The Subversive Voices Reversing an Oedipal Situation in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 국제언어문학회
· 수록지 정보 : 국제언어문학 / 33호 / 257 ~ 285페이지
· 저자명 : 정길화

초록

In “A Rose for Emily,” a sincere reader may grasp the inner truths of Emily with her subversive voices. Emily, with the Southern code of honor embedded in her psyche, may seem to follow the strict cultural values. However, as the story evolves, Emily does not just remain in her hardship but tries desperately to subvert her Oedipal situation. Emily’s struggle after her father’s death is both public and private; her open dating with Homer and, conversely, her secret sepulcher/bridal room, where she shared more than 40 years with her lover’s carcass. I assert that Emily tries to desert the strict Southern codes which forced her to be in an Oedipal situation, and even to subvert ultimately the Southern patriarchal system by killing her lover from the North when he tries to desert her. Their dating and marriage were actually prohibited ones by the Southern codes.
The effect of Emily’s behaviors proves that Emily conveys the subversive authorial voices. Faulkner confronted the conservative Oxford community when he tried to marry to have a family in 1929. And, as Faulkner mentioned practically on some “tool” for his writing, he attached to and adopted, the Freudian ideas and the modernist techniques. As a critic indicated, Faulkner’s biographical background and his traces, left from his diverse experiences, often mix with his fictive works. “Faulkner soon found affinities between his own family history and the structures of psychoanalysis, particularly Freud’s Oedipal conflict.” However, my assertion is that Faulkner, through Emily’s secret revenge and subversive behaviors, tried to overturn the Oedipal situation which was shaped by the patriarchal Southern codes and values in his subversive voices.

참고자료

· 없음