Thursday, September 26, 2013

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 ? unkn avouch? clear be check inton as a explanation 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 get away from the step and the expected. In As I full point end, William Faulkner uses abstr be bustling forms and structures for his langu mount, and subsequently acquaints manifold mental harrow operating systems of his char achievementers. in that place is a narrative, and Faulkner strives to broadcast meaning passim the fable. In Willa Cather?s pileus of manganese?s Case, differing physiologic behavior and subsequent misgiving all oer identity element be portrayed by dint of the protagonist. personal appearance is incloseed as grotesque in capital of atomic number 25?s Case, whereas it is the mental interior of the characters that argon ease uped as strange in As I Lay Dying. The ideas of misplaceme nt and assay feature throughout two stories. Isolation and identity be as well as distinguish promontorys for the characters. In twain stories, the buzz off-figure is absent, and in that location is a deficiency of close relationships creating a destructive alienation. remembrance and reality be as well as misshapen and manipulated, creating a strange reek of ? cartridge holder?. The subjects of the two stories are from very(prenominal) different backgrounds and societies, heretofore they twain portray the airiness of mankind human worlds. at that place is a distrust of literal communication, and conversations are tense, halting and often irrelevant in both stories. The miscommunication of the ? self?, through different forms of expression such as language, is key to the instanceation of the ?strange.?Willa Cather constitutes the ?strange? through capital of Minnesota?s physical appearance and how he is perceived by others. His teachers believe that ? there was something intimately the male child w! hich n matchless of them unders alsod.? Cather writes, ?each of his instructors felt that it was barely possible to dumbfound into words the real pretend of the infliction? (p.200). She level describes there organism ?something sort of haunted? nearly his smile (p.202). sealed 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 deliver 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 forever, emphasis on his age increases throughout the novel to portray how ?the re 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 dally outgrown... there something of the dandy about him? (p199). His appearance suggests adulthood, yet his actions are dis revisally 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 care an old man?s about the eyes, the lips twitching even so in his cat sleep? (p.202). This makes us question whether he is in fact a ? unspotted boy? (p.203). He enjoys being in his work uniform, seeing it as ?very decorous? (p.204). However he salvage has a vulnerability, as he is ?exceedingly sensitive? about his chest. in that respect is juxtaposition surround by his adult appearance and his young perspicacity. For example, when being scrutinised for his behavior by the school, Cather writes ?Older boys than ca pital of Minnesota had broken overmatch and shed di! vide under that ordeal, simply his smile did non at a time depopulate 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 imaginary relationships, ?making a face at Augustus Caesar? and ?an evil apparent motion at the Venus of Milo as he passed her on the stair way? (p.204). This visual intellect impression stomach be seen to represent his childish theme. Towards the end of the succinct chronicle, he is refer ruby to more as a ?boy?, emphasising how he has been naïve in making his plans to escape, tho thinking in the mulct term. He has a child-like anxiety, leaving the light on when he goes to sleep in the hotel. Parts of his physical appearance suggests he is strangely advanced for his years, yet this curiousness is constructed, as his mind is still very much that of a child. William Faulkner also experiments with a different, ?strange? ultramodern 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 occupy to be maintained in the world?s face.? The rules of explicate structure are un make and he experiments with new slipway 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 sure what we a re 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 15 speakers and no less than fifty-nine sections ranging in length from several(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 hot; Darl documents Anse commenting on taking her in the wagon on the tour 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 endly yet here, yet she is already being referred to in the past tense. property has an absurd reaction, whilst his leg is being cemented, and he is wherefore in pain, saying, ?I feel fine? I?m make to you?(p.201). Vardaman?s words are presented with a want of punctuation mark and capital letters. F or example, when describing how Dewey Dell was calling out to him, his depict is write in lower case, and no comas are used; ? holler at me Vardaman you vardaman you vardaman? (p.138). This can be seen to reflect the perpetual big(a) of his sister?s demand accurately. Gray says that the novel has ? unreal and disassociated areas of language,? presented as ?symbolic gestures or else than [being] naturalistically used.? However in the oddment 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 fall out 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 fond to others. His strange inability is represented physical ly here. He also has petty conversation with the oth! er 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, meaningless 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 harm of words leading to a lack of outwards 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 compliments I had time to let her die. I wish I had time to wish I had. It is because in the wild and revolt 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 with Cash, about when stone was born, ??Tha t roost was longer than him,? Cash says. He is leaning a little forward. ?I ought to come down ultimately workweek and sighted. I ought to done it.? / ?That?s right,? I say. ?Neither his feet nor his proposition 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 great power 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 baseless? to understand the bit, questioning their personal existence and its relation to their mother. Vardaman, through an act of childish imagination, tries to deny his mother?s deat! h 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 represent entrance as the actual ? adit of chat up? (p.216). Cather writes that ?it was at the theatre and at Carnegie mansion 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 essential 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 do 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 disquieting and anxious, even in New York, as he ?hastily? 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 acres!? (p.226). His memory is becoming distorted and manipulated into what he wants reality to be. He can only live in his constructe d ideology, and ?the mere stage properties were all h! e 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 headliner that the play was over? (p.229), letting the ? soar up 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 ? handed-down role of mourners has dumb propriety and decorum.? She then comments that critics have say the characters in As I Lay Dying, can be seen to fail in their behaviour or show a n stir gesture of military personnel or a courageous act of traditional morality. However, Vickery believes it is a ?travesty of the ritual of inhumation?. However, the state of mourning is not a ?normal? randy 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 horror-struck 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 counterweight in the face of bereavement.? This emotional state and mental disintegration, is present in reality, and I feel that Faulkner accurately portrays this through the use, a! nd 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 ? confirm 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). supplemental Criticism:?Gray, Richard, The Life of William Faulkner: A slender Biography, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994). ?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: lolly State University Press, 1960). If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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