LIA: infallibility, implacability, inevitability

DiscussionsWilliam Faulkner and his Literary Kin

Rejoignez LibraryThing pour poster.

LIA: infallibility, implacability, inevitability

Ce sujet est actuellement indiqué comme "en sommeil"—le dernier message date de plus de 90 jours. Vous pouvez le réveiller en postant une réponse.

1polutropos
Fév 5, 2010, 11:40 am

In Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex for example, we know that Oedipus WILL kill his father, marry his mother and so on. All is predetermined.

I am wondering whether others also see this in Faulkner, though perhaps not quite to that extreme.

2kokipy
Fév 5, 2010, 2:41 pm

I think in Light in August and Absalom Absalom Faulkner wrote about people that were doomed because we in the South practiced slavery and even possibly because we fought a brutal war to continue the institution, although he like Hightower is somewhat more equivocal about that. I think Joe's end is very much a matter of fate, but it is of course not one he deserves - same as Oedipus, perphaps.

3laytonwoman3rd
Fév 5, 2010, 4:51 pm

So many of his characters are "doomed" in one way or another...Quentin Compson, Eula Varner, Temple Drake, John Sartoris (so many Sartorises), and of course Joe Christmas and Gail Hightower. For Faulkner, "Fate" and "Doom" seem to be interchangeable. I've been reading him so long, it's hard to draw back and assess whether I had the impression of predetermination on first exposure, but it's definitely there now.

4wrmjr66
Fév 5, 2010, 5:05 pm

I would say the comparison also goes to the irony of fate. If Oedipus is so worried about killing his father and marrying his mother, he shouldn't have killed a stranger old enough to be his dad and married a woman old enough to be his mum. Similarly, characters like Joe Christmas are doomed in part because they regularly act in ways that make their destiny more likely rather than less.

5laytonwoman3rd
Modifié : Fév 7, 2010, 6:12 pm

But if it's Fate, with a capital "F"....well...resistance is Futile, isn't it? Of course, in Oedipus's case, he thought he knew who his parents were, and he was avoiding them...his actions were based on bad information. If he hadn't heard the prophecy in the first place, he MIGHT have had a better chance of escaping its fulfillment.

6kambrogi
Fév 22, 2010, 12:11 pm

I think the most tragic and most compelling of Faulkner's characters are clearly doomed by a fate they can't control, but I think it's society -- through its institutions and expectations -- that insures that their fates are inescapable. And there is a self-fulfilling sense to the prophecy that grows out of that, as you note, LTW3. Joe believed what they said about him, and made sure it came true.

7gautherbelle
Fév 25, 2010, 1:41 am

Oedipus was also about hubris. I don't think that was Joe Christmas' problem.