Faulkner’s and Morrison’s Notions of Parenting

In literature of fictional realism, the bother of story singing a good deal lies in creating a believable atmosphere, in order for the ref to identify with the percentages and surroundings. The theme and plot may wholesome be voguish and inspirational, solely with out(a) plausible characters or a practical setting, the atmosphere of hang belief the author is striving for washbowl be marred by the primary obscurity of the mainstay elements of character increment, functional setting, and writing manner seize to the story itself.If an author is skilled enough to success overflowingy engross these pivotal elements, and have a so chapeau story to boot, then outstanding writing is stimulated. Such is the case with William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. Faulkners novel As I land Dying and Morrisons Pulitzer- and Nobel-prize winning novel Be have it awayd comport the damage that can be caused through each excess of awe or indifferent neglect of the respective p bent. Both w riters maintain appearance on the development of the characters, create an active and believable setting, and employ appropriate writing styles to triple-crownly convey their social commentaries.In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner introduces his characters, the Bundren family, as truthful country folk faced with heavy(p) circumstances. Addie, the get of the family, is on her deathbed, and non very much perennial for the world. The household is in a state of despair, performing their perfunctory duties, but with a enunciate lack of enthusiasm. Anse, worrying himself on the front porch, puts it simply after reporting his son Vardaman to wash his hands exclusively I just argot develop along to get no heart in it, (Faulkner, 38).Neither Anse nor whatso eer other members of the household entrancem to have each clue as to how to react to the forthcoming tragedy, outside of dispensing their feeble grasp of pathos. Even Tull, the Bundrens near neighbor, comments on Anse in pity t he only burden Anse Bundrens ever had is himselfI think to myself he aint that less of a man or he couldnt a bore himself this long. (Faulkner, 73). This simple control by Tull is a testimony to Anses burden as a stimulate and keep up.Anse recognizes his failings as both patrai flex and addicted husband it is that weight that ignites a jerky surge of faithfulness to his wife and urges him upon the journey to respect her last wishes of a burial chamber in Jefferson. Faulkner raise establishes the Bundrens as incapable of grasping correctness as Cash stands outside of his mothers window, in her full view, nailing and sawing together the casket in which she will be laid to rest. The caustic remark is that Addie wants to see it being constructed Addie was Lying there with her head propped up so she could watch Cash building the coffin, (Faulkner, 23).Faulkner is commenting not only on the familys sinister grasp of appropriateness, but on the mothers air division as well, and t he reviewer is left to wonder the reasoning behind Addies decision to watch her son build her coffin. In this light, Addie can seem insensate towards her children, in that she is looming over Cashs shoulder as he goes about the grim task of constructing his dying mothers coffin. In actuality, Addie holds her son in reverence and is transmitting that c are victimization the only method she was taught, by merely paying attention to him. heftying at the characters individually in order to circumscribe a bonnie upbringing, Faulkners finagleful construction of the characters implies the damage the parents have trim downed by their relation indifference. Vardaman remains in a state of reluctance and confusion, simply because no one in the family, least of all the parents, takes the time to fully formulate the circumstances. He cannot grasp deaths final examity and begins to panic when his mother is placed into the coffin post-mortem Are you going to nail it shut, Cash? make out i t? Nail it? (Faulkner, 65).His incredulity incites him to action, and the episode spins into Vardamans notion to drill holes into the coffin so that she faculty breathe. Unfortunately, Vardaman misjudges the bodys position and When they taken the lid off they found that two of the drill-holes had bored on into her face, (73). The whole of the mount focuses on the fact that Vardaman was acting out of concern and love for his mother, but with disastrous results. This is a vehicle Faulkner employs throughout the novel, that bad approximations are often accompanied by good intentions, which re-emphasizes the tacit mis visiting of a sound family dynamical. on that transmit is an abject, obscure loyalty, but the family, including Addie, has had an impossible time of setting that devotion in concrete terms. But it is Faulkners use of language to skilfully transition into Addies sole monologue that explicates his willingness to peg intricate satire into an otherwise straightforwar d novel. Faulkner utilizes the familys inability to communicate as a launching point for Addies monologue, which centers on the idea that language are often lacking in function. Addie represents Faulkners comm rarityable language skills by evoking great sorrow in a single stroke.While earlier monologues of other characters create a mosaic of separate sadnesses, it is through Addie that the reader is pulled into pointed and exacted depths of humane misery. Moreover, her frank manner of speech readys Faulkners purpose of cold accuracy as Addie despairs in her position of responsibility she never cute nor feel she deserves I knew that that word love was exchangeable the others just a regularise to fill a lack that when the right time came, you wouldnt read a word for that whatsoevermore than for pride or fear, (Faulkner, 172).Devin Mckernan, in his article Conflict of the Feminine in As I Lay Dying, comments on this move by Faulkner That this would be Faulkners take on langua ge is obviously ironic, as he depends on his spoken communication to not only live but perpetuate his own concepts and beliefs, (9). Addies narrative of words being insufficient to fill a particular idle words is Faulkners method of projecting his own frustration at the vice and insubstantiality of words. Addie summarizes the futility of spoken words in situations where speech is neither necessary nor fulfilling of any definitive purpose.So automatically her lack of faith in the chat of words is relayed to her children, whom she neglects to communicate effectively with, and Vardamans vacancy, Jewels bitterness, and Dewey dingles airiness reflect Addies poor maternal instincts. Too, she is objecting her husband Anses reference to love. For Addie, as for Faulkner, the conveyance of deep-felt emotions or thoughts or ideas or beliefs cannot be hammered down in such view terminology words such as love and pride are both ambiguous and subjective, hence meaningless.This outlook prove s Addie a failed mother and a bitter wife, which is transmuted upon the family and reflects in their dim smack of family. Faulkners tact lies in the brevity of Addies monologue to express Addies resentment of words of feeling sin and love and fear are just sounds that populate who have never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they pass on the words, (174).Clearly, the language is disparaging of the abstract character of words, but subtly Faulkner is spurring the reader to think for himself and what those abstract words mean to each individual, or if they should have a meaning attached to them in the first place. There ease remains the implied love that Anse has for his family. After Cash breaks his leg, Anse puzzles up with the idea of setting the leg into cement as a remedy.This episode is the near profound ex commodious of Anses poor fathering yet, and the fact that he does not realize the damage being done until a neighbor points out the worsening injury is further evidence of Faulkner desiring his audience to grasp the absoluteness of parental failing Cashs leg and foot glum black Didnt none of you have more sense than that? Mr. Gillespie said, (Faulkner, 224). here(predicate) is the penultimate example of Anse impacting his children out of ignorance, but not for lack of caring.It mustiness be noted that Faulkner still implies a general air of irritation warmth as Anse just aimed to help Cash, (ibid), but without the common sense to do anything but the first hare-brained idea he could muster. This scene is as well as an example of Faulkners use of a dynamic setting to acquit the theme of the husband finally obtaining devotion enough for his wife, but, alike Addie, viewing the children as burdensome. For Faulkner, Yoknapatawpha county and its rural Mississippi surroundings provide the guide set of runnels and misfortunes the Bundrens must overcome to deliver Addie safely to Jefferson.On the way they encounter a fierce river that drowns their mule team, providing the first example of the harshness of the terrain as a force to be reckoned with I see the mules come rolling up slow up out of the water, their legs spraddled stiff like they had balked upside down, (Faulkner, 154). This episode still outlines a familial love between the characters, because it was Anses bull-headed devotion to Addies dying wish of burial in Jefferson that made the sojourn necessary in the first place, and come what may he would deliver her no matter how rough the channel gets, and in spite of his bitterness towards his family.Faulkner weaves the setting further into his tale by making the novel one of necessary travel. As stated earlier, the first goal of the Bundrens is to deliver Addie to her final resting place in Jefferson. The gathering rain, the swollen, mule-drowning river, and the subject of Cashs broken leg all provide Faulkner with ample opportunity to make the setting as threatening as Anses stubborn devotion.The risks run by the family are outweighed by Anses final attempt to do right by Addie, a fact to which Anse is either oblivious or indifferent. Faulkner succeeds in his goal to incorporate as much of the setting to drive his novel and further express the mishaps of Anses fumbling paternal figure. As I Lay Dying is regarded as a giant of literary fiction, encompassing stout and functional characters, a dynamic and threatening setting, and a style of versification as subtle as it is simple to relay the message of parental ignorance and neglect.And Toni Morrison, in her novel erotic love, is equally successful in her characterizations, her setting, and her expressive language, but to deliver a message of go for from the well-nigh down-trodden, the ex-slaves of post-Civil war society. Morrison rides the road opposite Faulkner, ensuring the proper take of complexity in her characters, taming her setting to nurture as well as inflict tragedy, and designi ng her language on a more intricate level. Morrisons characters are not permitted the lack of intimacy like the Bundren family.Sethe, the matriarchal aboriginal figure of the story, operates on a far deeper and more complex level than the sum total of the Bundrens combined. She is strong-willed yet vulnerable, fierce yet devoted, at clock simple and straightforward in thought, and at other times profound and insightful. In the opening scene, capital of Minnesota D comments to himself on the nature of Sethe the one with iron eyes and vertebral columnbone to match, (Morrison, 9). In Sethe, the reader is habituated a strong character who is also burdened with her charges, capital of Colorado and good.But Sethe differs from Anse in her willingness to accept that burden, accept her children and try to raise them up correctly, to that degree as her yesteryear and her present will allow her. Morrison takes direction to create Sethe as a proper mother figure, weaving into her narrat ive the excruciating story of Sethes spring from Sweet Home, integrating Denvers birth on a grounded rowboat, and illustrating the automatic response of maternal care for lovemaking upon dearests entrance into the novel. These two very human flaws are central for Sethes internal struggles.She holds her head high in pride, as an escaped ex-slave who has ( nearlyly) succeeded in putting her grim outgoing behind her No more running-from nothing. I will never run from other thing on this earth, (Morrison, 15). This early declaration from Sethe provides the context for the reader to understand her position that as a mother escaping from slaverys trick caused her to duck and run, but as a woman having overcome that trial she is in firm refusal to let any further hardships force her to unblock tail and bail.So it is the shame of having to run, as necessary as that escape was, coupled with the pride of having survived the grisly cruelty of slavery that constitutes much of Sethes psy chological makeup. This chivalric, however, will lead Sethe down a road of what can be viewed as either temporary psychosis or the pinnacle of devoted motherhood. In one of the most crucial scenes of the novel, the slavehunters have discovered Sethe and her children conceal out in a shed at the back of 124. Sethe, well aware of the inhumanity of the men surrounding her, slays her child, cutting its throat.When the men enter, they find Sethe holding a blood-soaked child to her chest with one hand and an babe by the heels in the other, (Morrison, 149). The other infant is Denver, whom Stamp Paid survives from the arch of its mothers swing, (ibid). At first glance, this scenario seems strikingly cruel, but Sethes personal history as a slave, and therefore her companionship of its terrors, drives her to believe the unspeakable infanticide in Sethes mind, she had no choice but to save her children from the horrendous fate of slavery by murdering them.This episode portrays the duali ty of Sethes unfortunate bygone as always having an effect on her social welfare and that of her children she is devoted as a mother, but so much so that she assumes her childs immediate death is preferable to the inhumanities of slavery. For Morrison, capital of Minnesota D represents an odd secondary paternal figure, that of the bedraggled former slave mannish willing to sacrifice his own pride and paset at the chance of a content normal life with Sethe.But this life includes Denver, and from the outset capital of Minnesota D is aware of Denvers resentment towards him, not necessarily as a father figure, but as a strange and a threat to the relationship between Denver and Sethe. capital of Minnesota D is Morrisons definintion of an aloof father, aware of his conspicuousness to Denver, and Denver believing that he has no intention of attempting the role of father. Midway through the novel, the reader encounters a crucial moment, as Paul D has been seduced and taken by earnest , but he is willing to tell Sethe the truth.Paul D finally musters the courage to tell her of his infidelity, and Morrison is sure to highlight Sethes courage already ready to accept, eject or excuse an in-need-or-trouble manbecause she didnt believe any of them could note up, (Morrison, 128). In this statement, Morrison portrays Sethe as she has been from the outset of the story, iron-willed and accustomed well enough to discomposure than to let some wild man from her distant past get around her by shucking off and discarding her.This outlook is due to Morrisons extensive development of her character, making Sethe that much more plausible, in the sense that her disturbing past bears down so heavily on her present decision. The established mental capacity of overcoming any difficulty sets her jaw before she even knows what the issue is that Paul D is referring to. Too, there is an expectant despair in the statement, since Sethes past is so loaded with tragedy that she is oppo sed to believe anything else is possible.This theme, the inability to entirely conquer ones own past demons, will further define Morrisons complexity in regard to Sethe and Paul Ds incompatibility as a functional parental pair. Sethe and Paul D are strong central characters but are reluctant to revisit the mutual history that has so bound them, even in the light of a functional and content relationship. As stated by Arlene R. Keizer, the knowledge from Sethes and Paul Ds slavery history that might sustain them spiritually is consigned to the same forbidden area as the knowledge that might destroy them, (Keizer, 2).Keizer touches on two main points that prove Sethe and Paul D inaccessible as parental figures one, their shared history is excessively violent to revisit, hence any former knowledge of upbringing is zippo and void and two, this forbidden area constitutes a large portion of their personalities, so any parenting they might attempt would only be a fond(p) reflection of t he whole person. Morrison ensures that the past setting of her characters binds them as strong as the present setting. The span of years passed in degradation and submission still wound and hinder both Sethes and Paul Ds further attempts to encompass a functional family life.Here a key difference arises between Morrison and Faulkner. Faulkners setting is present-focused, concentrating on the immediate actions and analogue motion of the story to carry his failed parent theme. His characters cant see but the road ahead of them, and plod along with a dim view of what is and what still might be, with little to no reference to any previous tragedy. The Bundrens past is reflected upon briefly, but merely in passing and without the gloom and great triumph intermingled with tragedy that Morrison employs.Morrison establishes the past as vital to the characters development or retardation, where the strengths and weaknesses are exposed fully in their profound self-reflections, and their past will ultimately haunt them, especially Sethe and Paul D disqualifying their abilities as parental figures. Often enough, the characters have found methods and means to rede the past from surfacing too much, as when Sethe rubs Paul Ds knee, likening the soothing repetitive action to kneading flour into dough Working, pop offing dough. Nothing better than that to start the days serious work of beating back the past, (Morrison, 73).Here, the reader is drawn back to the fact that a collective past such as Sethes and Paul Ds must be confronted daily and fiercely, lest the despair it might address ruin their lives and all that they have worked for. But it is the physical manifestation of Beloved and her move into 124 that wreaks the most havoc, and attempts to crush the semblance of a family Sethe and Paul D were attempting to find. Beloveds entrance into the novel signifies dual emotions for Sethe, particularly since the longer Beloved lingers, the more willing Sethe is to please an d obey her.Beloved correct Sethe in a way that neither Denver nor Paul D could. Sethe becomes doting, gradually sacrificing herself as Beloved grows fatter while Sethe pleaded for forgiveness, counting, listing once more and again her reasons, (Morrison, 242). Convinced that Beloved is actually the spirit of her murdered daughter, Sethe is driven to wildness by outpouring the devotion she robbed herself of with Beloveds murder. it is unclear whether or not Beloved is truly the spirit of the child she has slain, but the theatrical performance of Sethes morbid past is definitely represented.As Jean Wyatt comments, Beloved is able to articulate infantile feelings that ordinarily remain unspoken, (Wyatt, 231). Wyatts statement encompasses the fullness of the problem. In the literal sense, the reader is drawn to the fact that adult Beloved can speak fully of the murder and articulate her resentment, her bitterness, and demand reasoning from Sethe, which gradually breaks Sethe down in to madness. Figuratively, Beloveds communication serve as a continous reminder of Sethes most profound and occult mistake of murdering her daughter.Beloved is a cruel and vindictive spirit, prying Sethe from the care of Denver without Sethes full awareness, and capitalizing on Sethes regret to the point of Sethe being driven mad. At this point in the novel, a drastic change occurs in Denver. Sethe now dotes upon Beloved incessantly, to the point that Sethes wellness begins to fail and she is driven further into a harmful obsession for Beloveds well-being. This incites Denver to action, and through her despairing over her mother, Denver dives headlong into maturity, going about town asking for help in the exorcising of Beloveds malignant spirit.The town gathers and amidst Sethes mistaking Mr. Bodwin for Schoolteacher and Sethes subsequent attempt to kill him, Beloved vanishes. This episode is Morrisons most profound irony regarding Sethe as the maternal figure that by neglecting De nver in favor of Beloved, Denver blooms into a fully grown woman, and succeeds in saving her mother from the terrible spirit of Beloved. The metaphor of the past as a force that requires beating back is crucial also to understanding Morrisons method of incorporating figurative speech into her novel the text is overriding with similes, metaphors, and euphemisms when trouble rode bareback among them.. or when Amy refers to the whip scars on Sethes back as a chokecherry tree (Morrison, 249, 79). These metaphors are Morrisons most powerful vehicle in delivering her message of hope, where trouble becomes a barbarian to be tamed and the cruel scars of Sethes past are likened to the pleasant image of a tree. It is this language that separates Morrison from Faulkner the most, since Faulkner maintains simple language for a simple people, while Morrison enriches her characters with complex metaphors to fully grasp the potency of those insubstantial words that ever fail to convey a comple te meaning.Both Beloved and As I Lay Dying incorporate the three elements of character development, realistic setting, and a sound approach to language use in order to convey their separate messages. Faulkner proves Anses and Addies failed parenting through his naif but plausible country folks, the fierce and dynamic setting they work within, and the unsophisticated language and writing that epitomizes the questionable decisions and motivations of the parents.Morrison achieves a similar end as her parental characters operate on a more complex thought level, with all the restraints and reassurances of the past. Too, her setting revolves around both the present and the past to create an expansive environment to learn and grow from, and her use of the high language of metaphor and her final ironic twist implies a mental and spiritual depth that Faulkners Bundren family never attains.