“Bullets in the Dining Room Table”: The (Im)possibility of Mending Wounds in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!

Abstract

Summary This article focuses on the significance of wounding in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. Drawing on the thought of the French phenomenologist, Maurice Merleau Ponty, wounds are shown to be imprinted in the very fabric of Southern life, as they are impregnated in the fleshly tissue that chiasmatically intertwines the perceiver with the perceived world. At the same time, Faulkner's South is deemed to be haunted by the spectres of its violent past, as understood in terms of Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx. The mutual enfolding of these two aspects of the novel produces the network of tensions informing the text. In their extended narrative, Quentin and Shreve seek to interpret Southern experience by recapturing the capacity for transcendent choice and action that might have shaped the seemingly impenetrable misfortunes of the Sutpen family. Quentin, in particular, also attempts to render justice to this dislocated history of suffering. However, the redemptive endeavour fails, and the novel remains shadowed by the tragic losses implicit both in its title and in the proper names of its characters.