Critical Essays on William Faulkner: The Compson Family by Arthur F. Kinney (review)

Studies in American Fiction241 In the essay on Pylon, Ruppersburg is so eager to support the idea that Laverne is a sacrificial heroine that he undercuts much of his presentation about the role of narrators and the absence of an authoritative authorial voice. "External narrative," he states, "free of biased character perspectives, portrays Laverne objectively." The "'real' Laverne" is presented to us in chapter one as a traditional woman with "numerous 'feminine' traits: modesty, neatness, cleanliness, for example." Because she has a "conventional desire for hearth and home," eventually she "nobly gives up her son to Roger's parents so that both he and her unborn son can be properly provided for" (p. 70). Those many of us who believe that Laverne gives up her son so she can be free to go off with Jack have been misled by narrators who misunderstand her. Laverne, too, participates in this deception of the unwary reader. Her own judgment of herself "that she was 'born bad and could not help it,'" Professor Ruppersburg cavalierly informs us, shows that Laverne joins the narrators who mislead us because she too "misunderstands herself" (p. 70). A comparable gratuitous intrusion into the narrative process leads to the conclusion that "the attitudes of Requiem for a Nun towards its characters remain uncertain. Thus do its themes." Professor Ruppersburg does not see Nancy as a sympathetic character. He acknowledges that she is presented throughout the novel as something of a moral ideal, and that even the title of the novel "appears to pay tribute to her." But he asks and answers, "Should the reader admire her killing of a helpless child to prevent Temple's adultery with Pete? Of course not. Nancy acts despicably and irresponsibly" (p. 149). Of course we cannot admire the murder of an infant, but such a simplistic view of the moral ambiguity upon which Faulkner develops Nancy into a counterpoint for Temple's moral and philosophical dilemma reduces Requiem for a Nun to loquacious gibberish. I heartily agree that the reader's "active and willing" participation in the narrative process lies at the core of appreciating and understanding Faulkner, but I do not think that participation means usurpation of the process of creation, especially in an otherwise useful study of Faulkner's ingenious manipulation of point of view to convey meaning. The meanings that the author sees as deriving from narrative structure are presented in the final chapter. A foremost theme in the fiction, for example, is the "supremacy of the individual, who stands at the center of each of the novels." By using narrators, Faulkner keeps his reader's attention focused on the individual and reveals him in conflict with "himself, his community and heritage, with evil, nature, and time" (p. 152). This final chapter offers no revelations about Faulkner's themes or the meanings of his novels, but it does serve to illustrate how effectively Faulkner used narrative structure to convey meaning. The College of Staten IslandEdmond L. Volpe Kinney, Arthur F. Critical Essays on William Faulkner: The Compson Family. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1983. 433 pp. Cloth: $33.50. Longer than many of the volumes in the G. K. Hall series, Arthur F. Kinney's collection of criticism on Faulkner's Compsons is—for the most part—interesting and helpful. One might question why sections from Michael Millgate's The Achievement of William Faulkner ; Cleanth Brooks' William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha County; and Andre Bleikasten 's The Most Splendid Failure: Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury are reprinted here. Most people interested in Faulkner have ready access to these texts; certainly Millgate and Brooks are starting points for most students of Faulkner criticism. And Alan Cheuse's 242Reviews "Candace," the novella which assumes to continue the "Caddy" story, has little relevance to Faulkner's Caddy, her prominence in The Sound and the Fury, and, most important, the caring presentation Faulkner himself achieved. Once down to the essential essays in the collection—and there are many—the reader finds a new coherence in Faulkner's creation of the Compson family and its most centra) member, Quentin. Two unpublished essays pay particular attention to Quentin (John W. Hunt, "The Disappearance of Quentin...