Motionless as an Idol - Columbus State University

Bullock 38layer being crafted by the women's societies in the texts and the second layer beingcrafted by the author as he chooses to present their plights in this detached manner. Thiscreates a complex sense of time, reality, and art in true Modernist fashion. It alsohearkens back to our discussion of ekphrasis, and Susan V. Donaldson elaborates on thispossibility when she says:In the highly engendered inflections of male modernist art [young Faulkner]found the means for reinscribing the boundaries between masculinity andfemininity that appeared so blurred in the modern world, and in Keats, oddlyenough, he also found the means for appropriating art from the domain of 'politepainting by gentlewomen' [Faulkner]. Indeed, Faulkner's description of hisdiscovery of Keats reveals not just his delight in a spiritually attuned precursorbut palpable relief that art - and perhaps china painting in particular - could beretrieved from the encroaching presence of the feminine. (70)It would be irresponsible to assign Faulkner a position removed from personal conflictand insecurity and Ifeel that Donaldson does a good job of summarizing Faulkner'sattraction to ekphrasis and its ramifications for both his position as author and his readersas interpreters.The second possibility is that Faulkner used metaphor so extensively in order todistance himself from both the women he crafted and the societal hand under which theysuffered. Cezanne, already established as one of Faulkner's artistic influences, straddledthe worlds between Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and this is clearly reflectedin the pieces he produced. Similarly, Faulkner, as his parallel, also straddled two worlds -