Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1992

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

English

Major Professor

Wlliam Shurr

Committee Members

Allen Carroll, Dorothy Scura, George Brenkert

Abstract

This study attempts to examine Absalom, Absalom! in terms of Henri Bergson's metaphysical arguments concerning time and reality. I first argue that the absolute truth behind the series of events in the Sutpen material is absent from the text. Since critics have consistently assumed that Quentin's account of events is what Faulkner intended as the final presentation of the truth, I examine Quentin's role as narrator as well as his discovery of the missing "facts" concerning Charles Bon's heritage to show that his version of the Sutpen Story is not substantiated anywhere in the text as factual. Further, since the Langford study of the manuscript shows that Faulkner deleted material from the original which supported the truth of Quentin's version, I argue that Faulkner did so intentionally so that the sum of his narrative parts would refuse to coalesce into an absolute whole. Faulkner's insistence on keeping all of the knowledge of the Sutpen material relative to the individual narrative points of view then reflects Henri Bergson's metaphysical distinction between absolute knowledge and relative knowledge, or the distinction between knowledge of the absolute whole and knowledge of the relationship of conceptual parts. Specific points from Bergson's arguments concerning time and reality account for the failure of Absalom’s narrators to arrive at the whole truth. The narrators' failure to account for the truth behind the whole duration of events is related to the same intellectual errors which Bergson has pointed to in the failed attempts of philosophers who have tried to account for time's real, whole and continuous nature through a knowledge of the relative number, measure, or positioning of parts. A summary of major philosophical efforts, from Aristotle to modern-day, analyzing the nature of time elucidates Bergson's argument that the problems which have plagued philosophers result from the confusion of time with the mental concepts of math, space, and language. The confusion of these mental conceptions with the real nature of time leads to a denial of time's mobility, continuity, and change. Bergson's insistence that time, as well as all objects of reality, have been distorted by the intellect's attempt to freeze the mobility of reality by representing the absolute, unique "thing itself” in terms of repeatable, conceptual expressions explains the repetitive nature of the narrative accounts of the Sutpen material, as well as the failure of the individual characters who appear doomed to repeat their experiences. Bergson's warning concerning the falsification of the real through the substitution of the concept, word, or symbol for the "thing itself" elucidates the failure of Absalom’s characters who cannot gain viable knowledge of their experiences. Bergson's point concerning the intellectual attempt to substitute conceptual attributes, or "partial expressions," for the whole real thing itself defines the cognitive patterns of Absalom’s characters who seek to identify one another through a recognition of a few, arbitrarily selected attributes or conceptual parts. Studies in cognition concerned with the same partial identification processes support Bergson's point and help explain the failure of Absalom’s characters. In the conclusion of this study I apply specific points from Bergson's philosophy to a brief examination of As I Lay Dying, Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, and "The Bear."

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS