Motionless as an Idol - Columbus State University

Bullock 4Iseek to establish my argument as an original contribution to a continuingscholarly conversation about Faulkner and his place within his society and thesignificance of his literary contributions. Many scholars have examined both Faulkner'suse of gender and his interest in art, but my approach combines the two in a way that hasnot previously been explored in Faulkner scholarship. Ialso analyze the effects ofModernism and Southern community, with its emphasis on religion, in Faulkner's work,seeking to understand and communicate a broader picture of his relevance andsignificance.However, any discussion of Faulkner's work without mention of its inherentSouthern context is incomplete. The specific conversation in which this projectparticipates concerns the Southern idealization and restriction of gender. Commenting onFaulkner's Southern heritage Diane Roberts says, "As a southerner, Faulkner inheritedthe images, icons, and demons of his culture. They are part of the matter of the regionwith which he engages, sometimes accepting, sometimes rejecting" (Roberts xi).Faulkner experienced the South's limited molding of masculinity in his own life andunderstood its casting of femininity through both his own perspectives on itand hisrelationships with women, and this project will address whether or not he chose to acceptor reject his society's perspective on women. Joe Williamson reminds us of the severityof gender politics within the South: "The relishing... of the idea of men as chivalrousknights and women as castellated ladies was not merely coincidental, nor was itfrivolous[...], [o]n the contrary it was immanent and deadly serious" (26). Faulkner intuits the"deadly" seriousness to which Williamson refers and places it firmly within each of the