Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 09:49:32 -0400
From: Barron <gebarron-AT-InfoAve.Net>
Subject: Re: PLC: Fairness to Faulkner


On 8/10/00 12:21 AM Howard Hastings wrote:

> But the characters he imagines and the dynamics of their
> inter-relationship don't spin completely free of their author's
> assumptions about race and human nature.

On a subconscious level this may be uniformly true but it doesn't dictate
that in every, or even any, Faulkner character that we can tease out
Faulkner's assumptions. (And just for the record, I'm not claiming anyone
suggesed that we could, I'm just making a statement.) This obviously doesn't
mitigate the character that intentionally does reflect his assumptions.
Which ones do? Which ones don't? Which ones might?

And on the same theme I think it is equally valid to suggest that the
character doesn't spin completely free of the reader's assumptions about
race and human nature either. In some Faulkner criticism I suspect the
critic of assuming the former without acknowledging the preponderance of the
latter.
-- 
Barron





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