（英语语言文学专业论文）福克纳小说中的女性形象与女性意识探析.pdf

摘 要摘 要 勿容置疑，女性形象在福克纳的小说中有着举足轻重的位 置。 在他一生所写的众多长篇和短篇小说中， 福克纳塑造了一系 列形象各异、耐人寻味的妇女形象，可谓无所不包。从上流社会 的名门之女，到普通女性，再到下层黑人女性；从守身如玉的贞 女到放荡不羁的浪女； 从纯洁可爱的淑女到心如毒蝎的恶妇； 从 逆来顺受的怨妇到叛逆、追求自由的烈女，福克纳都有触及，而 且栩栩如生，入木三分。作为一个热切关注人类命运的作家，福 克纳对那些熬得最苦的南方女性倾注了复杂的感情， 作者的创作 思想、 价值观念和作品的艺术感染力在她们的身上也得到了最充 分、最完美的体现。 本文首先从心理分析批评和女性主义批评 的视角对福克纳几部女性中心小说进行探察与分析， 将其笔下的 女性形象分为三种类型， 并分别予以阐述。 一类是以凯蒂为代表 的为福克纳所钟爱的女性， 她们有些堕落但善良， 她们温柔但叛 逆，她们不守妇道，追求自我，是人性的象征，是福克纳的“最 爱” ；第二类是以艾迪为代表的母亲形象，她们自私，虚无，冷 漠，精神空虚，性格复杂，充满矛盾，且充当南方妇道观的卫道 士；第三类是以潭波尔为代表的堕落女性，她们游戏人生，自甘 堕落，将南方父权制所定格的淑女观反叛到极点。其后，本文将 重点探讨导致南方妇女命运悲剧的南方父权制以及贞操观与淑 女观。 福克纳在他那卷帙浩繁的作品中描述了形形色色的南方女 性，在这些女性中，她们绝大多数内心骚动不安，她们的灵魂为 abstract there is no denying that women characters play a pivotal role in faulkners novels. in his novels, faulkner affords the readers a whole gallery of vivid portraits of the southern women of all strata. in his novels, faulkner foresees the southern patriarchys inevitable fall, and he demonstrates a genuine sympathy for the women in the yoknapatawpha county. in this dissertation, lengthy accounts will, firstly, be given to the detailed exploration to three types of women characters in faulkners novels from the perspective of psychoanalytical criticism and feminist criticism. first, caddy in the sound and the fury, the reason that she is in the choice company lies in her special position in faulkners depiction of women characters. being faulkners “hearts darling”, caddy is at the core of the novel, all the other characters serve to tell her story. whats more, she is also a flapper-type woman against her traditional female place in society, a sensitive, a beautiful girl, but given to bitchery from her early teens. second, addie bundren in as i lay dying. like caddy, addie is also at the center of the entire novel, as all the other characters react to her life and her death. and she is a great faulkner creation and a memorable one. third, temple drake in sanctuary, she is one of faulkners damned characters: those who must do evil. evil holds a power over her that is too strong for her to fight, she commits grievous sins; in calvinist tradition she is a sexual lure who keeps men from their salvation. the character temple drake can be interpreted as a femme fatale similar to those portrayed in the detective genre. furthermore, this dissertation will center on the penetrating exploration of the southern patriarchy and southern womanhood, which compel southern women into madness. in this part, virginity, firstly, is discussed in detail. in the south of america, there arose a current, just like all other male chauvinism areas, for such a peculiar phenomenon: the lower the womens position is, the more elegant the women are, or, to be exact, the more precious their virginity is. in the male-centered world, women are the shadows of men, the subsidiaries of men. and mens control of women might be, undoubtedly, the control of womens virginity. secondly, this thesis mainly lists some typical southern “virtuous maidens”, they are actually the “shadow characters”. they are just like shadows: without noumenon, without identification and voiceless. lastly, the dissertation will focus on the rebellious women in faulkners novels, the main figure turns to drusilla in the unvanquished, and in this part, by discussing dilsey in the sound and the fury, the dissertation may argue that she is the hope of the “new southern woman” in faulkners eyes. in conclusion, faulkner, as far as this dissertation is concerned, can be viewed as a standard-bearer, he waves flags and bangs the drums for southern womens rebellion against southern male-centered patriarchy. so under these circumstances, the significance of the thesis lies in the reconsideration of faulkners depiction of women characters and more importantly, it is of great assistance to realize that faulkner has made great dedication to adding bricks to the mansion of the feminist criticism. key words: women characters; southern patriarchy; virginity; womanhood; women consciousness 1 an exploration of women characters and female consciousness in faulkners novels introduction william faulkner (1897-1962), the man himself never stands taller than five feet, six inches tall, but in the realm of american literature, he is a giant. more than simply a renowned mississippi writer, the nobel prizewinning novelist and short story writer, william faulkner is acclaimed throughout the world as one of the twentieth centurys greatest writers. he ranks among the leading american authors of the twentieth century. william faulkner is a regionalist, who has spent most of his life in a small, particular area of the united states, writing about the scenes and people he knows best. william faulkner was born in 1897 in new albery, mississippi, to a prominent southern family. he lived in oxford from early childhood, and was educated there, and then returned to the town after his experiences in the canadian and british air force. faulkner showed signs of artistic talent from a young age, but became bored with his classes and never finished high school. he once worked in a bookstore in new york, and wrote descriptive sketches for newspapers while living with sherwood anderson in new orleans; but his life was in oxford, where he wrote pastoral verse, recovered from a war wound, and worked at off jobs as a carpenter, a roof-painter and a postmaster at the university. he was an impoverished southern gentleman who returned to seek his place in the only tradition he had ever known. oxford is faulkners inspiration for the fictional town of 2 jefferson, mississippi, and its surrounding yoknapatawpha county. these locales become the setting for a number of his works. indeed, faulkners works have been termed the yoknapatwapha saga, “one connected story one mythical kingdom” 1, in which he affords the world a whole gallery of american deep south. he transforms his own little “postage stamp” of native soil into an apocryphal setting in which he explores, articulates, and challenges. most of faulkners major works are set in yoknapatawpha county and its main town, jefferson. although they are imaginary places, both bore marks similarities to faulkners native oxford in lafayette county, mississippi. yoknapatawpha county is not only a complete and detailed creation of what malcolm cowley called “a mythical kingdom”, it functions also as an allegory or a parable of the south. in the novels set in the kingdom, faulkner explores all levels of society, from the plantation owners and their descendants to the blacks descended from slavery, from the town people of jefferson to the poor whites the native indians of the region, and also the southern women. what emerges is not just the social and economic history of yoknapatawpha county, but its emotional and psychological history as well. william faulkners main “yoknapatawpha novels” are, the sound and the fury(1929), as i lay dyin (1930), sanctuary(1931), light in august(1932), absalom, absalom(1936), the hamlet(1940), and go down, moses(1942). faulkner is particularly interested in the decline of the deep south after the civil war. he writes about the histories of a number of southern aristocratic families such as the compsons, the sartorises, the sutpens and the mccaslins, and traces them back to the very beginning when the chika sees indians are still lawful owners of the land. talking about his south, faulkner says, “im 3 inclined to think that my material, the south, is not very important to me. i just happen to know it, and dont have time in one life to learn about another one and write at the same time. though the one i know is probably as good as another, life is a phenomenon but not a novelty, the same frantic steeple chase toward nothing everywhere and man stinks the same stink no matter where in time.”2 although the sociological view persisted, faulkner himself persistently and unequivocally rejects it. in 1957 at the university of virginia he was asked, “sir, to what extent were you trying to picture the south and southern civilization as a whole, rather than just mississippi or were you?” “not at all,” faulkner replied, “i was trying to talk about people, using the only tool i knew, which was the country that i knew. no, i wasnt trying to-wasnt writing sociology at all. i was just trying to write about people, which to me are the important thing. just the human heart, its not ideas.”3 there is no region in the u.s. that contains as much beauty, violence, passion, courage and finally, tragedy as the american south. and in the twentieth century, there is no novelist who more powerfully and eloquently represents this region in his fiction than william faulkner. it is from that regions characteristics of white social status, racial violence, honor codes and traditional moral values that faulkner draws the material for most of his fiction. it becomes clear that what faulkner is talking about concerns not merely the american south but the human situation in general, the spiritual deterioration which characterizes modern life stems directly from the loss of love and want of emotional responsethat seems to be one important message of faulkners stories. william faulkner shows a genuine concern upon his southern people, and also, upon the southern women. there is no 4 denying that women characters play a pivotal role in faulkners novels. whats more, faulkners portrayal of women in his novel is nearly all-inclusive, such as mrs.compson (the sound and the fury), temple drake(sanctuary), miss emily (a rose for emily), rosa (absalom, absalom), narcissa (flags in the dust) are from the aristocratic families, and dewey (as i lay dying), lena (light in august) are from the common class, and ruby (sanctuary), dilsey (the sound and the fury) represent the black women of the lower class. in his novels, faulkner affords the readers a whole gallery of vivid portraits of the southern women of all strata. faulkner populates yoknapatawpha county with the skeletons of old mansions, generals from the past whose aristocratic families fail to live up to their historical greatness, and also reveals the deterioration of southern patriarchy. beneath the shadow of past grandeur, these families attempt to cling to old southern values, the dominated patriarchs still dream to control their wives, daughters, female slaves by their weaponsouthern womanhood. in his novels, faulkner sees the southern patriarchys inevitable fall, and demonstrates a genuine sympathy for the women in the yoknapatawpha county. as the noted faulknerian critic olga vickery once put it in the novels of william faulkner, “faulkner is sympathetic to many of his women characters. many of these characters exist in self-created worlds since they cannot cope with reality; this exclusive self-involvement is a concept allied to faulkners interest in human alienation.”4 the proliferation of literary criticism about faulkners women characters poses problems for the faulkner critics. they raise several essential questions concerning faulkners portrayal of 5 women. one of the more complex aspects of faulkners women characters is his own attitude toward them: is he a thorough misogynist, or does he feel some admiration and sympathy for these women? faulkners critics avow and deny his misogyny, some of their analysis of the fiction emphasize the evil nature of his women characters that are destructive, malevolent and menacing, and those critics who view faulkner as a misogynist also usually emphasize the repletion of evil women in his fiction. in her feminism and faulkner, gwin focuses on the unreality of faulkners female characters and draws such a conclusion, “to discover women as real subjects in history, we need to look to hurston rather than faulkner, woolf rather than joyce, morrison rather than barth. in the end it is perhaps not so surprising or even theoretically nave to conclude that, to find real women, we need to read real women.”5 in his william faulkner: a critical study, irving howe points out that faulkner has strong intentions of women disgust, as he puts it, “faulkner ferociously despises his young women characters, and, as a result, his reader feels distaste and sometimes bitterness toward these characters. these women use their sexual attractiveness to lure men and then to dominate and destroy them. since faulkner hates his young women characters so much, he rarely gives them any moral depth. also, some of their portraits rely greatly on stock characters taken from humorous southern folk tales.”6 leslie fielder views faulkners works as a serious smear to women, he argues, “faulkner fears castrating women, his women characters are devious, have no use for admirable concepts such as honor and loyalty, and use their sexual attractiveness to lure and then destroy men.”7 many feminists even proclaim that faulkner should be 6 discarded. while, on the other hand, scholars who believe faulkner has sympathy for his women characters (and even admiration for some of them) focus on the creative, benevolent, and nurturing aspects of the women. sally r. page, who is strongly against faulkners misogyny, writes the first book-length study of faulkners women characters. it is written, in part, in response to fiedler and geismar, each of whom views faulkners women as stereotypical and thoroughly evil. she asserts that “faulkner does not continually show fear and hatred in his depiction of women characters. the power of faulkners women stems from their closer ties to nature; they act more practically and realistically than do his male characters.”8 in her faulkners women: characterization and meaning, page claims “faulkners women are more beneficent, individual, and creative than critics previously believed them to be.”9 together with page, naomi jackson also points out “faulkner is upset by and uneasy over sexual women and so his depiction of them suffers. however, he is not a misogynist; rather, his ideals for women are too lofty.”10 suffice it to say that faulkners engagement with gender is far too complex to be treated as merely symptomatic of the american canons masculinist bias. it will be argued in this thesis that, although conditioned by his particular world and time, faulkners attitude towards women is not as simple as it is sometimes assumed to be. it is true that faulkner shows his deep sympathy with women and makes an incisive exposure and condemnation to the absolute caste system in the south. in this dissertation, lengthy accounts will, firstly, be given to the detailed exploration to three types of women characters in faulkners novels. because of faulkners 7 encyclopedic creation of women characters, this thesis cant be all-inclusive, it just limits its attention to some of them, among which includes, first, caddy in the sound and the fury, the reason she is in the choice company lies in her special position in faulkners depiction of women characters. being faulkners “hearts darling”, caddy is at the core of the novel, all the other characters serve to tell her story, she “is the beautiful, willful, high-spirited girl who takes the wrong turning, and ends up a cold, proud, wealthy woman of fashion”11. whats more, she is also a flapper-type woman against her traditional female place in society, and she is a sensitive, beautiful girl, but given to bitchery from her early teens. second, addie bundren in as i lay dying, according to melvin backman, “addie is sometimes a spokesperson for faulkner himself” 12, “she is great, in a womans way, by her power of feeling, by her complete possession of reality, and by her painful awareness of the distinction between words and things”.13 like caddy, addie is also at the center of the entire novel, as all the other characters react to her life and her death. and she is a great faulkner creation and a memorable one. third, temple drake in sanctuary, she is one of faulkners damned characters: those who must do evil. evil holds a power over her that is too strong for her to fight, she commits grievous sins; in calvinist tradition she is a sexual lure who keeps men from their salvation. the character temple drake can be interpreted as a femme fatale similar to those portrayed in the detective genre. her attire is black, traditionally symbolic of mystique and danger, and her perjury represents her revenge on the social and cultural systems that have failed to protect her. furthermore, this dissertation will center on the penetrating 8 exploration to the southern patriarchy and southern womanhood, which compel southern women into madness. in this part, virginity, firstly, is discussed in detail. in the south of america, there arose a current, just like all other male chauvinism areas, for such a peculiar phenomenon: the lower the womens position is, the more elegant the women are, or, to be exact, the more precious their virginity is. in the male-centered world, women are the shadows of men, the subsidiaries of men. and mens control of women might be, undoubtedly, the control of womens virginity. secondly, this thesis mainly lists some typical southern “virtuous maidens”, they are actually the “shadow characters”. they are just like shadows: without noumenon, without identification and voiceless. lastly, the thesis will focus on the rebellious women in faulkners novels, the main figure turns to drusilla in the unvanquished, and in this part, by discussing dilsey in the sound and the fury, the dissertation may argue that she is the hope of the “new southern woman”. 9 chapter i three types of women images in faulkners novels it is obvious that faulkners depiction of women is nearly all-inclusive, and complicated. while, according to some critics, faulkners female figures do ultimately fall into one of the two extremes of character types; either they are creative, or th