54
PARTISAN REVIEW
doomed though these people may be in a material sense, they refuse
one and all to surrender-and in that refusal lies the source of their
spiritual victory. It is hard to associate Mr. Faulkner with so conven–
tional a theme; and in justice to him it must be added that the action
of the book is not necessarily restricted to it, but frequently (as is the
case with the action in so many of Mr. 'Faulkner's books) spills over
into implications of something else never so clearly defined. It is pos–
sible to arrive at a wholly different and rather more interesting con–
clusion: that this is the study of a people fighting, literally, for their
honor-and becoming, in the process, uprooted, demoralized, ultimately
dishonored--plundered by the enemy not only of their material re–
sources but of those moral and social values by which, in less disturbing
times, they were able to live. In order to preserve the ideal of the
South- first as an independent nation and later as an economically
self-sustaining community-it is necessary to sacrifice every ideal ordi–
narily associated with Southern civilization. The tragedy of this situa–
tion lies, of course, in , its necessity: the grandmother, for example,
faced with the destruction of her home, and dedicated to the common
purpose of showing fight to the invader, has no choice but to lie, cheat,
engage in illicit barter and otherwise violate all the traditions of her
caste. (It is true that Bayard, at the end of the book, stands unarmed
before his father's murdered and allows the latter to fire at him-but
this
beau geste
in itself indicates .that the War and its subsequent period
of economic instability are over, and that the South is gradually restor–
ing to itself all its bygone traditions of impractical idealism and
noblesse
oblige).
This is surely a powerful theme; but one can never be certain
that it is quite what Mr. Faulkner intended, for it is only sparsely'
developed in the action; and in the attitude of the characters toward
their destiny it scarcely figures at all. Involved though these people may
be in an heroic situation, they exhibit so little understanding of it that
they cannot be described as heroes--except in a purely romantic sense.
Drusilla Hawk and the grandmother are indeed romantic heroines,
in
all that the term implies; there is a good deal of the Faulkner violence
about them: toned down, however, they-and their exploits as well–
might easily fit'into any popular novel about the civil War. And they
are balanced by such shadowy figures as John and Bayard Sartoris (the
latter is, incidentally, the hero and the narrator of the story). Only the
;Negro slaves are endowed with any kind of reality-but it is at best
a class-reality; and they, again, represent those passive, uncomplicated
and more or less symbolic types with whom Mr. Faulkner's talents seem
especially fitted to deal.
And the scene in which some of these slaves are assembled
en masse
is surely the most effective in the book, as it is one of the finest that
Mr. Faulkner has ever written. The band of homeless Negroes, wander–
ing :hrough the countryside, is halted before a bridge by a detachment
of Yankee cavalry; they push on, the cavalry fighting against them'
th,e bridge explodes, and in another instant the whole mob is
flun~
