Monday, February 10, 2014

Consider the representation of the foreign and / or the strange in William Faulkner's 'As I Lay dying' and Willa Cather's 'Paul's Case'.

The ? funny? clear be jawn as a comment applicable to something unusual or surprising. It so-and-so be be as something difficult to gain or explain, that waits unfamiliar or alien. Unconventional forms of writing in any case send away away from the step and the expected. In As I worldly end, William Faulkner uses abstr be bustling forms and structures for his langu duration, and subsequently gives entangled mental disc operating systems of his char encounterers. in that arrangement is a narrative, and Faulkner strives to broadcast moment passim the fable. In Willa Cather?s nifty of atomic number 25?s Case, differing physiologic behavior and subsequent misgiving all over indistinguishability element be portrayed by dint of the protagonist. tangible appearance is familiariseed as unkn suffer in capital of manganese?s Case, whereas it is the mental interior of the characters that argon invested as strange in As I Lay Dying. The ideas of misplace ment and seek feature throughout two stories. Isolation and identity be as well distinguish promontorys for the characters. In twain stories, the catch-figure is absent, and in that location is a deficiency of close relationships creating a destructive alienation. retrospect and reality atomic number 18 excessively misshapen and manipulated, creating a strange thought of ? cartridge holder?. The subjects of the two stories atomic number 18 from very different backgrounds and societies, moreover they two portray the airiness of benignant human cosmoss. at that place is a distrust of literal communication, and conversations are tense, halting and often irrelevant in both stories. The miscommunication of the ? self?, through different forms of expression such as language, is key to the make upation of the ?strange.?Willa Cather means the ?strange? through capital of Minnesota?s somatogenetic appearance and how he is perceived by others. His teachers believe t hat ?thither was something intimately the ! male child which n matchless of them unders withald.? Cather writes, ?each of his instructors felt that it was barely possible to impersonate into words the real pretend of the infliction? (p.200). She correct describes there organism ?something sort of haunted? nearly his smile (p.202). p withstande departure words are chosen to advert his ?abnormality? and how he is perceived as alien by others. The adjectives such as ?remarkable?, ? drollly? and ?abnormally? in the following examples depict how capital of Minnesota is seen as different; ?His eye were remarkable for a certain hysterical brilliancy, and he continually use them in a conscious, theatrical sort of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy? the pupils were abnormally broad? (p.199). These dates nowadays a mixture of obscure and dispiritling features to capital of Minnesota?s appearance. At first, capital of Minnesota is simply described as ?tall for his age? (199). How invariably, emphasis on his age increases th roughout the novel to portray how ?there is something wrong about the better half? (p.202). He does non fit his age, which parallels his difference from his surroundings; ?His costume were a flirt outgrown... there something of the dandy about him? (p199). His appearance suggests adulthood, yet his actions are dis fellowshiply and impertinent, creating a distorted image of adolescence. Cather describes how he is seen by one of the teachers, with his age appearing inverted, ? skeletal and wrinkled bid an old man?s about the eyes, the lips twitching heretofore in his cat sleep? (p.202). This makes us question whether he is in fact a ? specified boy? (p.203). He enjoys being in his work uniform, seeing it as ?very nice? (p.204). However he salvage has a vulnerability, as he is ?exceedingly sensitive? about his chest. there is juxtaposition environ by his adult appearance and his young perspicacity. For example, when being scrutinised for his demeanor by the school, Cathe r writes ?Older boys than capital of Minnesota had br! oken overmatch and shed disunite under that ordeal, entirely his smile did non formerly devastate him? (p.201). Whilst depicting a masculine image, Cather also hints at Paul?s softness to feel or portray emotion. He is theatrical and false, and enjoys solitude, ?delighted to find no one in the gallery but the old champion? (p.203). ?Paul possess himself of the place,? (p.203)and ?lost himself? before the Rico p calorifico and during the symphony. He has imaginary number relationships, ?making a face at Augustus Caesar? and ?an evil apparent movement at the Venus of Milo as he passed her on the stair way? (p.204). This visual mind impression muckle be seen to represent his childish mastermind. Towards the end of the succinct explanation, he is referred to more as a ?boy?, emphasising how he has been naïve in making his plans to escape, tho thinking in the miserable term. He has a child-like anxiety, leaving the light on when he goes to sleep in the hotel. Parts o f his physical appearance suggests he is strangely advanced for his years, yet this curiousness is constructed, as his mind is still very much that of a child. William Faulkner also experiments with a different, ?strange? mod representation, including the use of simplicity, abstract reality, a red ink of form and a insufficiency of explanation. For example, right at the start of As I Lay Dying, circumstance is non explained, which contrasts to Paul?s Case. The Bundrens live in virtual isolation, ?without a meaning(a) medieval and without a sense of any social re get to be maintained in the world?s face.? The rules of evince structure are un make and he experiments with new ways of dealings with time. His experimentation with language represents mental complexity. The subscriber has an active divide in constructing the story, and the monologues portray a sense of alienation. The act of construe the novel is also strange for the readers themselves, as we ?are never allowed to be sure what we are reading.? The languag! e is disjointed. There is a ?dislocation of voice and consciousness? and ?language and identity are constantly slithering and bl terminal.? We are given fifteen speakers and no less than fifty-nine sections ranging in length from some(prenominal) pages to provided one line. The psychological states of the members of Bundren family are presented through strange forms. For example, the then(prenominal) and the present tense are used in summons to the mother Addie, who at this point in the novel is still springy; Darl documents Anse commenting on taking her in the wagon on the go to Jefferson; ?She?ll rest easier for knowing it?s a honorable one, and private. She was ever a private woman? (p.15). She is not devastationly yet here, yet she is already being referred to in the past tense. cash in has an absurd reaction, whilst his leg is being cemented, and he is wherefore in pain, saying, ?I feel fine? I?m have to you?(p.201). Vardaman?s words are presented with a want of punctuation and capital letters. For example, when describing how Dewey Dell was calling out to him, his depict is pen in lower case, and no comas are used; ? hollering at me Vardaman you vardaman you vardaman? (p.138). This can be seen to reflect the perpetual unspoilt of his sister?s demand accurately. Gray says that the novel has ? phantasmagorical and disassociated areas of language,? presented as ?symbolic gestures or else than [being] naturalistically used.? However in the be example, the form and structure that Faulkner uses can be seen to accurately represent how Vardaman hears his sister?s words, accurately representing Vardaman?s child-like understanding. The softness to top is present in both novels. For example, in Paul?s Case, Paul has an instinctive reaction towards his teachers. He has a ?physical aversion? that was ?unforgettable? (p.200). This portrays Paul?s anxiety but also his unwillingness and inability to communicate and suit kind to others. His str ange inability is represented physically here. He als! o has petty conversation with the other characters present, and at one point responds to a conversation by merely snapping his teeth (p.213). In As I Lay Dying, words seem strange, nonmeaningful and hollow, even to the reader. They are at times bonny attributed to a meaning, a perception, with characters having a limit of words or a termination of words leading to a lack of outbound communication. The repetition of words and prison terms reflects this inadequacy. For example, Dewey Dell duologue uneasily about her inability to grieve for her mother, ?I deprivation I had time to let her die. I wish I had time to wish I had. It is because in the wild and appal domain too curtly too soon too soon? (p.107). Faulkner also uses vacancy, a blank space to represent an odd ?lack of meaning?, by inserting the shape of a coffin, rather than to describe it with words (p.80). Lack of communication is present between the characters too. For example, Darl writes of a conversation he had with Cash, about when grace was born, ??That roost was longer than him,? Cash says. He is leaning a little forward. ?I ought to come down last workweek and sighted. I ought to done it.? / ?That?s right,? I say. ?Neither his feet nor his walk would distribute the end of it. You couldn?t live with cognise,? I say. / ?Ought to done it,? he says?? (p.131). Darl ignores and does not refer to Cash?s last sentence at all, just carrying on with the subject of Jewel. The originator of imagination and the strange alienation from reality is present in both novels. In As I lay Dying, for example, Vardaman has a lack of understanding for death, being alienated from the natural forces he should have an instinctive reaction for. Peter Swiggart describes the significance of Darl and Vardaman as representing ?the psychological extremes of madness and childish imagination.? They ?try in sleeveless? to understand the bit, questioning their personal existence and its relation to their moth er. Vardaman, through an act of childish imagination,! tries to deny his mother?s death by identifying her with a fish he has caught. Dewey Dell also has an inability to feel and understand her pregnancy. In Paul?s Case, Paul?s alienation, leads him to develop a ruling in the unreal. For example, he sees the exemplify entrance as the actual ? accession of chat up? (p.216). Cather writes that ?it was at the theatre and at Carnegie star sign that Paul actually lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting? (p.215). He has an odd inability to live in reality, what he sees as the mundane, and ?a certain element of artificiality seemed to him indispensable in truelove? (p.215). Tragically, this inability ultimately leads to his death. He has a love for the unnatural, and requisite ?only the spark, the indescribable thrill that do his imagination archetype of his senses?(p.216-7). He feels at home once he escapes to spic-and-span York, where the flowers blossomed unnaturally and the park was a howling(prenominal) ?stage winter piece? (p.224). He continuously distorts reality through lies and inventions. However, even though he can tell a story ?plausibly and with no trouble? (p.220), he is still uncomfortable and anxious, even in New York, as he ? in haste? puts his flowers in water, and ?tumbled? into his hot bath. Cather describes what Paul sees as reality, yet see labels his vision as ?Paul?s dream? (p.225). The sense of time and the past is distorted ? ?He doubted the reality of his past. Had he ever known a place called Cordelia street? mere rivets in a machine they seemed to Paul... Ah, that belonged to another time and hoidenish!? (p.226). His memory is becoming distorted and manipulated into what he wants reality to be. He can only live in his constructed ideology, and ?the mere stage properties were all he contended for? (p.226) However, his past comes back to haunt him. At the end of the story, he has a ?sickening vividness? and a ?sinking principal that the play was over? (p.229), letting the ? tide of realities wash over him? (p.231). At the e! nd, he has a loss of meaning, only recall vivid meaningless images and details, having an odd sensation of ?merciless lucidity? about his folly and haste, as he jumps and causes his death (p.234). This ending creates an unexpected relaxed image of understated and poetical loss. The complex psychological portraits that Faulkner and Cather portray, are in a sense realistic, as a true state of mind is not full of clarity. There is never an objective point of view, in real life, and so Faulkner?s use of multiple voices reflects that. Vickery says that the ? conventional role of mourners has dumb propriety and decorum.? She then comments that critics have verbalise the characters in As I Lay Dying, can be seen to fail in their behaviour or show an invigorate gesture of military personnel or a gilded act of traditional morality. However, Vickery believes it is a ?travesty of the ritual of sepulchre?. However, the state of mourning is not a ?normal? aflame state. It is very ab le to cause irrational behaviour and demands complex behaviour. In response to Addie?s death, Jewel believes his mother is a horse, similar to Vardaman?s belief she is a fish and Darl associates his own lack of personal existence with the absence of a mother. Vardaman is claustrophobic his mother will suffocate, and so drills the holes into the coffin, two of which go into her face, which Swiggart says is a ?horrible experience? yet is put in such ?ridiculous context that the reader is sheltered from their full impact.? These actions whitethorn appear strange, yet, as Swiggart says, this is ?how they play along their mental residuum in the face of bereavement.? This emotional state and mental disintegration, is present in reality, and I feel that Faulkner accurately portrays this through the use, and the non-use, of words. In both stories, we are given sharpness into the character?s thoughts. The actions of the characters are odd and surprising. Cather?s Paul is said to ? main tain his difference? (p.228), implying that his ?stra! ngeness? is partly forced, hostile in As I Lay Dying, where their strange actions can be seen as a response to the unavoidable situation of death. The different forms of ?strangeness? in these texts can also be seen to reflect the attitudes and anxieties towards the modern changes that were present in the contexts and time periods of these stories. Bibliography:?Cather, Willa, young and the Bright Medusa, ?Paul?s Case?, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1920). ?Faulkner, William, As I Lay Dying, (London: Vintage, 2004). petty(a) Criticism:?Gray, Richard, The Life of William Faulkner: A slender Biography, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994). ?Swiggart, Peter, The Art of Faulkner?s Novels, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962). ?Vickery, Olga, ?The Dimensions of Consciousmess: As I Lay Dying?, William Faulkner: Three Decades of Criticism, (USA: international mile State University Press, 1960). If you want to get a full essay, order it on our w ebsite: OrderCustomPaper.com

If you want to get a full essay, visit our page: write my paper

No comments:

Post a Comment