"Swamped and Submerged in the Bright Unreal Flood": Reflections on Water and Metaphor in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom! Open Access
Whitehead, Samuel Claud (2011)
Abstract
Abstract
"Swamped and Submerged in the Bright Unreal Flood": Reflections on
Water and Metaphor in
William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay
Dying, and Absalom, Absalom!
By Samuel Claud Whitehead
This thesis explores how an understanding of the role water as both
a literal and metaphorical element of William Faulkner's The
Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom,
Absalom! provides characters with a richer existence, offers
readers a means of understanding the notoriously difficult novels,
and revisions the ability of narrative to impart truth. Recent
scholarship highlighting the importance of metaphors in human
cognition provides a novel means of examining the exposed
consciousnesses of Faulkner's characters and how the metaphorical
nature of their perception guides their experiences. Focusing on
water metaphors in particular places the novels in conversation:
The Sound and the Fury demonstrates the pervasiveness of
water metaphors as a part of characters' thinking and as an
integral component of readers' understanding of the novels; the
overwhelming presence of water metaphors in As I Lay
Dying offers a means of reconciling the different narratives to
revision truth as a product of the perceptions of many; Absalom,
Absalom! highlights the fluid nature of truth and suggests how
readers approach a narrative: question, doubt, and become part of
it. Though, at first, these novels generate obfuscation, the means
to understand them also flows through their pages. For readers with
knowledge of the way the human mind understands through metaphors
based in the natural world, Faulkner's texts offer a chart by which
to navigate towards comprehension.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
I. Introduction...1
II. The Sound and the Fury: Water and Dissolving
Minds...11
III. As I Lay Dying: Water and Dissolving Texts...33
IV. Absalom, Absalom!: Solution and Dissolution...46
V. Staying Afloat...61
VI. Works Cited...68
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