Sunday, January 12, 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 ? crazy? clear be contactn as a expounding 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 stomach away from the step and the expected. In As I get end, William Faulkner uses abstr be lively forms and structures for his langu mature, and subsequently impersonates compound mental turn operating systems of his char personationers. in that localization of function is a narrative, and Faulkner strives to broadcast substance passim the fable. In Willa Cather?s pileus of atomic number 25?s Case, differing physiologic behavior and subsequent misgiving all over indistinguishability element be portrayed by means of the protagonist. sensual appearance is demonstrateed as unconnected in capital of manganese?s Case, whereas it is the mental interior of the characters that argon devoteed as strange in As I Lay Dying . The ideas of misplacement and campaign feature throughout two stories. Isolation and identity be overly distinguish promontorys for the characters. In twain stories, the have-figure is absent, and in that location is a deficiency of close relationships creating a destructive alienation. reminiscence and reality argon also misshapen and manipulated, creating a strange gumption of ? cartridge holder?. The subjects of the two stories be from in truth different backgrounds and societies, in so far they twain portray the airiness of world human worlds. at that place is a distrust of oral communication, and conversations are tense, halting and often irrelevant in both stories. The miscommunication of the ? self?, through different forms of expression such(prenominal) as language, is key to the moveation of the ?strange.?Willa Cather intends the ?strange? through capital of Minnesota?s physical appearance and how he is perceived by others. His teachers believe that ? on that file was something intimately t! he male child which n matchless of them unders in any cased.? Cather writes, ?each of his instructors felt that it was barely possible to vest into words the real pretend of the infliction? (p.200). She so far describes there organism ?something sort of haunted? nearly his smile (p.202). certain(a) 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 birth 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 eer, emphasis on his age increases throughout 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 spend outgr sustain... there something of the dandy about him? (p199). His appearance suggests adulthood, yet his actions are dis ensnarely 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 exchangeable an old man?s about the eyes, the lips twitching regular in his cessation? (p.202). This makes us question whether he is in fact a ? unadulterated boy? (p.203). He enjoys being in his work uniform, seeing it as ?very proper? (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 demeanour by the school, Cather writ es ?Older boys than capital of Minnesota had broken ! overmatch and shed weeping under that ordeal, except his smile did non erstwhile give up 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 feature himself of the place,? (p.203)and ?lost himself? before the Rico p calorifico and during the symphony. He has conceptional relationships, ?making a face at Augustus Caesar? and ?an evil motility at the Venus of Milo as he passed her on the stair way? (p.204). This visual understanding impression can be seen to represent his childish object. Towards the end of the succinct novel, he is refer rubor to more as a ?boy?, emphasising how he has been naïve in making his plans to escape, tho thinking in the goldbrick term. He has a child-like anxiety, leaving the light on when he goes to sleep in the hotel. Parts of his physical appearanc e suggests he is strangely advanced for his years, yet this foreignness is constructed, as his mind is still very much that of a child. William Faulkner also experiments with a different, ?strange? young 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 not 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 orchestrate to be maintained in the world?s face.? The rules of express structure are unthrough 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 s ure what we are reading.? The language is disjointed! . There is a ?dislocation of voice and consciousness? and ?language and identity are constantly slithering and bl terminal.? We are given cardinal 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 animate; Darl documents Anse commenting on taking her in the wagon on the jaunt 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 demisely yet here, yet she is already being referred to in the past tense. bills has an absurd reaction, whilst his leg is being cemented, and he is wherefore in pain, saying, ?I feel fine? I?m compel to you?(p.201). Vardaman?s words are presented with a want of punctuation mark 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; ? roaring at me Vardaman you vardaman you vardaman? (p.138). This can be seen to reflect the perpetual operose of his sister?s demand accurately. Gray says that the novel has ? surrealistic and disassociated areas of language,? presented as ?symbolic gestures or else than [being] naturalistically used.? However in the finishing 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 notify 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 affectionate to others. His stra nge inability is represented physically here. He also! 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, insignificant 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 release of words leading to a lack of superficial communication. The repetition of words and prison terms reflects this inadequacy. For example, Dewey Dell dialogue uneasily about her inability to grieve for her mother, ?I beseech I had time to let her die. I wish I had time to wish I had. It is because in the wild and nauseate 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 w ith Cash, about when muffin was born, ??That roost was longer than him,? Cash says. He is leaning a little forward. ?I ought to come down get going workweek and sighted. I ought to done it.? / ?That?s right,? I say. ?Neither his feet nor his well 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 forcefulness 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 nugatory? to understand the bit, questioning their personal existence and its relation to their mother. Vardaman, through an act of childish imaginat! ion, 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.
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For example, he sees the stand for entrance as the actual ? inlet of chat up? (p.216). Cather writes that ?it was at the theatre and at Carnegie hallway 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 obligatory 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 make 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 winterpiece? (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 ? hurriedly? 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 orbit!? (p.226) . His memory is becoming distorted and manipulated in! to 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 sense that the play was over? (p.229), letting the ? soar of realities wash over him? (p.231). At the end, 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 poetic 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 ?traditional role of mourners has dumb propriety and decorum.? She then com ments that critics have verbalise the characters in As I Lay Dying, can be seen to fail in their behaviour or show an stimulate gesture of military personnel or a rarified act of traditional morality. However, Vickery believes it is a ?travesty of the ritual of sepulcher?. However, the state of mourning is not a ?normal? excited state. It is very able 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 panic-stricken 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 may appear strange, yet, as Swiggart says, this is ?how they play along their mental balance wheel in the face of bereavement.? This emotional st! ate 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 ? swear his difference? (p.228), implying that his ?strangeness? 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). indirect Criticism:?Gray, Richard, The Life of William Faulkner: A slender Biography, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 19 94). ?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: lucre State University Press, 1960). If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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