The World without Fathers: Reconstructing Faulknerian Masculinities in Toni Morrison's Beloved
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This paper examines the way in which Toni Morrison reconstructs white masculinities represented in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury as autonomous African American masculinities in her novel, Beloved. It is through the Compson's sons - Benjy, Jason, and Quentin, who cannot find ways to escape from the family corruption - that Faulkner presents modes of human isolation and devastation in The Sound and the Fury. Portraying Compson's invisibilityand irresponsibility as a father, Faulkner presents him as a symbol of white Southern gentleman haunted by the corrupted history of slavery during the Great Depression. In Beloved, too, we can recognize such Faulknerian characters whose masculinities are threatened by their circumstances. The emphasis, however, is more on the enrichment of human relationships rather than on isolation and damnation within the style of modernism in The Sound and the Fury. My reading of Beloved acknowledges that Morrison's male characters at Sweet Home - Halle, Sixo and Paul D - reflect the masculinities of the Compson's sons, yet these African American male characters transform the dysfunctional traits of Faulknerian masculinities into survival skills, and it is what gives them hope under the institution of slavery. By focusing on the fatherlessness as the common theme of the novels, this paper focuses on the intertextuality of the representations of masculinities portrayed in Beloved and The Sound and the Furythrough an exploration of the ways in which Morrison's aesthetic approach recalls Faulkner's strategy, not in terms of the original work of Faulkner as an American canonical writer but in terms of an original work of one white male writer who presents his viewpointtoward slavery as a form of U.S. colonization.
Abstract
This paper examines the way in which Toni Morrison reconstructs white masculinities represented in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury as autonomous African American masculinities in her novel, Beloved. It is through the Compson's sons - Benjy, Jason, and Quentin, who cannot find ways to escape from the family corruption - that Faulkner presents modes of human isolation and devastation in The Sound and the Fury. Portraying Compson's invisibilityand irresponsibility as a father, Faulkner presents him as a symbol of white Southern gentleman haunted by the corrupted history of slavery during the Great Depression. In Beloved, too, we can recognize such Faulknerian characters whose masculinities are threatened by their circumstances. The emphasis, however, is more on the enrichment of human relationships rather than on isolation and damnation within the style of modernism in The Sound and the Fury. My reading of Beloved acknowledges that Morrison's male characters at Sweet Home - Halle, Sixo and Paul D - reflect the masculinities of the Compson's sons, yet these African American male characters transform the dysfunctional traits of Faulknerian masculinities into survival skills, and it is what gives them hope under the institution of slavery. By focusing on the fatherlessness as the common theme of the novels, this paper focuses on the intertextuality of the representations of masculinities portrayed in Beloved and The Sound and the Furythrough an exploration of the ways in which Morrison's aesthetic approach recalls Faulkner's strategy, not in terms of the original work of Faulkner as an American canonical writer but in terms of an original work of one white male writer who presents his viewpointtoward slavery as a form of U.S. colonization.
참고문헌 (26)
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