Faulkner on the Color Line This page intentionally left blank FAULKNER ON THE COLOR LINE The Later Novels Theresa M. Towner University Press of Mississippi Jackson www.upress.state.ms.us Copyright © 2000 by University Press of Mississippi AH rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Print-on-Demand Edition ©Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Towner, Theresa M. Faulkner on the color line : the later novels / Theresa M. Towner. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57806-249-7 (alk. paper) i. Faulkner, William, 1897-1962—Political and social views. 2. Race relations in literature. 3. Race in literature. 4. Afro-Americans in literature. 5. Literature and society—Southern States—History—2oth century. 6. Literary form. I. Title. PS35H.A86 7978 2000 813'.52—dc2i 99-052926 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available For Steve —where love lives This page intentionally left blank ... it had taken one conjoined breath to shape that sound, the speaker speaking not loud, diffidently, tentatively, as you insert the first light tentative push of wind into the mouthpiece of a strange untried foxhorn: "By God. Jefferson." "Jefferson, Mississippi," a second added. "Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi," a third corrected; who, which one, didn't matter this time either since it was still one conjoined breathing, one compound dream- state, mused and static. . . . "It aint until we finish the goddamned thing," Compson said. ... So they finished it that day, working rapidly now, with speed and lightness too, . . . and Compson said, "I reckon that'll do"—all knowing what he meant: not abandonment: to complete it, of course, but so little remained now that the two slaves could finish it. The four in fact, since, although as soon as it was assumed that the two Grenier Negroes would lend the two local ones a hand, Compson demurred on the grounds that who would dare violate the rigid protocol of bondage by ordering a stable-servant, let alone a house-servant, to do man- ual labor. . . . Act One, "The Courthouse (A Name for the City)" Requiem for a Nun This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Acknowledgments xi Chapter i FLESH AND THE PENCIL Racial Identity and the Search for Form 3 Chapter 2 "How CAN A BLACK MAN ASK?" Orality, Race, and Identity 29 Chapter 3 FINDING SOMEBODY TO TALK To Detection, Confession, and the Color Line 48 Chapter 4 SNOPES*WATCHING AND RACIAL IDEOLOGY 74 Chapter 5 RACE AND THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNER 119 Notes 145 Works Cited 161 Index 173