictly material benefits,
the Shortleys he is an "advanced" worker w i t h
technical proficiency.
However,
like Christ, Guizac upsets
the order of "her" place by pl an nin g a marriage be tw ee n a
cousin in Poland and one of the Negroes.
"advanced"
Negroes,
This act is so
it threatens to undermine her control of the
and ironically,
truly universal
it is an act which suggests a
Christian concept of the community of men,
one that might possibly advance
the redemptive process.
Mrs. M c I n t y r e cannot abide this
threatening "opening"
But
in
A similar displacement occurs in "A Temple of the
Holy Gho st ," when at the end of the story the h er ma ph rod it eChrist figure is driven out of town by the "righteous" c o m ­
munity.
162
her kingdom;
instead,
she chooses moral re tr e nc hm en t by-
trying to w i t h d r a w into immunity b e h in d her self-willed
" o r d e r ."
Guizac*s
crucifixion by death under
ostensibly restores Mrs. McIntyre's control
kingdom,
but
the tractor
of her ordered
in fact, her complicity in his de ath destroys
forever her false sense of innocence by p l a ci ng her in the
condition of guilt, her true condition.
ally and ir rev oc abl y linked to history,
was just before her death,
death her eyes and Mr.
N o w she is p e r s o n ­
just as Mrs.
Shortley
for in the moment of G u i z a c 's
Shortley's and the Negro's
"come
together in one look that froze them in collu sio n together..."
She too is uni te d with the poor,
placed in history,
the suffering,
and the d i s ­
and the ravages of guilt Mrs. M cIn ty re
now experiences are seen in the gradual demise of her " ki ng­
dom" and in he r oim declining health.
from her materi al Eden,
the nee d for redemption.
She has been displaced
but still she does not acknowledge
Yet the p o s s ib il it y of repentance
and acc eptance of grace remains
in her dem ol is he d world,
for
in the end there is still the beautiful p e a c o c k and Fr. Flynn,
who comes every w eek to explain the doctr in es
of Ch ris ti ani ty
to her.
In what Miss O'Connor co nsidered her best
story,
"The Artificial Nigger," the pride of sel f-r ed em pt i on e x ­
hi bi te d in Mrs.
McInty re takes the fo rm of intellectual
r at i o n a l i s m and the attempt
to deny m y s t e r y in Mr. Head.
163
But unlike Mrs. M cI nty re , Mr. H e ad co mp let el y accepts his
"f all” and the grace of mercy that is fin al ly bestowed upon
him.
He has come to the big ci ty confident that he is
mora ll y capable
of di rec ti ng his
grandson Nelson's initiation
into the knowle dge of evil, but the experience becomes an
initiation for Mr.
alistic pride.
He a d himself,
This
"development" is treated in such a way
by Miss O'Connor as to suggest
of man.
one that destroys his r a t i o n ­
the universal
spiritual life
At e v er y s tep the act i on is linked to the Old
Testament analogue of the story of To b i a s - - w h o cured his
father's blindness af ter a trip to the city of Rages, much
as Mr. Head's bli nd ne s s
is cured;
and most
importantly,
linked to the c o m pl ex analogue of Dante's Divine C o m e d y .
Thus Mr. Head and Ne lso n' s
Inferno and P ur g a t o r i o
trip is a journey through the
toward the Ear th ly P a r a d i s e , and as
in the Divine C o m e d y , the figure of n a tu ra l man reliant only
on natural w i s d o m
(Vergil-Mr.
divine dir ec ti on -- gr ac e
nigger")
Head) must finally be led by
(D a n t e - N e l s o n , and the "artificial
in order to transc en d the natural
at spiritual salvation.
allegory is not
state and arrive
Miss O' Connor's wo rk in g out of the
this schematic;
these an alogical dimensions
nevertheless serve to deepen the mys t er y of the redemptive
process.
At the be g i n n i n g of the story Mr. H ead thinks hi mself
"equal
to" the task of the' journey;
from the prideful r a t i o n a l i s m
in short, he suffers
(suggested by his name)
that
l6k
denies mystery,
p a r t i c u l a r l y the concrete m ys ter y of evil
and suffering in r e d e m pt io n,
a condition he comes to accept
as a mystery in the p re s e n c e of the "artificial n i g g e r . ”
The truth of the m a t t e r is
that Mr. Head suffers spiritually
from manic hea n dis so c ia ti on ,
throughout the story.
suggested in several ways
Fi rs t of all, his existence in the
country t op ol og ica lly sug g es ts a state of moral selfrighteousness , bli nd b e l i e f in personal
immunity;
in contrast,
innocence,
the city represents
condition (Nelson w i s e l y asserts
and
the actual fallen
that he was born there),
that state which Mr. H e a d has spirit ual ly denied for himself.
Secondly, Mr. H e a d d i s s oc i at es
from the real,
concrete m y s ­
teries of existence by in tel le ctu al abstracting:
ticularly in his fearful
and the Negro,
"arms-length"
seen p a r ­
approach to the city
as on the tr ain wh en he remarks rig ht eo us ly
concerning Negroes
that
"they rope them off."
Thirdly,
Mr. Head suffers the d i s s o c i a t i o n of intellect from instinct
and the concrete p hy si cal ,
re vea le d in his shock at seeing
the ha lf- dressed w o m a n in the apartment window,
cially in his refu sa l
and e s p e ­
to encou nte r the large bla ck wo ma n who
gives Nelson di re ct io ns when they are lost.
In addition,
Mr. Head's m a n i c h e a n i s m is evidenced by his vi e w of the city
as Hell, whereas N e l s o n vi ews
it as Purgatory,
a painful
place, but one wh e re a pe rs on is not doomed to failure
seeks help
(grace),
if he
as he does in asking the Negro w o m a n
165
for directions.
T h e slow, painful process of the journey--their
getting lost,
their "fall" due to mutual pride--brings both
Mr. H e a d a n d Nels on to a recognition and acceptance of their
mutual dependence,
not simply upon each other, but upon the
mys ter iou s forces of redemptive grace which covers all hu man
suffering and loss.
Mr. Head and Nelson are united as u n i ­
versal m a n in his fallen, real condition,
a condition they
recognize in the symbol of mystery in the story— the a r t if i­
cial nigger.
The
"artificial:
statue in the all-white suburb
is like Mr. Head's abstracting and "roping off" of the Negroes
earlier on the train, but n o w he and Nelson recognize their
true l ink w it h the condition of misery and limitation, wh ich
their r e c e n t
experience of betrayal brought home to them.
With this recognition, Mr. He ad now can accept the "grace"
of insight of seeing his true identity in an eternal p e r s p e c ­
tive, one that fully illuminates the fall and redemption
and divine mercy.
Mr. Hea d stood very still and felt the action of
m e r c y touch him again but this time he knew that there
were no words in the world that could name it.
He
u n d e r s t o o d that it grew out of agony, which is not denied
to a n y man and which is given in strange ways to c h i l ­
dren.
He un derstood it was all a man could carry into
d e a t h to give his Ma ker and he suddenly burned with shame
Similar forms of Manichean dissociation are evident
in Mr. Shiftle t in "The Life You Save M ay Be Your Own" and
Hulga in "Good Country People."
It indicates, of course,
Mr. H e a d ' s attempt to "preserve" what he envisions as a
state of person al innocence.
166
that he had so little of it to take w i t h him.
He stood
appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God,
while the action of mercy covered his pride like a
flame and consumed it.
He had never thought h i ms el f a
great sinner before but he saw n ow that his true depravity
had been h i d de n from him lest it cause hi m despair.
He
r e a l i z e d that he was forgiven for sins fr o m the begin nin g
of time, w hen he had conceived in his own heart the sin
of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor
Nelson.
He saw that no sin was too monstrous for h i m
to c l a i m as his own, and since God loved in proportion
as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter
Paradise. 7
Miss O'Connor's
logical
increasing skill in using the a n a ­
metho d to create a complicated v i s i o n of re de mp tio n
hi st or y is perhaps best exemplified in "Greenleaf."
In this
story the analogue of redemption is set in opposition to
that of secular ma te ri al is m and insular moral
"innocence,"
as in "The Displaced Person," but here the frame wor k of
Chris ti an and classical typology is dramatized in a unique
way.
The Mrs. M a y of "Greenleaf"
is at once recognized as
the m o d er n is t who struggles to keep her insular domain--her
p l a c e — intact
it.
against the forces which threaten to disrupt
T yp ol og ica lly ,
she is linked with the pagan goddess
Hera, w i t h her herd of "sacred"
by the Gre enl eaf s
"scrub" bull.
cows, now b e i n g threatened
In addition,
she exhibits
the ap p o l o n i a n traits of rigid order and control by force
of will;
in contrast,
the bull and the Greenleafs,
as their
name suggests , repre sen t those dionysian forces of v e g e t a ­
tion,
fertility,
change and creativity wh ich finally defeat
^^Three by Flannery 0' C o n n o r , pp.
213-14.
167
her.
Like the di spl ac ed pe r so n- - li ke
Christ--the Greenleafs
bull makes ev er yt hin g "off b a l a n c e " — up se tt in g the "old
order" as the R e d ee me r did by His Incarnation.
cal analogues
of H e r a and di o n y s i a n i s m are deepened by
Christian typology,
ment.
the re d e m p t i v e visio n of thd N e w T e s t a ­
I ni ti all y the u n c o nt ro ll ab le
bull is ass ociated with
Zeus, w i t h a possible pa r a l l e l of his
May to Zeus'
as a "suitor"
The c l a s s i ­
seduct io n of Europa,
"seduction"
of Mrs.
disgui sed as a bull.
But
the bull is also cl ea r ly linked to Christ, wi th
his "wreathed" horns
in the ope nin g scene,
so that the
classical analogue is tr an sf or med to the redemptive one of
Christ the "lover"
tr yi n g to v i o le nt ly upset and penetrate
Mrs. Ma y's false order
and idolatrous control.
The fact that the bull be longs
and the subsequent
to the Greenleafs,
ac ti o n of the story,
a profound universal v i s i o n of history.
presents an alo gi cal ly
The Greenleafs in
m i c ro co sm show the "rise" of those who openly involve t h e m ­
selves cre atively in the process of history,
change and true progress,
serve h e r farm from.
to be pagan,
Mrs.
the forces of
w h i c h Mrs. M a y is trying to p r e ­
Gr ee nle af indulges in what seem
vegetal p ra ye r- h ea li ng s
in the woods,
but she
has rede mp tiv e vision in r ec o g n i z i n g the power of evil and
asking for "Jesus,
rejects
Jesus."
Mrs. May,
this vital re l i g i o n in Mrs.
"unreasonable" and unrespectable,
in the woods,
on the other hand,
Greenl eaf as being
but as she encounters her
the co nn ect io n between the erupti ng forces
168
represented by the bull and Christ is clearly made,
Mrs. M a y feels
for
"as if some violent unleashed force had
broken out of the
ground and was charging toward her."
In contrast
to Mrs. May's
stagnant attempts to hold
the line against the decay of her farm,
the Greenleafs have
"advanced" by their immersion in history.
Both boys
served
in Europe during W or ld War II, both have married French
women, bo th have profite d by change and "openness"
so that
their farm is more progressive than Mrs. May's.
In c o n ­
trast, her two sons, who have not "gone outside"
their local
world,
are unma rri ed and spiritually sterile,
detached fro m their mother's affairs.
presented w i t h , then,
typologically,
cynic al ly
What we are
clearly
is an op position of
historical view s- -th e one self-enclosed,
spiritually sterile,
and auguring of false innocence
(Mrs. M a y attempts to keep
her place
and Greenleafs),
"pure"
of scrub bulls
open and creative,
the other
subject to violent forces of change,
yet
associated with Christ in the universal process of communal
redemption.
It is this force of genuine union which Mrs.
May attempts to stifle and deny, but in death she
lently brought
to recognize it.
"upset the balance"
world.
This
is v i o ­
The bull,
like Christ,
of n a t u r e — the natural
order of the
is the mystery of change
has
(including the mys te r y
of violence and "evil") wh ich Mrs. M a y repudiates by trying
to "control" it willfully,
until her death.
Then,
bull has gored her "like a wild tormented lover,"
after the
she " c o n ­
tinued to stare straight ahead but the entire scene
in front
169
of her h a d changed--the tree line was a dark wound in a
w o rld that was nothing but sky--and she had the look of a
person wh ose sight has been suddenly restor ed but who finds
the light unbearable."
In her introduction to ^ M e m o r y of M ar y A n n , M i s s
O'Connor explicitly attacked the "Aylmers"
world -- cha ra cte rs like Mrs. May, Mrs.
McIntyre,
who in trying to "contain" or el iminate
att e mp ti ng to reduce spiritual mystery.
evil,
she affirmed,
divine plan,
doxically,
and Rayber--
evil are guilty of
To "eliminate"
is to cut down on the possibil it y of
r e d em pt io n and moral growth,
in the
of the modern
the "good un der construction"
and this impulse
only to further evil
tends to lead, p a r a ­
and destruction.
the case in "A View of the Woods,"
Such is
where the modernist old
Mr. Fortune identifies h i m se lf w i t h "progress"
in an attempt
to order the good of the future by cut ti ng down the forces
of mystery.
Specifically, he intends
front of his son-in-law Pitts'
gas station,
to sell the lot in
h ou se as a site for a future
which would obscure
their
"view of the woods"--
the symbol of the mysterious a m b ig ui t y of good and evil and
growth,
seen pa rti cu lar ly in the final death scene in the
woods.
To Mr. Fortune,
trunk";
that is, his view of r e a l i t y is purely materialistic,
however,
"a pine trunk is a pine
so me thi ng to be manipul ate d without concern for its spiritual
170
18
si g ni fi ca nc e,
The conflict bet wee n the m y s t er io u s vision of reality
and the pragmat ic- re duc ti oni st centers in Mr.
daughter M a ry Fortune Pitts.
tune," a "perfect" child,
To the old man she is a " fo r ­
and an "angel";
in and sees only her innocence.
course,
Fortune's g r an d­
that is, he believes
Her supposed innocence,
is simp ly a pro jection of h i s own,
of
and the sentimental-
nostalgic basis for this belief is reveale d by the fact that
he identifies
ist,
"innocence" with his mother,
Shiftlet.
like another d u a l ­
Mr. Fortune intends to guarantee the future
by leaving his mo ney and lands to his granddaughter,
and
the "future" he tries to order reall y betokens his own
desire for ch ildhood innocence, without
is determined to reduce his
However,
ambiguity,
since he
grand da ugh te r to "pure" F o r t u n e .
she is also a "Pitts"- -m ark ed with imperfection.
The essential my stery of her character is demonstrated by
the fact that she submits nat ur al l y to her father's whippings
in the woods,
wh ic h are punishment
tune" in her).
However,
for her pride
(the "for­
since he sees only her "pure"
goodness, her submission to her father is inexplicable to
old Mr.
Fortune,
character.
l8
an "ugly mystery,"
Consequently,
the
"one flaw" in her
when he tries to punish her in
His view is opposed to the sacramental view of
reality, the v i e w that matter is spiritualized.
Thus the
pragmatic materialists are also spiritual reductionists,
trying to reduce things and acts to a strictly practical
level, deny in g mystery.
171
the woods,
a f t e r her defiance ag ainst him for selling the
"view of the woods,"
believed,
she resists violently.
d u a l i s t i c a l l y , only in h e r as "pure” Fortune,
deny in g the m y s t e r y of evil,
she n o w asserts h e r se lf as
"pure" P i t t s — the eruption of evil caused,
by his a t t em pt
to reduce and deny it.
evil in himself,
he sees
paradoxically,
And it is also the
long denied, w h i c h he now confronts,
"his own image" in the kicking,
Ironically,
future,
Since he has
for
screaming child.
in killing the child he has also destroyed the
for tho ug h he declares
"There's not an ounce of
Pitts in me," he is now faced w i t h his o\m. evil act, his
heart f a i l i n g — alone in the woods.
T h o u g h old Mr.
less can and does act.
19
Fortune is destructive, he n e v e r t h e ­
In many of Miss O'Connor's
stories,
the p a r t i c u l a r malaise of di s s oc ia ti on characterized by
r a t i o n a l i s m a n d intellectualisin brings with it an inability
to act m e a n i n g f u l l y "in the world."
It is exemplified by
characters l ik e Hulga in "Good C o un t ry People," T o m in "The
Comforts of H o m e , " R a y b e r , the s on Julian in "Everything
That Rises M u s t Converge,"
Chill."
Male
and As bu r y Fox in "The Enduring
characters seem to suffer from it especially.
For these char ac ter s the mind is a separated "place"
19
they
T h e murder of the child here--of ambiguity--like
T a r w at er 's dr ow ni ng of Bishop or Joe Christmas' violence,
is of cour se an attempt to absolve oneself from mystery,
from lived ambiguity.
This Ayl mer-impulse implies personal
innocence and self-redemption.
172
have co ns tr uc ted from which to v i e w the w or ld abstractly,
a shell of "innocence" which is as rea l for them as the
physical shell of innocence that Mrs. Mc Int yr e and Mrs.
try to b u i l d on their farms.
kingdom of immunity,
"Mind" for them is a private
a condition of ideal ize d isolation from
the concrete community;
self-redemption.
Cope
in tel lec tu ali sm is their way of
But in fact their condition constitutes
another and more subtle type of m an ic he an is m- -o f "mind"
separated fro m the world,
and of intellectual
concrete mystery.
and impotence;
of idea sep ar at ed from factuality,
formula set up in opposition to living,
And it is a c on d i t i o n of spiritual
st eri li ty
these characters find it difficult to b r ea k
out of the circle of abstraction to act with a totally uni fie d
being "in the world."
There is an i nn er division of self,
of mind s ep ar ate d from will,
a kind of interior displacement
in w hi ch they are cut off from their own roots of active,
creative exist enc e in the world.
"the fall,"
\fhat each must undergo is
a destruction of the wall of rationalism,
some­
thing wh ich can reunite them with themselves and with the
concrete world.
The "fall"
of their abstract,
isolated mental
her w o o de n leg, her "crutch"
it also opens
involves a violent destruction
of in tel le ctu al nihilism--but
them to grace if they wil l accept it, wh ich in
most of these cases means to accept
world as a fal le n creature.
fall,
" w o r l d " - - H u l g a 's loss of
and though for others
Some,
their true "place"
like Rayber, refuse
in the
to
the loss of their intellectual
173
innocence is painful,
divisive,
they are re de em ed from their own
destructive r a t i o n a l i s m and restor ed to their own
true roots of being,
cl ea n se d of illusion.
This movement of
grace is perhaps best r e p r e s e n t e d b y "The Enduring Chill."
Asbury Fox,
a fail ure intellectual aesthete,
returned home, he believes,
has
"to die," ha vi n g relinquished a
life in New Y ork where he has un suc c es sf ul ly tried to become
a writer.
P h y si ca ll y ill, he
over his failures,
is also stricken with despair
but in fact he is romantically enamored
with both his spiritual d e s p a i r and the de ath he believes
will soon overtake him.
H i s concept of his condition--
physical and spiritual -- is
the abstract mental "shell" into
wh ic h he s el f- in dul ge ntl y and inn ocently retreats from the
concrete and common levels of h uma n existence.
The "common"
in the story is iden tif ie d w i t h his mother, who m he blames
for his own failure and w h o m he now plans to "enlighten" with
a vicious po st -m or te m letter
writing)
bla mi ng her;
the persistent Dr.
the
(his only act of "creative"
"common"
Block, w h o m A s b ur y regards as a simple-
minde d country fool.
Asbury also detests the mundane
affairs of his mother's farm,
and the comic irony of his
"fall" is undersc ore d in the fact
lant fever,
is also represented by
"like Bangs
in a cow."
that he suffers from unduAsbury's abstract intel-
lectualisni is p a r t i c u l a r l y de mon st r at ed by his
spiritual interests:
he asks
bedridden because he desires
"cultivated"
to speak to a Jesuit while
an intellectual priest with
174
whom he can discuss abstract concepts like the "New Man"
and "the m y t h of the dy ing God."
is the gruff,
laziness,
blunt,
What he gets, ironically,
earthy Fr, Finn, who scolds him for
for self-pity,
and for ne gl ec ti ng his prayers,
and who in for ms h im that he must ask God h um bl y to send the
Holy Ghost.
The final shattering of Asbury*s
intellectual
innocence comes with Dr. Block's di sco ver y of the fact and
the m y st er y of his ma la dy- -a fever recurrent but not fatal-for n o w the r oma nti c
illusion of his own "death" is destroyed.
With this d i s c o ve ry Asbury is "brought down"
to reality,
and for ce d to see his own self -in fl ate d egotism.
be the c o m mo n lot of lingering imperfection,
His is to
an "enduring
chill," not esca pe or re lea se from m y s te ry through a se lf­
glorified death.
in the descent
The "grace" of this shat ter in g insight comes
of the Holy Ghost,
a true intellectual i l l u m i n a ­
tion that re ve al s his condition to him.
common h u m a n lot,
In accepting this
Asbury sees with te rr if yi ng clarity the
"new life" o p e n i n g to him.
The old life in h i m was exhausted.
He awaited the comi ng
of the new.
It was then that he felt the beginning of
a chill, a chill so peculiar, so light, that it was like
a w a r m ri pp le across a deeper sea of cold.
His bre a th
came short.
The fierce bird w h i c h th rough the years of
his c h i l dh oo d and the days of h i s illness had been poi sed
over his head, waiting mysteriously, appeared all at
once to be in motion.
Asbury bl an ch ed and the last film
of i l l u si on was borne as if by a w o rl dw in d from his eyes.
He sa w that for the rest of his days, frail, racked, but
enduring, he w ou ld live in the face of a purifying terror.
A feeble cry, a last impossible protest escaped him.
175
But the Holy Ghost, emblazoned in ice instead of fire,
continued, implacably, to descend.
In Miss O'Connor's second novel, The Violent Bear It
A w a y , the contending visions of h is to ry --C hri st ian and
secular modernist-~are dr amatically embodied as opposing
forces in the spiritual growth of young Francis Marion Tarwater.
21
The legacy left by his
a backwoods prophet,
great-uncle M a s o n Tarwater,
is belie f in the Fall and the rede mp­
tion by Christ, belief in the mystery of personality, human
freedom,
and grace,
and the strong sense that he must answer
God's call to his personal miss io n as a prophet,
w i th the baptism of the idiot Bishop.
Tarwater,
larism.
to begin
In contrast to old
the schoolteacher Rayber embodies rational se cu­
He rejects Christ's redemption in favor of self­
rede mption by intellectual control of "compulsions"
(violent,
irrational l o v e ) ; he regards baptism as a meaningless act
in a w o r l d whose "irrationality" can only be transcended by
intellect;
he is the enemy of mystery,
for as old Tarwater says,
know."
freedom,
and grace,
"He don't know its anything he can't
Rayber's animosity to living mystery is seen esp e­
cially in his attempt to reduce old Tarwat er to a "type" by
psychological analysis,
to "correct" young Tarwater's
^®Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must C o n ­
verge (New York;
Signet Books~j 196? ) , p. 110.
Miss O'Connor's
story is obviously indebted to Flaubert's "A Simple Heart."
21similar opposing visions operate in "The Lame Shall
Enter First."
Sheppard is the apostle of secularism, while
Johnson (son of John) believes only Jesus can redeem him.
Unlike Tarwater, however, Joh ns on freely acknowledges "the
devil" in himself, and will not permit his "evil"--lameness-to be "straightened" by the modernist Sheppard.
176
aberrant pe r so na li ty traits
(i.e.
to eliminate
"evil" in
h i m ) , and to ra tionally control the spontaneous movements
of the spirit both w i t hi n hi ms el f and young Tarwater.
Rayber h i m se lf loves bo th old Tarwater and Bishop,
which to h i m is the "seed"
desperately to control.
For
a love
of irrationality he struggles
T hu s as in The Sound and the F u r y ,
the touchstone of spiritual vision in the novel becomes the
idiot,
Bishop.
To Rayber h e is "an X signifying the general
hideousness of Fate," a living exemplum of the irrational
mystery of existence, wi th its implicit demands of love and
faith,
forces he must control against violent outbreak.
Mason T a r wa te r Bishop is a divine soul,
sight of the Lord,"
To
"precious in the
one w h o embodies the my stery of irra­
tionality in God's divine p lan and who therefore "counts"—
in need of red ee mi ng b a p t i s m like any other creature.
baptism of Bishop,
Tarwater's
then,
The
is the focal point for young
struggle b e t we en the conte nd ing " v i s io ns " of
Rayber and old Tarwater,
a struggle which dramatizes the
real m y s te ry of his spiritual growth.
Each of the major themes of the Ch ris tia n historical
v i si on — and their re fra ct ed c o u n t e r t h e m e s — is present in
The Violent Bear It A w a y , but
depicted brilliantly,
Act.
is the mystery of the Wo rd and the
And fittingly so,
Incarnation.
great-uncle,
the heart of the novel's drama,
since
this is the heart of Christ's
Young Ta rw at er ' s vocation,
transmitted by his
is to become a Christian prophet,
and this
177
identit y is
the mysterious u ni on of word and act w h i c h he
fin all y comes
re d em pt ive
to accept
freedom.
as part of his own strugg le w it h
Old M a s on Ta rw ate r has bot h the word
of divine tr ut h and the power to "act," whereas Rayber,
wh om o l d T a r w a t e r accuses of tr yi ng to reduce h i m to the
"dead w o r d s "
"take a c t i o n "
impotency,
of a magazi ne article,
throughout
the novel.
continually fails
Frozen in spiritual
Rayb er failed to rescue young Ta r wa t er
great -u ncl e,
and again failed in his attempt
in con tr as t,
old Ta rw ate r always has the strength
out" h is v i s i o n wi t h deeds.
analogue of the concrete,
to
In effect,
fro m his
to d r o w n Bishop;
to "carry
old T a r w a t e r is the
mys te rio us union of w o r d and act,
whereas R a y b e r shows the opposite condition of dissociation,
filled w i t h the "dead words" of analysis, but se vered from
any s p i r i t u a l
This
throughout
gested b y
source of action.
f orm of di sso c ia ti on also plagues y o u n g Tarwater
the novel,
the
"stranger's voice" which begins w i t h i n him
after o ld Ta r w at er 's
Rayb er a nd
novel.
a c on di tio n that is co n c r e t e l y s u g­
death,
the hom osexual
a voice of "reason" linked with
seducer of Tarwater later in the
T h e co nfl ic t of "voices" within h i m — old Tarwater's
and the r at io n a l - - u n d e r s c o r e s
the divisiveness
in young
T ar w a t e r ' s id en tit y early in the novel, nxs w a v e r i n g in the
struggle
to resolve
death of h i s
the tension of word and act.
Before the
great-uncle he did want to become a prophet,
but his n o t i o n of this role was
" d i s - i n c a r n a t e d ," abstract.
178
romantic,
but not
and idealized.
He wants
the power of miracles,
"the sweat and stink of the cross."
at this point is reflected by a wor d- spi ri t
His m a n i c he a ni sm
"split."
He tried w h e n possible to pass over these thoughts, to
keep his v is io n located on an even level, to see no more
than what was in front of his face and to let his eyes
stop at the surface of that.
It was as if he were afraid
that if he let his eye rest for an instant longer than
was n ee de d to place somet hin g- -a spade, a hoe, the mule's
hi nd quarters before his plow, the red fu rrow under him-that the thing would sud denly stand before him, strange
and terrifying, demanding that he name it and name it
justly and be judged for the name he gave it.
He did
all he could to avoid this thre ate ne d intimacy of c r e a ­
tion.
Wh en the Lord's call came, he wished it to be a
voice from out of a clear and emp ty sky, the trumpet of
the Lord God Almighty, u nt ou che d by any fleshy hand or
b r e a t h . (Italics mine )2"2
~
Tarwater's romantic vision of the prophet's role,
is destr oy ed forever when he first meets
seen here,
the idiot Bishop;
he is given the revelation of his m is si on to baptize the
idiot,
and then sees
"his own s t r ic ke n image of himself,
trudging into the distance in the ble ed ing stinking mad
shadow of Jesus,
broken fish,
until at last he re cei ved his reward,
a
a mu ltiplied l o a f . "
Throughout much of the novel, Tarwater tries to
silence the voice of true con science within h i m by denying
the "Word"
of his g r e a t - u n c l e 's legacy.
In reaction against
this, he decides to test and find out for himself,
a c t i o n , "how much of it is true."
in his spiritual growth,
22
This
through
is a n ec ess ar y step
for he is to be no blind follower
Thre e by Flannery O 'C o n n o r , pp.
315-6.
179
of old Tar wa te r -- he must kn ow i ng ly experience his own "fall"
before accepting his true vocation.
However,
in denying
the "word" of his great-uncle and his true conscience T a r ­
water falls to the opposite extreme of trying to destroy
conscience and his l i nk with the "word"
history,
through decisive action.
of the past,
In effect,
of
he adopts the
pure exis te nti ali sm of acti on seen in Ha zel M o t e s — action
used as a means
to immunize oneself fr om history,
oneself from m y s t e r y w i t h one decisive,
to "redeem"
severing action.
Rayber can "think" and "talk" in abstract intellectual f o r m u ­
lae, but he is impotent to act.
hand,
Young Tarwater,
can "act"; he insists that:
You got to do NO.
"You can't
You got to show it.
mean it by do ing it.
on the other
just say NO....
Y ou got to show you
You got to sh o w you're not going to
do one thing by doing another.
One way or another."
You got to make an end of it.
But to "make an end of it" means to
act as a means of es cap in g the thr ea ten in g burden of the
mystery of the W o r d in Act,
and T a r w a t e r here suffers d i s ­
sociation in trying to absolve h i ms el f from "the w o r d " —
from reflective
conscience and moral ambiguity.
The critical
action in Tarw at er' s
attempt to exorcize
the mystery of the in herited "Word" is the drowning-ba pti sm
of Bishop.
By dr o w n i n g the idiot he employs violent action,
like Joe Christmas,
as a w ay to immunize himself from moral
ambiguity, but though Ta rw ate r sees it as a way to "free"
himself from the past,
the tr uth is that it only deepens the
my stery of r e d e mp ti ve freedom.
For in the act of drowning
180
Bishop h e is not freed from the W o r d - - t h e words of baptism
m y s t e r i o u s l y pour forth from him.
Ho pi ng to re deem himself
by this act an d "keep himself inviolate," Tarwater has in
fact s t e e p e d h im sel f in guilt and further separation from
his true
identity.
After the murder, he intends to return
to P o w d e r h e a d and "mind his bidnis"
an Edenic h a v e n and protect his
from h i s t o r y ) ,
of the p a s t
"innocent" inviolability,
but his in ability to escape the consequences
is made apparent at once by his condition of
diss oc iat io n.
ironically,
(that is, wit hd raw into
His first ride
is w i t h a truckdriver who,
insists that Ta rwa te r
and the y o u t h ' s
"talk" to keep him awake,
troubled conscience begins to assert itself
i m m e d i a t e l y as he tries to deny that the words of baptism
have a n y meaning.
words be l i e him,
wom an a l o n g
at her.
innocence, but his own
especially whe n he meets a familiar Negro
the road and u n c o n t r o l l a b l y utters obscenities
T a r w a t e r is now "possessed"
he cannot
control,
"justify" his
attempt
He protests h i s
demoniacally by words
just as he cannot refrain from trying to
act of drowning Bisho p by words,
a desperate
to "balance" word and act meaningfully.
T a r w a t e r ' s condition of dissociation can only be
"resolved"
state,
by recognition and acc eptance of his own fallen
the h u m a n condition of violation,
and this occurs
d r a m a t i c a l l y in his seduction by the homosexual, when his
illusion o f personal inviola bil ity is destroyed.
this act of violation, Tarwater n o w recognizes
Following
that a return
l8l
to P o w d e r h e a d — to imm u ni ty — is impossible.
of personal
acknowledges
The knowledge
contamination is b urn ed into him, but he also
the cleansing divine fire of grace that burned
away his romantic illusions of es cap e and innocence.
this, Tarwater's
now accepts
spirit is reu ni te d with the Word,
Seeing
for he
the m ys ter y of his identi ty in the prophetic
calling. ■ In a vision he sees b e y o n d Powd erh ea d to the "true"
country where the Wo rd is p e r f ec tl y incarnated in Christ-"that violent country where the silence
is never b ro ke n
except to shout the truth."
he turns back to the
Chastened,
city to pr ea ch his v i s i o n — "GO W A R N T H E CHILDREN OF GOD OF
THE TER RI B LE SPEED OF M E R C Y "- -a nd thus accepts his true place
in history,
in the long line of pr ophets whose redemptive
mission he now assumes.
23
The cost of re fus ing this
mystery,
struggle by the denial of
and by attempting to save oneself through "reason,"
is wit ne ss ed in the spiritual de a th Rayber undergoes
novel.
Re je c ti ng Christ's Redemption,
"natural" man.
Rayber believes in
"There are certain laws
man's conduct," he tells young Tarwater,
23
in the
that determine every
and he believes
Throughout the novel patters of imagery suggest
the living mystery of experience.
All major symbols are
two-edged:
there is the water wh ic h cleanses and that
which d r o w n s , the fire wh ic h purifies and that wh i c h d e s t r o y s ,
the Word whi ch is Tru th and that which falsely tries to "con­
tain" and limit mystery, the h ung er and food of the body and
unquenchable spiritual hunger, the violence whi ch is "holy"
and that which is perverse, the silence which is divine
presence and that which is the void.
182
that hu manity's greatest
struggle
to control the
the "compulsive" forces
one's life.
extremes,
d i g n i t y lies in his intelligent
irrational,
the mysterious,
to face
of love and hate in order to "balance"
He preaches a gospel of moderation,
of avoiding
but this b a l a n c e d ethic is "upset" by Tarwater's
violence and his failure
to con tro l his own mys ter iou s drives.
Like Tarwater, Rayber tr ies
to sever his link w i t h the past--
old M as on Tarw ate r- -bu t h e is continually brought back to it
"irrationally"--by r e v e r i e a nd memory,
by uncontrollable outb urs ts
by reflection,
of love or vehement hate.
and
These
undeniable: spiritual li nks w i t h history are con vey ed b r i l ­
liantly by the technical
s t r uc tu r e of the novel,
"scenes" m o d u la ti ng b e t w e e n p as t and present,
with
so that the
structure points t h e m a t i c a l l y to the ontological balance
between past and present,
"the moment," which has
h i s t o r y and conscious
be co me
action in
disjointed in Rayber.
In
short, Rayber suffers f r o m every manifested f or m of d iss o­
ciation:
he tries to a b s t r a c t himself from an "irrational"
w orl d and from history;
from his thoughts
mutters).
tional"
h i s w or d s are fre qu en t ly disconnected
and a c t i o n s
("I'm not always myself," he
He comes to see h i m s e l f as divided into a "ra ­
and a "violent"
self,
and willfully forces
control
over the violent self b y c e n t e r i n g it in the idiot Bishop.
The little boy was p ar t o f a simple equatio n that
req u ir ed no further solution, except at the moments
when with little or no w a r n i n g he would feel himself
ove rwh elm ed by the h o r r i f y i n g love.
An yt hi ng he looked
at too long could b r i n g it on.
Bishop did not have to
be around.
It could be a stick or a stone, the line of
183
a shadow, the absurd old man' s walk of a starling
c r o s s i n g the sidewalk.
If, with out thinking, he lent
h i m s e l f to it, he wo uld feel suddenly a morbid surge
of the love that terrified him--po wer fu l enough to throw
h i m to the ground in an act of idiot praise.
It was
c o m p l e t e l y irrational and abnormal.
He wa s not afraid of love in general.
He k n e w the
v a l u e of it and h ow it could be used.
He had seen it
t r a n s f o r m in cases where n o t h i n g else had worked, su c h
as wi t h his poor sister.
None of this had the least
b e a r i n g on his situation.
Th e love that would overcome
h i m was of a different order entirely.
It was not the
k i n d that could be used for the child's improvement or
his own.
It was love w it hou t reason, love for someth ing
fu tu re l es s, love that ap pe ar e d to exist only to be
itself, imperious and all-demanding, the kind that would
ca us e h i m to make a fool of himse lf in an instant.
And
it o n l y began with Bishop.
It began with Bishop and
th e n like an avalanche c ov ere d everything his r ea so n
hated.
He always felt wi t h it a rush of longing to have
the old man's e y e s - - i n s a n e , fish-colored, violent w i t h
th e ir impossible vi s i o n of a wo r l d tran sfi gu red --t ur ned
on h i m once again.
The l on gin g was like an u n d er to w in
his b l o o d dragging h im ba ck w ar ds to what he kn e w to be
madness.
Ra yb er sees his rat ional control of these impulses as a
"heroic"
life,
yet in fact it is a parody of that authentic
hu m a n s t r u g g l e with m y s t e r y and rede mp tiv e freedom,
he r u t h l e s s l y denied.
In the pr oc es s of denial he has c o m ­
mi t te d a w o r s e "violence"
identity.
The
a struggle
to human being-ness and per so nal
"logical" result
of his immunization from
c o nc re te m ys t e r y is spiritual suicide,
and it comes
at the m o m e n t his vessel of "containment,"
to h i m
the idiot,
is
d e s tr oy ed by Tarwater.
All he would be was an observer.
He waited wit h
sereni ty .
Life had n e v e r be e n good enough to h i m for
h i m to win ce at its destruction.
He told h i ms el f that
2k
Th r ee by Fl annery O 'C o n n o r , pp. 372-3
184
he was indifferent even to his own d i s s o l u t i o n ... .To
feel n o t h i n g was peace.
The quiet was broken by an unm istakable b e l l o w . <. .He
did not move.
He remained a b s o lu te ly still, wooden,
expressionless, as the ma chi ne picked up the sounds of
some fierce sustained struggle in the d i s t a n c e ... .He
set his jaw.
No cry must esca pe him....
He stood waiting for the r a g i n g pain, the intolerable
hurt that was his due, to begin, so that he could ignore
it, but he continued to feel nothing.
He stood l i g h t ­
head ed at the window and it was not until he r eal iz ed
that there would be no pain that he collapsed. ^5
In the stories published by Miss O'Connor after The
Violent Bear It A w a y , her stress
is upon the process of
r e d em pt io n in history as a pr ocess
fied by the
Rises Must
of "convergence," s i g n i ­
title of her second collection.
Converge.
"Convergence" means the un iversal
drive to wa rd spiritual union among men,
ever, Miss
Eve ryt hi ng That
through love.
How­
O'Connor shows this drive as one which is e v e r y ­
where resisted, by characters who choose various forms of
isolation and "innocent" i m m u n i t y — ret rea t into abstract
i n t e l l ec tu a li sm or into a r om a n t i c i z e d past--to escape
demands of concrete union and growth.
includes
the total,
through pride
For redemption
corporate c o m mu ni ty of humankind,
"convergence,"
and because
Consequently,
detached "place" of immunity.
I b i d . , pp.
they
of this the initial action
w h ic h must occur is the d es t ruc tio n of their false,
25
and
these characters i m p li ci t ly and expl ic itl y try
to deny their place in this process.
resist
the
illusory,
Because of their har de ne d
421-23, passim.
185
isolation,
it takes an apocalypti c-l ik e violence to p e n e ­
trate th eir "shell," but this violent
encounter can,
though
not ne c e s s a r i l y , wo rk my st eri ou sly to "open" the character
to see and accept his true place and identity in red emp ti on
history.
Some retreat from this terrible knowledge,
but
even these are chastened so that they cannot go back to their
former s el f- s e r v i n g "innocent"
state.
In "Everything That Rises Must Converge," the violent
co n ve rge nce occurs between a stout Negress and an a r i s t o ­
c r at ic al l y - i n c l i n e d white woman, wh ose son Julian witnesses
the impact.
The title of the story
(taken from the Catholic
evo lu ti o ni st Pierre Tei l ha rd de Chardin),
the name " J u l i a n ,"
and the r e m a r k uttered by his m o th er in defense of his l a z i ­
ness:
"Well, Rome wasn't built in a day"--all suggest that
the a c t i o n ty pol og ica ll y dramatizes the struggle in the u n i ­
versal r e d e m p t i v e p r o c e s s . T h e
son Julian is an "apostate"
m o d er ni st w h o lives in a "mental bubble," a pseudo-liberal
in t el le ct ua l who dissociates h i m se lf from the concrete world
and its d e ma nd s for re demptive action.
ad va nce d "progressive"
of social change,
He appears to be an
but his real d i s ­
s o c ia ti ng impulse is evident in the fact that he desires to
live in the country,
at least
"three miles" from any people.
J u l i a n the Apostate, R om an emperor whose mother died
sh or tly a f t e r his birth, tried to return the kingdom from
C h r i s t i a n i t y to the old pa gan culture.
He issued edicts of
u n i ve rs al "toleration", us ing this as a guise to spread
p a g a n i s m t h ro ug h sympathetic philosophers and teachers.
186
Moreover,
mother's
he ostensibly has liberated himself from his
outmoded,
regressive social views, but in fact his
own theoretic progre ss ivi sm is akin to her aristocratic,
elitist pretensions.
This
true condition is made clear at
the end of the story, wh en Julia n must face the "void"
caused by her detah.
Julian's mother's dissociation from concrete history
takes the form of nostalgia for an idealized past,
cratic South of her youth.
lives in the "reduced"
borhood.
the arist o­
Formerl y a "Godhigh," she n o w
circumstances of a decaying city n e i g h ­
She believes the w o r l d is now in "a mess," and her
view of social progress -- hum an convergence th rough integration--is one of retrenchment
and isolation.
"It's simply
not realistic.
They should rise, yes, but on their own side
of the fence."
This v iew is also shared imp licitly by the
Negro wo man on the bus;
their mutual prideful isolation is
symbolized by the identical purple and green hats they wear.
• It is this pride,
linked with sentimental no st a lg ia for the
past, w h i c h moves Julian's mo th er to her p at ro ni zin g gesture
of offering the Negro child a penny,
violent,
answering blow shatters
the mother's
tion of aristocratic condescension.
"convergence," however,
past,
and the Negro woman's
exalted p o si ­
The effect of this real
is to drive her further into the
for as she wanders stunned down the street,
"Tell Grandpa to come get me,"
Negro maid)
to come get me."
"Tell Caroline
she mutters
(her childhood
The apocalypse is complete
187
whe n she falls dead of a he a rt
attack.
In addition, her fall
is as much an apocalypse for he r son Julian.
masterful
In one of the
ironies of the story, we discover that this
"pro­
gressive," allegedly lib er a te d f r o m his mother's archaic
social views,
actually has u s e d h e r as an abstract symbol of
all he su pposedly repudiates,
one whic h his own theoretic
p r o g r e ss iv is m depended up o n as a foil.
His identity as a
liberal has been me rely a r e a c t i o n a r y posture.
M ot h er and
son shared the same pri deful i m p u l s e of idealizing, w h i c h
bot h have used to immunize th em sel ves
and in her death his
Julian.
from real convergence,
true d e p e nd en ce upon her is r e ve al ed
to
"The tide of d ar k n e s s se emed to sweep h i m bac k to
her, post pon in g from mo ment
to moment his entry into the
w o r l d of guilt and sorrow."
Whereas violent
c o n v e r g e n c e destroys Julian's
tion with a terrifying r e v e l a t i o n of false identity,
isola­
con­
ve rg enc e with the real m y s t e r y of love leads to an acce pt anc e
of true identity and place in "Parker's Back."
Ob ad i ah
El ihue P ar k e r is linked by na m e and by his marriage to Sarah
Ru t h to Old Testament history,
but
it is an identity he has
a t tem pt ed to escape th ro ug ho u t
all the years of his life.
He will not use the bib li c al n a m e s , and in his w a n d e r i n g
travels he has covered his bo d y w i t h tattoos,
emblems of his
own se lf-idolatry and pr o f a n e
he is unable
love.
However,
to "seduce" Sarah Ruth to this profane love;
tattoos as "vanity of v a n i t i e s , "
she reje cts his
"idolatry," and w arn s h i m
188
that he mu st a n s w e r for his deeds at the Last Judgment.
Sarah R u t h em bod ie s re s po nsi ble moral ac tio n in the present,
and the concrete,
u nr o m a n t i c i z e d demands of love,
the "spiri­
tualization"
of t h e i r rel at io ns hi p which P ar ke r adolescently
spurns.
s ear ch for a tattoo which will
His
"bring Sarah
Ruth to he el, " and the fact that he chooses a Byzantine
Christ
t at to o indicates
rom an ti ci ze s and his
both his retreat
idolatrous
love of the emblem as a
pictor ia l r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of himself.
the p r i de f ul
s e l f - r e d e m p t i o n of Adam.
self from w h a t e v e r
he tells
"A ma n can't save his
of my sympathy,"
However ,
"An o-riginal w a y to do it if
the tattoo fails to "seduce"
she w i l l not admit him to the house until he
uses h i s c o m p l e t e bib lical name.
screamed.
act betokens
and later in the pool hall a friend
says a d m i r i n g l y of the work:
Sarah Ruth;
P a rk er 's
it is don't deserve none
the tattooist,
I ever saw one."
into a past he
'Idolatry!
every gre en tree!
" ' I d o l a t r y ! ' Sarah Ruth
Explaining yo ur s el f with idols under
I can put up with lies and vanities but
I don't want no i do l a t o r in this house!'"
Defeated,
is driven fr om the ho u se at the end of the story,
"back"
to the real,
by his deeds.
driven
childish moral adolesc en ce he has chosen
"Ther e he wa s-- wh o called h im se lf Obadiah
El i h u e — l e an in g a ga ins t
In " Re ve la ti o n, "
the tree,
crying like'a baby."
the mystery of grace operating
through h u m a n im pe r f e c t i o n brings the self- rig ht eou s
Mrs. T u r p i n
Parker
to ac ce pt her true place in the universal
189
re d em pti ve process of history.
T ho ug h she is surrounded
by evidence of a flawed hu ma n i t y - - s i t t i n g in a doctor's
wa i tin g room--Mrs.
Turpin reveals he rs el f in conversation to
be a blind,
sel f-satisfying believer in her own
inherent
proud,
goodness.
her well-being,
She hy po c r i t i c a l l y "thanks Jesus" for
at the same time gloating over her " s up er i ­
ority" to the Negroes and the "white trash" in the office.
In her false innocence,
tion,
"good" means cleansed of i mp e r f e c ­
evidenced by her conve rs ati on with the "white trash"
wo m an whe n she reveals that she has built a concrete "pigparlor" for her hogs and cleans them daily.
What Mrs.
Tu r p i n
is blind to is the mysterious wo rk ing s of grace through
human imperfection.
This my s ter y "hits" her in the form of
a violent convergence with Ma r y Grace,
strikes Mrs.
Turpin with a book entitled Human D e v e l o p m e n t ,
and then assaults her,
came from,
an ugly girl who first
screaming,
you old wart hog."
to Mrs. Turpin's
"Go back to Hell where yo u
Th e attack is a severe bl ow
isolated pride and moral self-assurance,
but one wh ic h finally leads her to a vision of her true
identity.
girl,
she
hogs.
U nab le to ri d her sel f of the memory of the obnoxious
"questions" God that evening while cleaning her
"Oc casionally she raised her fist and made a small
stabbing motio n over her chest as if she was defending her
innocence to invisible guests who were like the
of Job,
re as on ab le- se emi ng but wrong."
God with Satanic insistence:
comforters
Finally she ha ran gu es
"Who do you think y ou are."
190
The "answer” ret urn s in the grace of a chastening vision,
one which shows Mrs.
T u r p i n her own true "diminished" place,
as well as the role of im per fe cti on in the divine plan for
redeeming the un iv e rs al
community.
A visionary light settled in her eyes.
She saw the
streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from
the earth through a field of living fire.
Upon it a
vast horde of souls were rumblin g toward heaven.
There
were whole compan ie s of white-trash, clean for the first
time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in white
robes, and b at ta lio ns of freaks and lunatics shouting
and clapping and l e a p i n g like frogs.
And bringing up
the end of the p r o c es s io n was a tribe of people wh om she
rec ognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud,
had always had a little of everything and the God-given
wit to use it right.
She leaned forward to observe them
closer.
T h e y wer e ma r c h i n g behind the others with great
dignity, ac c ou nt ab le as they had always been for good
order and commo n sense and respectable behavior.
They
alone were on key.
Yet she could see by their shocked
and altered faces that even their virtues were being
burned away.
27
E v e ry th in g That Rises Must C o n v e r g e , p. l86.
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