It is an interesting and seldom noted fact that the young protagonist—the boy or girl between the ages of ten and twenty-one—appears again and again in the novels and short stories of William Faulkner. Since Faulkner wrote for an adult audience which might well lose interest in a non-adult hero, and since his themes involve violent and even sensational aspects such as suicide, rape, lynching and castration, which are part of an adult world, he must have had some definite purpose in using a young protagonist. A closer look at the works in which young people play major roles will reveal that, with few exceptions, the young protagonist is involved in a conflict with one of society's many unwritten codes of behavior, which is exerting pressure on him to conform to its dictates. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that Faulkner is using the young protagonist for two main purposes: to show, in microcosm, the various relationships between individuals of any age and the social codes, and to remind the reader of the constant opportunity to use free will, to free oneself from destructive or immoral situations and demands, which all individuals possess but which the child particularly utilizes. In showing how the young protagonist resolves his conflict, then, Faulkner seems to be making a very significant statement on both individualism and conformity, man and the social codes. In this thesis I have discussed several of Faulkner's young people in terms of the particular codes which they encounter. These I have called The Familial Code, The Religious Code, The Racial Code and The Chivalric Code. The order in which these codes are presented is determined firstly by the order in which they might be encountered by a child as he grows up. They represent, in other words, a constant movement outward from almost instinctive emotional responses to highly sophisticated and idealistic concepts. At the same time, I move towards codes of major importance in Faulkner's writing—The Racial and Chivalric Codes—placing the most emphasis on them by examining in greater depth those works in which they occur. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The thesis describes the consistent thematic use of and the steady artistic development in the Christian myth as it appears in William Faulkner's novels. Although I concentrate on the use of Biblical allusions, other mythical references are examined when they become a part of the pattern described, as in Soldier's Pay and The Sound and the Fury. A Fable is examined first because its explicit allegorical use of the myth clearly indicates the direction Faulkner takes in the earlier stages of his artistry. It presents the fundamental conflict between "Authority," which would shape man in its own image, and the corporal-Christ's belief in the primacy of the whole being unconstrained by ideology. Such belief is "capable of containing all of time and all of man” in one unutterable vision. In order to emphasize Faulkner's development toward this articulation of the-myth, I analyze his "apprentice works," Soldier's Pay, Mosquitoes, and Sartoris, and then the later novels in which the myth is a primary element, The Sound and the Fury and Light in August. Each of these novels rejections institutions which repress man's self-expression and contains a movement toward the "timeless moment" of a vision of the essential wholeness of life. In Soldier's Pay that moment occurs amidst the sterility and fragmentation that society has instilled into Donald Mahon. At the end of the novel, the Negro church service overwhelms Joe Gilligan and Rector Mahon with its effusion of a perfect conjunction of life's elements, "sweat,...sex and death and damnation," and it enables them to experience their own profound humanity. Mosquitoes juxtaposes the superficiality and impotence aboard the Nausikaa with Fairchild's comprehension of the same primary unity of "the hackneyed accidents which make up this world." Sartoris portrays Bayard's rejection of life because of his inability to fuse his family tra- dition with the meaninglessness of his own war experiences. Then, foreshadowing the rebirth motif in Light in August, Bayard dies on the day his son is born; but his wife rejects the Sartoris tradition by naming the child Benbow Sartoris, thus uniting the placidity of her own life as a Benbow with the energy of the Sartorises. In The Sound and the Fury and Light in August, both poles of the conflict are expressed in terms of the Christian myth. The Compson narrators all have rigid perceptual frameworks which are linked with a view of Christianity as an oppressive ideology. In contrast, Dilsey's experience in the Easter service is an expression of the acceptance of the whole man which allows one to see the integrity of life and is timeless because it subsumes all of time, "de beginnin’ en de endin,'” into an instant of perception. Light in August deals with society's imposition of its definitions on individuals and Joe, like Christ, is martyred because his life is perceived as a threat to its pattern of order. Then, in the conjunction of Joe's death with the birth of Lena's baby, one sees a union of the suffering brought by "evil" and the ecstasy of creation. Both poles, nativity and crucifixion, are part of the Christian myth; both are part of life itself and when conjoined, bring a comprehension of the divinity of life experienced in its wholeness. Thus, in Faulkner's works, the Christian myth becomes, in Mark Schorer's words, "a large controlling image...which gives philosophical meaning to the facts of ordinary life." The thematic consistency with which the myth is used underscores that meaning. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Originally presented as author's thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-225).

Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-62). Also available via the World Wide Web.

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Diss.--Fachbereich Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft--Mainz--Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, 1991.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1966. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 506-529).

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-80).