Research Catalog

Title

Embracing "the loud world" : isolation and community in selected novels by William Faulkner and Toni Morrison / by Andrew Joseph Wilson.

Author

Wilson, Andrew Joseph

Publication

1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

v, 392 leaves; 28 cm

Subject

• Morrison, Toni, 1931-2019 > Criticism and interpretation
• Faulkner, William, 1897-1962 > Criticism and interpretation
• Isolation (Philosophy) in literature
• Communities in literature
• Community life in literature

Genre/Form

• Academic theses.
• Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (leaves 379-392).

Reproduction (note)

• Print reproduction.

Call Number

Sc D 05-2040

OCLC

1503904506

Author

Wilson, Andrew Joseph, author.

Title

Embracing "the loud world" : isolation and community in selected novels by William Faulkner and Toni Morrison / by Andrew Joseph Wilson.

Production

1996.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Thesis

Ph. D. Kent State University 1996

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 379-392).

Reproduction

Print reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : University Microfilms International, 1998. v, 392 pages ; 22 cm

Summary

Toni Morrison's Master's thesis (Cornell University, 1955) exposes Virginia Woolf as a writer who finds comfort and freedom in detachment, and William Faulkner as a writer who asserts that isolation is both defeating and fatal. I contend that Morrison, in her own fiction, resists Woolf's support of detachment and embraces Faulkner's celebration of community. Morrison has denied that her work resembles that of Faulkner and other mainstream writers. Notwithstanding Morrison's uncontested place within the framework of African-American writing, however, this project seeks to demonstrate that there is filiation between Faulkner and Morrison. Faulkner and Morrison recognize the sometimes insidious nature of civilization, but both writers refuse to champion a withdrawal from humanity; both warn against living in an unmitigated state of divorce.

I begin with an extensive chapter on Faulkner's lamentations of isolation in Sanctuary, Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom!. Sanctuary is suffused with isolation in the form of voyeurism, for its characters observe life from a distance and rarely bridge the gap between themselves and others. Light in August speaks to the breach between whites and blacks in America, and bemoans the sterility that follows racial estrangement. The Sound and the Fury illuminates isolation within the confines of a highly self-destructive family, and poignantly demonstrates the passage of isolation from one generation to the next. In Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner's celebration of community reaches a pitch in the book's complex narrative form; the multiple narrators of Absalom come together to espouse a congregation of tongues as more valuable than a lone, biased voice.

Faulkner relishes community, but is inclined to underline its importance through loss. Morrison, however, appears to move from a bleak portrait of the loss of community in The Bluest Eye to more optimistic realizations of community in Song of Solomon, Beloved, and Jazz. In the latter three novels, community is valorized especially through (1) the acceptance of ancestry, (2) the reestablishment of one's place within the neighboring community, (3) the reunification of lovers, and (4) the reunification ("re-communion") of the formerly dismembered "pieces" of given individuals. Thus, although both writers cherish community, Morrison evolves away from Faulkner's more pessimistic depictions of the sad lack of community, into her own brand of enlightened optimism about community.

Research Call Number

Sc D 05-2040