“Around December 1910, human nature changed. All human relations have changed…and when human relations change, there is at the same time a change in religion, politics and literature”; thus, modernism was born (Woolf cited in Galens 175). Modernism was a movement that sought to give an accurate representation of the world by focusing on human experience through the subconscious. William Faulkner's novel, Absalom, Absalom! is an excellent representation of modernism. Through the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique, Faulkner addresses specific aspects of modernism, including allusions and emphasis on the past. Faulkner is able to construct the story of Thomas Sutpen's influence on Jefferson, Mississippi through this unique narrative structure. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The modernist movement was a reaction to realism. Modernists did not believe that realistic methods of simply writing about the actions of everyday life truly described the real world. Modernists claimed that it was "impossible" to describe real life without focusing on the character's subconscious, because "the narrator's psyche will always be affected by unknown forces and is therefore never capable of capturing reality without any sort of bias or alteration. Rather, people should try to simply record their thoughts, for in this way the reader can understand things about the narrator that the narrator himself does not understand” (Galens 181). Therefore, modernists placed emphasis on how people think and how those thoughts can affect the characters' decisions and the world around them. In order to illustrate how the human mind actually works, modernist writers use a narrative technique known as stream of consciousness. Stream of consciousness attempts to record how scattered and confused the experience of the world is and at the same time how deeper patterns of thought can be discerned by those (such as readers) who are removed from it. That humans are alienated from true knowledge of themselves is the implicit assertion of the stream-of-consciousness form of storytelling. (Galens 183) The writers are able to create this complex structure by including elements that have become signatures of modernist works, including allusions and a heavy reliance on the characters' pasts. These elements allow the author to “remove all certainties and draw attention to the way in which minds create the world” (Galens 191). This depicts the uncertainty people felt coming out of World War I and how many were looking for the stability of the past, a common theme in modern literature. William Faulkner's novel, Absalom, Absalom! engages with these specific aspects of modernism through the narrative voices that tell the story of Thomas Sutpen and his influence on the town of Jefferson, Mississippi. Faulkner's novel has many different narrators, each telling pieces of Thomas Sutpen's story, leaving it up to the reader to piece these pieces together to create and decipher the entire story and its meaning. What distinguishes Absalom, Absalom! is the “multiple chorus of interpenetrating voices, one or the other rising stridently over the others always present” (Rio-Jelliffe 84). There are a total of six narrators in Absalom, Absalom!, including Rosa Coldfield, Quentin and Mr. Compson, Thomas Sutpen himself, Shreve, Quentin's roommate at Harvard, and aomniscient narrator who helps the reader navigate the novel and the many different stories that exist within it. All of these narrators are separated by time and place, but are brought together by the story of Thomas Sutpen's existence in Jefferson. Because of this and its treatment of the narrative structure of Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner is able to use allusions in his writing and portray the characters' strong reliance on the past throughout the novel. The story of Thomas Sutpen ultimately comes from Quentin after he obtains information from Rosa and her father about past events in Sutpen's life. Rosa and Mr. Compson orally tell the story to Quentin, who in turn tells the story to the novel's readers and his roommate, Shreve. Since readers are receiving the story through a third party, they must take into account that much of what Quentin relayed was influenced by his own thoughts and opinions on the subject. The same goes for the version of the story that Rosa and her father tell Quentin. Like Shreve, readers must question these past events and come up with their own theories about what really happened. For example, in chapter seven, Shreve creates several of his own theories: “Wait,” Shreve said. “You mean he got the son he wanted, after all that trouble, and then he turned around and…” “Yes. Sitting in Grandpa's study that afternoon, head thrown back a little, explaining to Grandpa the way he might have explained arithmetic to Henry in fourth grade: "See, everything I wanted, he was a son. Which seems to me, when I look at my contemporary scene, no exorbitant gift of nature or circumstance to require…” “Will you wait? » Shreve said. "...that with his son, he went to great lengths to lie right behind him in the cabin, he should make the grandfather kill him first, then the child too?" "-What?" said Quentin. “He wasn’t a son. It was a girl. “Oh,” Shreve said. (Faulkner 234) These theories usually turn out to be false, but come from the memories and stories of the past that Quentin passes on to him. As readers, we are able to understand where Shreve finds these details to create his own theories because we can see his thought process; we don't have to guess. Faulkner uses the interactions between characters, as well as the interactions that occur within the characters' minds in order to show how these past events affect their present actions and thoughts, thus developing a stream-of-consciousness narrative. allusions become important elements in Faulkner's novel, their meaning developed through narrative structure. According to critic R. Rio-Jelliffe, "Sutpen's story takes on a semblance of 'historicity' of 'reality'" (76). In other words, Faulkner is able to successfully incorporate allusions into his writing, so much so that it seems as if Thomas Sutpen's story is actually true. For example, Sutpen's story takes place in real states (Mississippi and West Virginia), and even though not all of the counties and cities mentioned are real, readers are likely to believe a story set in a familiar state . Additionally, Quentin bases Rosa's need to tell Sutpen's story on the outcome of the Civil War and why the South lost: it is because she wants to be told that he thought the people she will never see and whose names she will never hear and who I have never heard his name nor seen his face, I will read it and finally know why God let us lose the war: it is not that by the blood of our men and the tears of our women that he could hold back this demon and erase hisname and lineage of the earth. (Faulkner 6) Faulkner is able to create the illusion that Sutpen's story is true because he connects it to a real event: the Civil War. Allusions to historical events are not the only allusions Faulkner uses in Absalom, Absalom! Each of the characters systematically alludes to past events in their own lives or in those of others. According to critic Eric Casero, “The narrative language of Absalom, Absalom! depends on a constant reference to the past, as we see Quentin's story referring to that of his father, which refers to Sutpen's story, which refers to Sutpen's real, lived experience, which she -even refers to the experiences and ideologies of the community and history within which he lived his life” (89). Faulkner's narrative technique easily allows for these allusions as Quentin must think through the different stories he hears and piece together the information he gets from Rosa and her father in order to make sense of what happened in the past and how it affects his present and his future. The past doesn't just find its way into Absalom, Absalom! through allusions, both historical and fictional, but also through the memories of the characters. The narrative of the novel and this idea of ​​multiple voices telling a single story draws on the memories of Rosa Coldfield and Mr. Compson as well as her father, and their ability to relay the story as accurately as possible. Yet Sutpen himself must draw on his own childhood memories to formulate his plan for how he will live his adult life. For example, while he and Quentin's grandfather are searching for the architect, Sutpen tells Compson that when he was a child, he never knew a world where people owned their own property. He states that it was not until he was fourteen that he took the time to evaluate the stories he did not listen to as a child:When he was a child, he did not listen to not the vague, murky tales of Tidewater. splendor that penetrated even into his mountains because then he could not understand what people meant and when he became a boy he did not listen to them because there was nothing in sight to compare and evaluate the tales and thus giving life and meaning to the words, and no chance that he ever would (certainly no belief or thought that he ever could), and because he was too busy doing the things that do boys; and when he was young, a curiosity itself unearthed the stories he did not know he had heard and speculated about them, he was interested and would have liked to see the places once, but without envy or regret, because that he just thought that some people were fathered in one place and sometimes in another, some were fathered by the rich (lucky, he might have called it: or maybe he called lucky rich) and others didn't, and that (this is what he told grandfather) the men themselves didn't have much to do. with choice and less regret because (he also told Grandfather) it had never occurred to him that a man should take an accident as blind as that as an authority or mandate to despise others, others. So he had barely heard of such a world until he stumbled into it. (Faulkner 180) It was only when Sutpen "fell" into the world he had now lived in and thought back to his childhood that he remembered that he had actually heard stories about such a world, but that he had driven them from his mind. ; I avoided thinking about it too deeply at the time. This method of revising the past is important to the development of Sutpen's story, because it shows how smallEvents that one may neglect in life can have a huge impact on their future life. This process of revision is not only visible in Sutpen's childhood memories. , but also in the discussions that Shreve and Quentin have about Sutpen's story, as well as when Rosa Coldfield tells the story to Quentin. Shreve and Quentin spend much of the novel analyzing and piecing together the story of Thomas Sutpen and its significance. As mentioned previously, Shreve theorizes the outcomes of each of the events and both speculate on the reasons for Sutpen's actions. It is only through narrative structure that we can see specifically how Quentin arrives at his speculations and what he was thinking before what he says in his discussions with Shreve. It is also through the narrative structure of the novel that we are able to see how Quentin feels about the story Rosa tells him and how he interprets it in his mind before reevaluating what he has been told. For example, early in the novel we see Quentin arguing about whether or not he should tell Rosa's story and how it should be told: ...the two separated Quentins now speak to each other in the long silence of non-persons in a non-language. , like this: It seems that this demon – his name was Sutpen (Colonel Sutpen) – Colonel Sutpen. Who came out of nowhere and without warning onto the land with a band of strange negroes and built a plantation – (torn up a plantation violently, said Miss Rosa Coldfield) – tore up violently. And married his sister Ellen and begat a son and a daughter who (without sweetness begat, says Miss Rosa Coldfield) – without sweetness. Which should have been the jewelry (Only they destroyed it or something. And died) – and died. Without regret, Miss Rosa Coldfield said – (Saved by her) yes, saved by her (And by Quentin Compson) Yes. And by Quentin Compson. (Faulkner 4-5). These "two distinct Quentins" struggle between the amount of detail and whether or not Rosa Coldfield's bias should affect her own interpretation of the story: "These seemingly individual narrations are filtered through Quentin's memory , refracted and reshaped in its way of seeing and saying” (Rio-Jelliffe 82). These arguments that Quentin has within him help shape the way he tells the story to Shreve, and also allow readers to see both the "original" text and Quentin's version, thus allowing readers to decide which one( s) version(s) they want. believe as the correct interpretation of the life of Thomas Sutpen. The strong link that the characters and the novel maintain with the past allows the reader to better interpret the influence that Sutpen had on those close to him and the inhabitants of the city. The reader can infer from Rosa Coldfield's desire for the story to be told and the fervor with which she tells the story to Quentin that Sutpen had, and still has, a wide sphere of influence over the people in her life. Rosa retained a hatred towards Thomas Sutpen for most of her life, even after his death, because he had "created two children not only to destroy each other and his own lineage, but also the mine…” (Faulkner 12). . Sutpen's actions while alive continued to affect Rosa even after his death, as he destroyed not only his own family, but also any future Rosa might have had. We can see here that the chains of events and shifts in consciousness that form the heart of Absalom, Absalom! extend to several historical levels: the social setting of Sutpen's childhood directly determines the state of his consciousness, which forms his conception, which determines his interactions with others in the novel, including Rosa, whose consciousness is made bitter, 2015.