William Faulkner's use of myth

Abstract

William Faulkner’s use of myth denotes United States’ history fractured by the events of the Civil War and its aftermath, reverberating through the twentieth century into the present. I identify areas of specific Faulknerian myth working within an overarching, recursive version of history, proving that mythology is essential to the enduring creation of Southern identities in wider critical discussion in relation to Faulkner’s role as an authorial mythmaker and observer of his South, and the impact of one South within many.

Faulkner and the Myth of the Lost Cause analyses the South’s most dangerous myth: the Lost Cause. I assess how inherited mythology operates within Faulkner’s life and fiction.

The Mythos of Absalom, Absalom! investigates Faulkner’s hereditary narratives of delayed decoding and invented histories, determined by generational allegiance to the Lost Cause.

Faulkner and the Myth of Racial Inferiority establishes how mythologised racial inferiority affects the South’s non-white population, stemming from enforcement of white supremacy as a tool of control.

Light in August and the Myth of Race investigates further how the contaminant threat of miscegenation suffuses Faulkner’s examinations of racial passing, and its perceived threat to white society.

Faulkner and the Controlling Myths of Southern Womanhood evaluates how women renege against the expectations of post-Civil War society, endorsed or regulated by remnants of the Lost Cause.

Conducting this research extrapolates how Faulkner synthesises fiction and non-fiction, history and imagination, to form a new version of the South working within and reneging against mythologies. My analysis asserts that issues surrounding race, the aftermath of the Confederacy, and the topic of freedoms reflect ever-growing civil unrest and racialised tensions within America. I determine that overcorrection and mythologisation of history are entirely embedded within the creation of myth itself, and inherited Lost Cause ideology. These tensions have created further iterations of the political and social climates Faulkner’s works reflect, ensuring enduring relevance to discussions of women’s rights, race, and the ideological parameters of the South.