Patrilineality

[DRAFT IN PROGRESS]

When asked directly in May of 1958 whether Sutpen “[acknowledged] Clytemnestra as his daughter,” Faulkner’s response was: “No. Well, that would not have mattered because Clytemnestra was a female. The important thing to him was he should establish a line of dukes, you see. He was going to create a dukedom. He’d have to have a male descendant” (Gwynn 272). Though Faulkner is speaking theoretically for a fictional character of his own creation, his immediate answer and subsequent explanation are significant to his entire canon of work. Faulkner’s perpetual interest in the family, as seen distinctly and chronologically through some of his most praised works, from __The Sound and the Fury__ to __Absalom, Absalom!__, is crafted in large part around the dominant genealogical system of his time and ours: patrilineality. While he deserves great credit for the complex discourse on gender that his writing has inspired, that result only makes it more important to recognize the patriarchal basis of both the subjects and structures of his stories. Acknowledging its influence on his literary approach will illuminate more precisely the role of gender in his dramatis personae, as well as the pioneering form in which he presents them.

Faulkner’s characters, male and female, realize the centrality of names in the social hierarchies that structure their lives. The discourse between Caroline and Jason Jr. in __The Sound and the Fury__ reflects the declining family’s complex relationship to patriarchy and patrilineality. For example, throughout the novel Caroline echoes the notion that Jason is “more Bascomb than Compson” at heart (TSAF 103). Ironically, the pride fueling Caroline’s suggestion that Jason has primarily inherited her own genes, and the implication of their superiority to those of her deceased husband, is undermined by the very system she upholds: Bascomb is not her own name; it literally belongs to her father. Practically speaking, she has no claim to the genes whatsoever because as a female she lacks the ability to bequeath the name that represents them, and therefore, their supposed superiority is irrelevant. Despite this initial delusion, however, Caroline ultimately recognizes that a female Bascomb isn’t really a Bascomb at all when she defends her brother Maury to Jason later in the novel: “‘He’s the last Bascomb. When we are gone there wont be any more of them’” (TSAF 225).

Faulkner continues to play with meaning of names in __As I Lay Dying__. Addie’s conceptions of names seem radical, perhaps due to the bizarre passion with which she delivers her only narration in the novel. Names, to Addie, “die. . . and then fade away,” words “go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless;” but “doing goes along the earth, clinging to it” (AILD 173). Still, while Addie critiques the symbolic meaning of words by deeming action as a superior form of expression, she doesn’t mistake the powerful and practical influence words carry: she describes Anse’s name as “a shape, a vessel” (AILD 173). Indeed, Addie’s thoughts are not so far-fetched as readers might first interpret; they simply reflect the anger and resentment any woman might feel after suffering the insidiousness of patriarchy. She says, “It was as though [Anse] had tricked me, hidden within a word like within a paper screen and struck me in the back through it. But then I realised I had been tricked by words older than Anse or love, and that the same word had tricked Anse too. . . ” (AILD 172). While I don’t suggest Faulkner’s riddle here has just one answer, patriarchy is a suitable fit.

Works Cited Faulkner, William. //Absalom, Absalom!: The Corrected Text//. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print. ---. //As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text//. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print. ---. //Light In August: The Corrected Text//. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print. ---. //The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text//. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print. Gwynn, Frederick L., and Joseph L. Blotner, eds. //Faulkner in the University//. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995. Print.