The Inevitable Down of Up: Marginalizing the Power Structure in Faulkner

The southern states in the US saw social changes coming about from the time of the Civil War in the mid-late 19th century through the span of Faulkner's life, and the coming changes caused a kind of anxiety regarding where women and African Americans were going, and how it was going to affect the previous power structure around them. Could this be a marker of the fear of marginalization on the part of those who had previously been at the top of the power structure suddenly seeing with the Civil War and then female suffrage that if women and others are coming up the ladder, then they might be replacing the previous inhabitants in the process?

Characters on the margins in Faulkner's work often represent a threat to the power structure in place, and threaten that what is seen is not what is there.- In considering the question, one must look at a large portion of the body of Faulkner's work. Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, and The Wild Palms provide a solid base of information to compile and analyze in search of the answer to this question.

Light in August

According to Caryl K. Sills in her essay, "Patterns of Victimization in Light in August," Joe Christmas and Joanna Burden were initially victims of society; they become victims of one another in Light in August. This transforms each into aggressors. They negotiate their own deaths: Joe runs after he murders Joanna, knowing that he will be caught and murdered himself for his choice to kill her; Joanna's actions involve the power struggle she engaged in with Joe during their relationship. The ascribed status of both characters defines their ambiguous roles in power structure and abuse relationships. Joanna is white and female; Joe is white, black, and male.

Joe struggles with being both races, and Joanna struggles with her failure to aid African Americans. Both are faced with religious issues surrounding Calvinist justifications of victim status by its doctrine involving the elect versus the damned and their predetermined acceptance into Heaven or Hell. Lena represents what is possible when one incorporates the past into the present and does not fight the roles society offers, but works within those roles for the best outcome even when faced with opposition. Joe and Joanna cannot reconcile with the past enough to let it's power die, and as a result they are both denied peace in the present and hope for the future (1-4).

Joanna Burden is a threat to the power structure. She is sexually open minded; she has relations with an African American man; she is attempting to create a place for African American people, and therefore overturning the power structure; she brings an outsider's perspective to a place where she was born but did not belong. All of these things make Joanna a threat to the power structure, and therefore to the socially ascribed roles individuals within a society expect to have. Calvinism presents a sort of Christian dharma as an explanation for how God could allow some to have so much and others to have not enough.

Joanna's character does not adhere to her initial place within the society as a woman, but she does follow in her father's footsteps in trying to "liberate" African Americans, so she is following her dharmic placement but when she begins to adhere to her Calvinist beliefs, she is compelled to pray for Joe and this is what drives him to kill her. Joanna tries to have her cake and eat it too by bucking the system when it suits her, such as when she is engaging in sexual activities with Joe Christmas, and then employing the system when she realizes that she is not pregnant but going through menopause.

Joe Christmas has the same conflicted behavior that Joanna does, for example: by getting work as a white man but refusing to participate socially with his coworkers, Joe upsets the power structure and leaves no options for reconstructing it. Joe is more important in this regard than Joanna, because he is not what he appears to be and he himself does not know how to define himself. He has to die in order to claim his place in the world and free himself of the confines of a socially ascribed status versus one that he determines for himself.

When Joe is going to have sex with an African American girl, he beats her rather than have sex with her. Joe's ferocious nature represents something wild, untamed, and undefined. Is he beating the girl for fun, for having sex with white men, or for being willing to have sex with him, a mulatto? Joe's violence has a pattern, and he is most cruel to those who do not object to his ambiguity -- such as the prostitute in the north who is not bothered by the fact that Joe is not white, or Joanna, with whom he has an ugly relationship with. Joanna, however, puts Joe in a degraded place of power by having sex with him, and then calling him racially insulting words. Perhaps it is this abuse of Joe that compels him to continue to consort with Joanna until she does the unthinkable and prays for him. This final hypocrisy is unbearable for Joe.

In contrast to Joe Christmas and Joanna Burden, Lena Grove equally disrupts the power structure but she does not try to destroy it without consideration for those previous inhabitants. Lena is an unwed orphan carrying a child in her belly when we meet her, and she is also the introduction to the novel, the world Faulkner has created. Lena does not try to obliterate the old and leave nothing for the new: she is honest about her condition, proactive in making the changes in her life she sees needing to be made, and she refuses to define herself through her relationships to men when she does not rush into a relationship with Byron Bunch.

She works as an ambassador rather than an assassin in her dealings with the world outside herself. While Lena may be considered manipulative and naïve, she should be seen as heroic in this sense: Lena is like water and able to travel through rocky terrain when necessary without having to move the rocks in order to go her own way. Lena does not entirely displace men, and she is not in any way a threat to race relations. Lena does not represent chaos for the sake of chaos, as Joe's violence seems to be. She does not represent the exploitation of both African American and Caucasion cultures as Joanna does in her dealings with African Americans may assist them in spite of her seeming sense of superiority over the society she claims to want to help.

Mrs. Armistid is representative of the old order, and the power of women within that order. While she has no control over her husband's decision to bring Lena home with him for the night, she certainly exhibits control over him in every other way. By giving Lena the egg money, Mrs. Armistid's response to Lena's "disgraceful" behavior and her willing honesty on the matter shows the old working with the new to make room for everyone. Mrs. Armistid's choice to give Lena the egg money shows a supportive influence; however, her decision to give the money that is specifically designated as Mrs. Armistid's accumulation of power rather than to petition her husband for his money so that Mrs. Armistid's money could be horded only for her own benefit allows Mrs. Armistid to contribute to the advancement of both women and the men in the society that must adjust to Lena and what she represents, which is a truly independent woman.

Mr. Armistid represents the cooperation of those in power and their willingness to make room for the new place in society that women like Lena are carving out. By giving Lena a ride, he is ensuring her safe arrival as far as he is going. Once he is convinced she is a lone woman scouting for the man who left her in a delicate condition, he also decides to take her into his home and brave the wrath of his wife. Luckily for everyone, Lena's arrival and departure are not as traumatizing as they could have been, and together the three of them manage to find themselves in a limited alliance.

Although Lena is looking for the father of her child, she does so in such a manner that she must face the world unchaperoned and unaccompanied; this is a daring and dangerous undertaking that Lena ultimately succeeds at accomplishing even though she does not find the man who fathered her child. Lena's success represents both the coming of the new world, and the road that the new world would be required to travel along in order to reach its destination. Joe and Joanna represent the place that reckless disregard for history and those who wrote it will lead to: death by violent means.

As for this novel, the argument that women are demonized seems less potent if these aspects of the social dynamics at play are considered. It does not seem that women are demonized, but that while change is something frightening and disruptive, it can nevertheless be enacted without absolute destruction taking place. Furthermore, the problems facing the new and the old in the social structure can be settled through violence or diplomacy, and the success of this change will be determined by the methods employed in handling the situation.

The Sound and the Fury

Quentin Compson represents the old and the new in the south. He is from the aristocratic sector of a shamed and disgraced people subjugated by a system (the U.S. federal government) that previously worked on a bias greatly benefiting the haves (Compsons, et al) disproportionately more than the have nots (slaves, poor whites). The displacement of the aristocracy during and after the Civil War is the beginning of the end of the pre-Civil Wae power structure in southern society. It is the first blatant evidence of the anxiety that those with something to lose as a result of change may feel. The push to send Quentin to Harvard is the clutching attempt of those who could not accept or work with change to maintain something that was long lost by the time Quentin was even born. Quentin's suicide at Harvard demonstrates the futile nature of trying too hard to hold on to something half a century dead - the prewar south.

Caroline Compson shows the inability to nurture that refusing to accept change can bring about. Mrs. Compson loses all of her children except Jason, who is by far the least likeable of them all. She focuses on a world that failed and drives her children to failure in the process. She has made an example of herself and her family in trying to determine the road of the future, and how not to proceed.

In contrast to Caroline, Caddy Compson is a much different woman. Caddy crosses gender roles as a child and an adult. She plays in the dirt, and is not afraid of mud on her dress. She rejects the idea that sex belongs to men and birthing children. Caddy is like Lena in that she tries to compromise with those in her world who would withhold power from her, but she is different from Lena because she does not succeed the way that Lena does. Caddy loses Miss Quentin and her family at the same time. She also fails to secure a life for Miss Quentin that is better than the one Caddy herself was born into. Miss Quentin must repeat Caddy's steps to liberate herself, and she must do it without the comforts of Benjy and Quentin as her brothers and playmates, and with Jason as her overseer rather than a less powerful nuisance of a brother.

Both women have the burden of the family future and status on their shoulders, and both fail to achieve their ascribed goals and must go out into the world with uncertain, unsecured, and unmanned futures. Because Miss Quentin must leave the family for any peace, and she must suffer in some respects more isolation and abuse than her mother, three generations of Compson women support the suggestion that adhering to times past will only delay the inevitable change, and the more it is delayed, the generations to come will suffer the brunt of it only to have to start at the same places previous generations did.

Jason Compson, Jr and Sr also reflect a similar pattern. Sr drowns in alcohol while allowing the matriarch to drive everyone to the brink of sanity; Jr drowns himself and everyone in anger and negativity. Neither man allows himself to recognize his own power, but Jr dooms himself by refusing to recognize the control he does have over his earning potential, and chooses to blame Quentin, Caddy, and Miss Quentin for his lack of power. He blames his staff for eating too much of his food. He blames everyone except himself, and by doing this he not only shows the danger of refusing to adjust. As well, the procession of events between the reigns of Sr and Jr shows the destruction of the future through the past not being reconciled with the present: the more time passes while changes are resisted and handled with disregard for others the worse the state of affairs will be for the coming generations. Quentin's suicide punctuates this point.

Benjy's narrative voice inverts power structure by allowing Benjy a voice at all. In life, Benjy's words have no value, but in writing, Benjy's words not only tell a story, but they introduce the place the reader is traveling to. Benjy is allowed to set the stage for the entire novel. Unlike his brothers, Benjy empowers himself through the freedom and command in a narrative voice. While Benjy's section of The Sound and the Fury is the most difficult to comprehend, it is the most powerful metaphor for understanding the chaotic upheaval of what is real and what is imagined in the post-Civil War south. Benjy's inability to communicate is the muted fear and anxiety of the members of the community as to placement and order. The collective understanding of the power of the federal government had been expressed through its military action; what that could mean for the future would remain to be seen. The ripple effect of this one aspect of post-Civil War society would create a kind of helplessness that is paralleled to Benjy's helplessness in the world he lives in.

The Wild Palms

If the characters of Faulkner's novels are compiled and placed together, they will create a variety of individuals struggling with changes. The characters in Light in August show us certain elements of life in the rural town and racial issues from both the left and right side politically; the Compson family focuses on the issues of maintaining identity and defining the future through different methods. The Wild Palms deals with issues surrounding the purpose of life, creation, and the constrictions of societal expectations.

Henry and Charlotte meet and run away from what would normally constitute nice and comfortable lives. Henry is four months from completing an internship as a doctor, and Charlotte is married to a generally nice man with a good career. She has two children, and Henry has never lost his virginity at twenty-seven years old. Walking away from these comforts and securities is difficult to understand, particularly considering that the novel is set in the Great Depression. However, the Depression only supports the idea that for Charlotte and Henry to leave behind what they had, the confines of the world they are living in have become more to bear than starvation or deprivation.

Charlotte's pregnancy and subsequent death show the lengths she will go to in order to remain independent. Like Caddy, Miss Quentin, and Lena Grove Charlotte does not need to attach identity to the back of another person, and ultimately pays the price of death for demanding her own way. Henry, however, is not independent. He uses Charlotte to keep from having to find his own identity. While Charlotte may be cruel and insensitive, she does not act as a parasitic influence the way that Henry must to form his own sense of purpose and self.

Conclusion

Throughout these novels we see people struggling with the changing world around them. Whether they looked for money, power, or creative expression, they struggled. We see the "New Woman" in the three novels, and we see her threat to the order of society. We see the new race of the white negro. We see the struggling artist. We see the consequences for order and for the threat to it. All together, they seem to be saying: "You can't win either way you're in trouble and change is coming faster everyday."