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William Faulkner and Mortality; A Fine Dead Sound, by Ahmed Honeini notes- William Faulkner and Mortality; A Fine Dead Sound is the first full-length
study of mortality in William Faulkner’s fiction.
- This book challenges existing scholarship tackling the issue of death in
Faulkner’s work. More specifically, Ahmed Honeini through close-readings of
six key works – The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, A Rose for
Emily, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Go Down, Moses- examines
how Faulkner’s characters confront various experiences of human mortality,
including grief and bereavement.
- Honeini argues that the protagonists of these novels Benjy, Addie, Emily, Joe,
Sutpen and Isaac ultimately “say yes to death”, succumbing to the trauma they
have been subjected to.
- What is innovative about this book is that it makes a clear distinction between
Faulkner’s quest for literary immortality through writing and the desire for
death exhibited by the principal characters in the works analyzed.
- Honeini is in conversation with Jay Watson’s William Faulkner and the Faces
of Modernity tackling the issue of morality, situating himself at the center of
Faulkner studies.
- Faulkner’s preoccupation with mortality can be seen as his attempt to deny his
own death and achieve immorality through the lasting creation of literary art.
Faulkner had a long held obsession with literary immortality.
- Honeini’s stance on the issue of death has led critics, most notably Hamblin to
conclude that key to Faulkner’s fiction can be found in his statement, that
writing is his way of saying “no to death”.
- Consent of mortality textured and informed Faulkner’s work, as he had a
heightened sense of mortality that led him cultivate what Hamblin describes as
fear of death, obliteration, which informs his major works. The denial of death
is one of the central components of his aesthetic. His narratives are obsessed
with death.
- The socio-historical origins of saying ‘no to death’ can be located in the early
20th century as seen through chaos and most of life after World War One and
Faulkner’s timely reflections about death.
- The book adopts as its central line of inquiry the ways in which Faulkner’s
characters respond to and negotiate the traumas which death creates.
- Death is viewed as anathema to ideas of prosperity, longevity and any sense of
personal and emotional stability within one’s life.
- Honeini makes the case that this ambivalence towards death that Faulkner’s
characters exhibit in these works actually drives them towards finally
accepting and saying “yes to death”.
- The overarching argument of this book directly contradicts Robert W.
Hamblin’s view that Faulkner’s characters are individuals who ‘say no to
death’, who choose life even when that choice entails a considerable amount
of anxiety, guilt or pain.
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