Abstract
The aim of this essay is twofold. The first part of the essay discusses the Bakhtinian concept of the grotesque body and its possible connections to the expression of senses in the American South. The second part of the essay shows how the concepts of grotesque and senses have become the literature-generating principles in the American South. Their analysis in the essay relies upon the characters of Caddy and Quentin Compson, Eula Varner Snopes and Linda Snopes Kohl, and nameless mulattas in Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929), the Snopes trilogy (1940-1959), and Go Down, Moses (1942).
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Notes
Subsequent references for the American South will be given as the South in the text.
Inspired by Thomas Nelson (1897) Social Life in Old Virginia Before the War, this description tries to capture a bit of Old South’s allure as it has been presented in popular literature and culture.
Subsequent page references for The Sound and the Fury will be given as SF in parentheses in the text.
In addition, the same scene introduces the notion of the masculine gaze which defines woman as a being-perceived. As a being-percieved, woman is “constantly exposed to the objectification performed by the gaze and the discourse of others” (Bourdieu 2001, p. 63) and is, consequently, placed on a kind of social and cultural pedestal. In the same way Quentin’s gaze, although infantile but nevertheless male, at a wet dress stuck to his sister’s body announces his initiation in the cult of protection of Southern womanhood since he, from that moment to the moment of his death, acts as the “protector” of his sister’s honor and does not consider this spectacle as innocent as it actually is. Quentin’s reaction to Caddy’s “nudity” is reciprocal to his newly acquired status: he hits Caddy because she is wet and undressed and, by acting so, he symbolically imposes the patriarchal control over the female body which tries to escape it.
The lengthy description of this scene can be found on pp. 133–137 of The Sound and the Fury (1990).
Subsequent page references for Snopes—The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion will be given as Snopes in parentheses in the text.
Subsequent page references for Go Down, Moses will be given as GDM in parentheses in the text.
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Oklopčić, B. Sensual women of Yoknapatawpha County: a Bakhtinian approach. Neohelicon 39, 135–147 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-012-0130-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-012-0130-4