Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner

Lecture Details

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner (AMST 246)Professor Wai Chee Dimock begins her discussion of The Sound and the Fury by presenting Faulkners main sources for the novel, including Act V, Scene 5 of Macbeth and theories of mental deficiency elaborated by John Locke and Henry Goddard. Her main focus is on the experimental subjectivity of the novels first section which is narrated by Benjy Compson, a mentally retarded 33 year old who is completely innocent of his familys decline and fall in 1920s Jefferson, Mississippi. Professor Dimock traces Benjys preoccupation with his sister Caddy and her sexual innocence through his sense of smell, and the repeated phrase "Caddy smelled like trees." She concludes by observing that Faulkner protects Benjy from the loss of Caddy by allowing him to move seamlessly between the present and the past, shielding him in his own memories. 0000 - Chapter 1. Images of Faulkners Oxford, Mississippi 0239 - Chapter 2. The Genesis of The Sound and the Fury 0920 - Chapter 3. Idiocy as Innocence in Benjys Section1117 - Chapter 4. Faulkner and John Locke 1353 - Chapter 5. Taxonomies of Mental Deficiency1740 - Chapter 6. The Subjectivity of "A Tale Told By An Idiot"2056 - Chapter 7. Freud and the Sense of Smell2327 - Chapter 8. The Sense of Smell as an Index to Sexual Innocence3751 - Chapter 9. The Syntactic Consequences of Losing Caddy4354 - Chapter 10. Sheilding Benjy through NarrativeComplete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website httpoyc.yale.eduThis course was recorded in Fall 2011.