A reading of The Wild Palms by William Faulkner
August 12, 2008 News of the background that have triggered a situation which is counting on detail, which provides multiple digressions, going close from multiple viewpoints, using a dissecting microscope to view a trivial detail or, conversely, distances to heights are staggering to provide the complete picture of an event, not always central. Is also lost his passion for landscapes and subplots, all moved by the authority of a pristine style. Or is this appreciation of spatial and temporal jumps, which require the reader to pay particular attention being if you want to understand and reconstruct mentally the linearity of the narrative. The Wild Palms [i] novel published in 1939 is another example of the complicated narrative Faulkner. As the same set, this novel is a kind of aesthetic counterpoint. "[Ii] This counterpoint rhythm gives a narrative that otherwise the structure would not be worthy of the subject being treated For the complex structure, different voices narratives, digreciones, temporary breaks and the two stories running parallel, assemble the imbrincado map multiple characters that define men and women, which is limited and determind by two irreversible events of human existence: birth and death . And if there is an issue which linking the two stories, and two events this hopeless, that theme is loss and finding love. In this way, form and content go together in this novel to try to illustrate the complicated reality of man. [Iii] Two stories, two men, two women and two parallel events always marked by pairs of opposites.
"Two Stories"
The novel contains two parallel stories: that of a doctor who fled New Orleans with a married woman to involuntarily causing death when subjected to an abortion operation, so it is sentenced to fifteen years in prison, and a convict serving a sentence for theft and sent a boat to save a pregnant woman who has clung to a tree to avoid being swept downstream. For hours and days, man against wild impetuosity "Old" family name of the Mississippi River, with the sole purpose of getting rid of that woman who is about to give birth and get back to you proporsionaba security prison.
The first story grouped under the chapter called "The Wild Palms" begins at the instant before the disastrous end. The narrator introduces the reader to the problem of truth, through the constant questions about what Doctor hides to the couple who rented the house next door. This problem will be one of the themes of the novel and the main subject reflection and concern of the character of the Doctor, who has been obsessed with finding "the way of truth." [iv] This character occila all the time between the Doctor (father's commandment and institution) and man, and although not leading contains features that will be spreading through the rest of the male characters. In this chapter the narrator, although the novel is written in third person presents to the rest of the characters from the perspective of the Doctor. In the chapters that follow, for "The Wild Palms," the narrator is positioned in the perspective of the protagonist, Harry. In these chapters empienzan diversified topics as you go the narrative. And while the money and art are important the main theme is love. In this part of the novel the possession or lack of money is the determinant that charts the course of the protagonists. On the other hand, art is presented through paintings and sculptures Rittenmeyer Carlota. In both cases what is important is not the art object itself or the techniques employed, but the circumstances that lead a man to produce art, and what it means to be an "artist." [V] The main theme is love what Harry and Charlotte are looking for and want but once I found seems to be too much for them. Choosing the underground against the marriage, seek to preserve "the true love "but fail because the maelstrom that involves constant change of habitat in search of escape from routine,
leads to its own destruction. Almost like a Greek tragedy, both players end up in a jail and another dead. These two events are in the book atravezados image Recurrences of palm trees ravaged by the wind. And where the black stains everything. The wind and the palm trees leitmotiv function as representing the angst and confusion of the protagonists. In the final chapter of Harry will be haunted by this image that his senses will persist in bringing your mind. [Vi]
The second story chapters grouped under for "Old" are center stage at the Mississippi River. And like the money in "The Wild Palms," the river marks the path of a despotic and tyrannical subjecting "the prisoner" in his view. In this part of the book the narrator, now, take the perspective of "the prisoner" and features the protagonist hardships he suffered when he was ravaged by the waters and carried by the current. Here, the narrator constructs his narrative so that the time of the narrative and narrated time marking the IT infrastructures coexist between water soaking everything and being dried and smoked quietly. In this account also the main theme is love but seen extrecha relation to women. A "the prisoner" is interested and more concerned rid of the woman before she gives birth to seize the opportunity that the river offers to regain their freedom. Here, she is symbolically the possibility of love and paradoxically "the prisoner" only wants to get rid of it. In this sense it is not free, in any way, the last line of the novel. [Vii] In an ironic twist laws and mocking the story ends with "the prisoner" received ten years for attempted escape.
Both stories, narrated in parallel achieve not only narrative rhythm but also get us a more complete vision of love. Thus, as Faulkner reached in The Wild Palms a way to give an account of reality through a peculiar connection between form and content. [Viii]
"Two men"
In both stories the characters are constructed and male made so that they are victims of a marked depersonalization and passivity. Harry and "the prisoner" was detected in only the first to the whims of Charlotte and the second to the random destinations forge the river for him. Harry at least we know his name and who studied medicine under their father's command, like the Doctor. But "the prisoner" is kept hidden and only their name is reported his ingenuity as a reader. "The prisoner" is doubly literary and, if it is to some extent literary triple, because on one hand, like Don Quixote dangerously believes what he reads, and the other, their singular resemblance to Huck Finn and finally because indeed, he is a character in a novel. [ix] Despite this anonymity, paradoxically, "the prisoner" embodies the only character with a sense of ethics and morality, is the only one that comes out unscathed from the novel retains its dignity. Well, even though their only goal is to get rid of the woman and her baby will not abandon them, or leave to care for them until they are safe. The dignity of the prisoner is illustrated in the detail of clothing, another leitmotiv of the novel. Back to jail with the same prison uniform, worn but clean, is what makes the difference from the commissioner who, in a dirty maneuver adds ten years to his sentence.
Harry, data and many more are revealed through the different male characters, because as if it were a male character ezquizofrénico each forms a part of Harry's personality. For example, the Doctor has the profession and the reason comes down to it, the painting takes Rittenmeryer, of Flint suit and hang out with artists, the neighbor in the lake, the way they dress and submitting Buckner his wife to an abortion. In this section novel, clothing is also a leitmotiv that provides the reader with the pattern of changes in personality traits that Harry is gaining throughout the story. For example, if you read carefully the description by the narrator of Harry in the first chapter is exactly the description that the neighbor is in the fourth chapter. This dissemination of the figure of Harry canceling ends, as is everyone and anyone. Clearly this is evident when in the last chapter, the police referred to him always with different names, and correct it instead of merely nodded. Again, details are not just a matter of decoration but they are significant to rebuild la compleja estructura de la realidad humana.
“Dos mujeres”
En esta novela los personajes femeninos estan presentados desde las diferentes voces narrativas, todas masculinas y se pueden clasificar en tres tipos. En un extremo, está la mujer del Doctor, quien es descripta como una mujer “gris”, rígida y fría.[x] Todas la imágenes de ella que aparecen en la novela contienen la palabra “hierro” y son imágenes que trasmiten al lector la sesación de que esta mujer es una especie de estatua viviente.[xi] El que no tenga hijos acentua su carácter de frialdad. Sin embargo, en el capítulo final es quien le ofrece caritativamente un taza Harry coffee, compared to the very perocupado Doctor jail and not deal with dying Charlotte. This character is very akin to the character of the mother in The Sound and the Fury [xii]. If you want to think symbolically is likely that this type of woman represented in the literature Faulkner tradition.
At the opposite end is Charlotte, who is presented in the novel, as the woman who flees her marriage to her lover. Many times the narrator refers she does from the comparison with a prostitute. Recurrences also the image used is that of "women in pants," and no trousers man trousers woman but, as it were [xiii]. Again the leitmotiv of clothing appears. Here, meaning the active site that takes women from the passivity of man. Another feature is its status elsewhere artist encroaching humans. This character also has its twin in The Sound and the Fury as Caddy received similar description. For example, as she abandons her daughter Charlotte. And if you consider the words of Charlotte with respect to its big brother the possibility of incest also determines the character.
Finally, in the middle of these two extremes we have pregnant women who know little apart from his mother's condition. This significant female character remains faithful to "the prisoner." And although this paresca good paradoxically "the offender" no longer wants to flee the situation. Both
Carlota as pregnant women are responsible for unleashing catastrophe seemingly quiet lives of Harry and "punished." They are those who, somehow, give action to those men who had those lives before meeting them opaque . They offer the posibiliadad who know the love, but it carries risks such as not always lead to fruition. [Xiv] Thus, in the novel is constructed in detail to the female characters as they are crucial to the plot.
"Two events"
The two events mark the beginning and end of life in this novel are treated similarly. Both the nativity scene as in the scene after Charlotte's death from abortion, the narrator focuses more on male characters in women who are experiencing the situation at first hand. Harry and "the offender" are overwhelmed by the situation is women who take the initiative and dominate the scene. Two images run through these two scenes, first, the serpents that invade all while the woman is giving birth and, on the other, the blood stains as Carlota all waiting for death. Again appears in these scenes the leiv motiv clothing, never used as Carlota nightgown, [xv] now, and women wearing the amazement of "the offender" is a piece of cloth used to wash newborn. [xvi] These scenes lead both Harry as "the prisoner" stunned to the point that, the first delivered passively to the police and the latter does not express any sign of relief or joy at the birth of the child. At no time is stated clearly that the child is born or has died Carlota if the reader must infer the consequences that these two events mites.
These two moments of the novel marks the point of contact between the two stories and two milestones that articulate the plot. Not only because the issues are related but also as they are armed and built the scenes. From a structural point of view these two scenes are a mirror while reflecting the other.
As a final point by way of conclusion, then, the complicated and complex structure presents The Wild Palms, is determined as the only way to account for an equally complex and complicated reality. For as along the plot was seen, the events marking the camnino of life of human beings are too imbrincados and, if you like absurd as to represent linear and progressive manner. So, is that Faulkner is the structure that fits the theme, ie, find a way to express how the content and vice versa. Vivar Marcela
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[i] William Faulkner, The Wild Palms , Buenos Aires, Altay, 1999.
[ii] "That was a story: the story of Charlotte and Harry Rittenmeyer Wilbourne, who sacrificed everything for love and then lost it. I did not know they were going to be two separate stories, but after starting the book. When I reached the end of what is now the first section of The Wild Palms, suddenly realized missing something, that the story needed to focus, something to pick it up as a counterpoint in music. So I started writing "The Old Man" until "The Wild Palms" regained intensity. Then I interrupted "Old" in what is now the first part and resumed the composition of "The Wild Palms" until she began to fall again. I then give intensity to another part of its antithesis, which is the story of a man who conquered his love and spent the rest of the book running away from him, to the point of return voluntarily to the prison where he would be safe. There are two stories just by chance, such Once out of necessity. The story is that of Charlotte and Wilbourne. "Interview with William Faulkner in Paris Papers No 20 September-October 1956.
[iii] Stonum talking about the concept of captive movement says, "so the concept can contamplar art as a transcendent vision of life, art as a representation of the movement of life, art as a problem of recruitment and Metaform art as to investigate the value of cultural forms. "Gary Lee Stonum, Faulkner's career. A literary history inetrior, Mexico, Noema, 1983.
p. 30 [iv] William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, ed. cit .. P.16
[v] says in the novel: "there seen photographs and reproductions of such things in magazines and had looked WITHOUT ANY curiosity and without faith, as a slob who looks the picture of a dinosaur. But now it's hillbilly was before the monster and Wilbourne looking at the pictures: absorbed. Not representing the procedure or the color, do not say anything. It was like a wonder without enthusiasm or envy at the circumstances that can give a man the media and the leisure to spend his days painting such things and his nights playing piano and giving drink to people who do not know (and, in a case, at least) whose names or bothered to hear. "William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, ed. Cit. pg. 41
[vi] It says in the novel: "I could hear the jingle now invisible palms, the wild popping sound they made." William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, ed. Cit.
pág.277
[vii] says in the novel: "- Women! ..." said the plump convict. "William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, ed. Cit.
pág.321
[viii] Yankas says in his article: "Faulkner has created a novel technique but said a new reality in the drama between man and nature" Lautaro Yankees, "William Faulkner: the cosmos and adventure interior "in Athena, year 40, took cxlix, No. 399, March 1963. Page 66
[ix] Stonum says in his book: "that a writer take that responsabilidadlos values \u200b\u200btreated in his work, implies that he believes the written word has considerable power," Gary Lee Stonum, Faulkner's career. A literary history inetrior, ed. Cit. 156
[x] says in the novel: "She was deformed but not fat (not even as fat as the same doctor), who had begun to turn all gray and about ten years ago, as if the hair and skin had been subtly altered along with the tone of the eyes, the color of their suits at home possibly she chose to match "William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, ed. Cit.
p. 12 [xi] says in the novel: "I turned to run up the stairs, entered the bedroom where his wife sat up in bed on one elbow and watched him deal with his pants, his shadow cast by the lamp on the nightstand, grotesque on wall, monstrous, Tab shade (it) with some of Gorgona, by dint of tormenting slips rigid gray hair, gray on the face on the high-necked gown also looked gray, as if each of its participate clothes iron that hideous color of his relentless and invincible morality "William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, ed. Cit.
p. 17 [xii] William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, Buenos Aires, Mirasol, 1961.
[xiii] Dice en la novela: “- la mujer usa pantalones- le dijo- Es decir, no bombachas de señora, sino pantalones, pantalones de hombre. Quiero, decir le quedan chicos justo en los sitios donde a un hombre le gusta verlos chicos, pero no a una mujer, salvo que sea ella misma quien los use.” William Faulkner, Las palmeras salvajes, ed. Cit. pág 10
[xiv] Dice Onis en su artículo: “En la obra de Faulkner la relación entre hombre y mujer es casi siempre tortuosa. La más de las veces es la de la mosca debatiéndose en la tela de la araña, o la lujuria brutal”. Harriet de Onis, “William Faulkner” en La Torre, revista Univarsidad General of Puerto Rico, No. 12, October-December 1955. P. 16.
[xv] says in the novel: "Charlotte had her back, eyes closed, her nightgown (that pledge that he never had, never used) wound to his chest under the arms, the body is scattered, not abandoned, but rather, a bit tense. "William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, ed. Cit.
p. 267 [xvi] It says in the novel: "Once it got heated water from somewhere that he would never know and maybe she was also unaware until the time came, in part perhaps no woman known but that does not bother any women, the square of something between alpillera and silk. "William Faulkner, The Wild Palms, ed. Cit. p. 219
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