Tag Archives: AA

New Orleans, the Confederacy, and Hating It

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I didn’t make nearly enough of the stirring story of toppling monuments to the Confederacy in New Orleans this month. After reading GDM and AA in particular, we should have a keen sense of the depth of historical resonance as Mayor Landrieu has overseen the removal of monuments to Confederate leaders such as Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. The removals have been accompanied by protests and counter-protests, often with valences of fascism (e.g., burning torches and heavy arms) as well as more reasoned reactions by writers from right to left meditating on what it means to remember and/or memorialize the past.

For us, we should think of certain aspects of Faulkner’s legacy. For example, we might remember how large the War looms in the imagination of Quentin Compson, so much so that he feels emptied out in the present, “his very body an … empty hall echoing with sonorous defeated names.” We might also reflect on two contrary vectors in Faulkner’s work that are highly relevant. On the one hand, we have Faulkner’s strenuous effort, amid the resurgence of nativism and white supremacy, to reveal the absurdity of racial ideologies (especially in LIA and AA via Christmas and Bon), and to attempt, however awkwardly at times, to inhabit black subjectivities and imagine black desires (especially via Lucas and Molly in GDM).

In similar fashion, Landrieu and other white elites, who very much still dominate the city and state governments and control a vast share of capital and influence, nonetheless have made a courageous effort to chip away at the toxic legacy of white supremacy with this act. On the other hand, we should remember that Faulkner shares with his liberal Southern counterparts an antipathy to some aspect of antiracist progressivism of his era and a strong preference for the kind of “going slow” on racial issues that King later mocked as meaning “never.” The very existence of these monuments in 2017 speaks to the equivalence of “later” and “never” in many minds up to this point, and the push to remove them now represents, one hopes, a growing will on the part of a substantial majority of the nation to reckon with this painful past. We need to replace what Landrieu calls “a fictional, sanitized Confederacy” in our official modes of memory with a more complex narrative in which white supremacy and the violent subjugation of indigenous peoples and members of minority groups is central to the formation and maintenance of “The South.” Here’s Landrieu’s speech, which is well worth a read: .

Abrogating Structure

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When Wash Jones comes to Rosa Coldfield with the news that her nephew, Henry Sutpen had killed his sister’s fiance at the gates to Sutpen’s Hundred, Rosa knows that she must set off for Sutpen’s because she promised her deceased sister that, although her niece [Judith]  was years older than her, she would look after Judith. Upon reaching the home, Clytie tries to prevent Rosa from going up the stairs first by calling her by name [different than how she said her name in the past] and then by touching – grabbing- Rosa by her arm. This was monumental.

Clytie having addressed Rosa by her first name was not as shocking as one might think; Clytie called Rosa by her name since their childhood and to most people in Jefferson County, Rosa was still a child. However, Clytie grabbing Rosa’s arm was an act of defiance that their social structure could not abide. In grabbing Rosa’s flesh, Clytie declared herself an equal. In grabbing her arm, Clytie shook the rigid structure of social hierarchy and in flesh touching flesh, affirmed that race indeed, is only a rumor, not a fact. There is no superiority of one over the other, there is only flesh, “…that black arresting and untimorous hand on my white woman’s flesh…there is something in the touch of flesh which abrogates…I crying out to her…because of the shock which was not yet outrage because it would be terror soon…” [AA, 111-112]. When Rosa spoke, her narration declares that she spoke not to Clytie, but to “it,” it being the rigid, racial structure of society which Clytie had defied with that grab.

Rosa’s terror sprang not only from this defiance, which could change Rosa’s way of life forever, but from what she was. Rosa recalled with equal parts horror, disgust, and a sprinkle of awe how Clytie and Judith not only played with the same toys, but on occasion, slept in the same bed [Judith’s] or pallet [Clytie’s] together. Based on Rosa’s fixation with Clytie and Judith’s childhood and their indecorous nocturnal placements, this moment of Black flesh making contact with White flesh as equals will stay with Rosa for all the days of her life. She will carry with her this unease / anxiety that Clytie’s flesh can make contact with Rosa’s flesh again.

 

Uneasy at the Thought of Thinking

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Faulkner fashioned Henry Sutpen as more of a feeling man than thinking man with the words, “Henry, the provincial, the clown almost, given to instinctive and violent action rather than to thinking…” [AA, 76] and I think Henry was subconsciously aware of it. Henry is a strange sort of man; although he feels, he is a something of a brute. Prior to leaving for University of Mississippi, Henry had never seen the world beyond his nose. Once at Mississippi, he meets and becomes completely enraptured by the older, mysterious, and cosmopolitan Charles Bon.

Everything about Charles Bon fascinates Henry Sutpen; his manner of speech and dress, his way with women, and even his mysterious past, which he wants to know. Henry Sutpen had never been as interested or devoted to anything as he was to being Charles Bon’s comrade. This is why he wanted a marital connection between Bon and his sister, Judith; it would permanently unite the two men in an acceptable fashion, as brothers. Henry could never be Charles and if Henry never learned all of Bon’s history, then he would at least help shape and always be a part of Bon’s elegant future. If only Charles had heeded the unconscious decree Henry demanded during that four year engagement probation period, but Charles did not; the contract of his first marriage remained.

According to Faulkner, Henry’s fixation with Bon and  his sister’s virginity was, “the pure and perfect incest: the brother realizing that the sister’s virginity must be destoryed in order to have existed at all, taking that virginity in the person of the brother-in-law, the man whom he would be if he could become, metamorphose into, the lover, the husband…perhaps that is what went on, not in Henry’s mind but in his soul. Because he never thought. He felt, and acted immediately”[AA, 77]. Henry was not a thinking man, he was a feeling man. Around Charles and to an extent, around his sister, Henry felt despair; he could never be with Bon nor he could he become Bon. If Bon lived, then Henry Sutpen would have to spend all his days thinking about this.

I am curious about several things, the first being, how different would life have been for Henry Sutpen if he had not disavowed his inheritance and run off with Charles Bon to help the Southern cause? What would have become of Thomas Sutpen’s legacy and his land? The second source for errant thoughts is, could Henry have reconciled the possibility of his half-brother, who may have had Black ancestry, married to his White sister if no one else would ever know? Would Judith have married him anyway? Why did the possibility of this ancestry all but eradicate Henry’s longing for and despair of Charles Bon?

Unsettling Masks

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Faulkner plays with the concept of hiding – particularly part of one’s face by having something, whether it be Sutpen’s beard or powder on Ellen’s face to mask how that character is feeling.

On the day of Ellen’s wedding to Sutpen, Ellen wore 2 masks. The first when her face was made up with powder, “the aunt had even forced or nagged [not cajoled: that would not have done it] Mr. Coldfield into allowing Ellen to wear powder on her face for the occasion. The powder was to hide the marks of tears. But before the wedding was over the powder was streaked again, caked and channelled” [AA, 37]. The streaked, caked, and channelled face was the mask of the newly minted Mrs. Ellen Sutpen [nee Coldfield].  That second mask would come to represent Ellen’s life as a married woman. All of  Yonknapatawpha County, Ellen’s spinster aunt, Mr. Coldfield, and perhaps even Ellen herself realized that a union between she and Sutpen served only to hide Sutpen behind the cloak of respectability.

When Sutpen first came to Yoknapatawpha County, his “short reddish beard was thought to resemble a disguise” [AA 24], and when he returned to Yoknapatawpha a third time, with all manner of fine goods with him and the townsfolk that wanted to arrest him were unsure what to do with him, it was partly because of Sutpen’s beard that increased their uneasiness. “It might have been a good thing that he had that beard and they could not see his mouth…it was in his face; that was where his [Sutpen’s] power lay…anyone could look at him and say Given the occasion and the need, this man can and will do anything” [AA 34-35]. Sutpen’s eyes were hard and depending on who you were and what Sutpen was up to, he could look at someone with contempt in his eyes and the receiver of such a look may not understand why he is receiving such a look, but Sutpen’s mouth could have betrayed him. His mouth could have counteracted whatever hardness his eyes conveyed, or his mouth could have indicated some sort of welcome or inquiry. The reddish beard was off-putting; it helped strengthen the mystery surrounding Sutpen, because observers could not tell what his mouth, like the rest of Sutpen was thinking.

In chapter 3, Mr. Compson tells Quentin of Ms. Rosa and how she was trained by the same spinster aunt [who had been both mother and father to Ellen and later, Rosa] to view Sutpen with that “blind irrational fury of a shedding snake and who had come to look upon her sister as a woman who had vanished not only out of the family and the house but out of life too, into an edifice like Bluebeard’s and there transmogrified into a mask looking back with passive and hopeless grief upon the irrevocable world…” [AA 47]. This is what became of Ellen’s caked, streaked, and channelled mask of years ago.

Black Blood Annotated Bibliography

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Plenty has been written about Faulkner, race, how his characters are created, so it was not too difficult to find articles, mostly through CUNY+, Zotero [first time user!], Project Muse, Jstor, our Yonknapedia page for the sources used in the blood/miscegenation/racism entries, and google scholar. What was a bit difficult was finding [mostly] articles that were either specific to my topic or considering how its main points fit my central idea. I found it more challenging to find books that I could appropriately use as sources; I thought about considering some that focused on race, but I struggled to find a strong enough connection between my proposal and other Faulkner works such as Soldier’s Pay.  I wonder if I may have been too specific in my search. Overall, the process was not daunting and I’m grateful for the zotero site Prof. Allred built because it lead to some thought-provoking articles.

Works Cited:

  • Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: Vintage, 1936.
    An analysis of Henry’s anxiety with blackness and Sutpen’s seeming lack of anxiety and how both respond to Charles Bon’s lineage. I am fascinated with where and how this knowledge is revealed or hidden, and where it is used as a tool for power or destruction.
  • Entzminger, Betina. “Passing as Miscegenation: Whiteness and Homoeroticism in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!.” Faulkner Journal 22.1/2 (2007): 90.

In depth study of the Southern taboo of mixing blood [hemophobia] as well as the anxiety that it caused in society. This essay considers the parallels of “passing” [for white] with miscegenation and homoeroticism. Although my paper won’t focus on the homoeroticism of AA, it will focus on why Faulkner’s characters strived for clear and strict social and racial boundaries, as well as great anxiety blurring of these boundaries or lack of boundaries created within the characters.

 

  • Ladd, Barbara. “‘The Direction of the Howling’: Nationalism and the Color Line in Absalom, Absalom!” American Literature, vol. 66, no. 3, 1994, pp. 525–551., www.jstor.org/stable/2927603.

Ladd explores the octoroon identity as both a collage of others and an uncertainty of belonging. I want to use this article to explore how the structure of the  Yoknapatawpha cultural identity included race as well as how ‘the other’ [such as Black] was both embedded into it and threatened by it.

 

  • Masami Sugimori.“Racial Mixture, Racial Passing, and White Subjectivity in Absalom, Absalom!”  The Faulkner Journal. Mar. 1, 2008. P 3-22

This essay explores the correlation of Blackness and Whiteness and how they are perceived and why it matters in Yoknapatawpha County. The trouble with these perspectives is the ambiguity of Bon – where he fits in and how his mind is “limited and trapped by a body.”

 

  • Kartiganer, Donald. “The Blackness of Absalom, Absalom!” Faulkner and Mystery. Trefzer, Annette, and Ann J. Abadie, eds. JACKSON: U of Mississippi, 2014. 19-48. Web.

This article focuses on the language the four narrators use to describe, speak about, and grapple with Black. Based on their perspectives, we get subtle to very different responses and they all demonstrate some of that cultural anxiety of blurred boundaries, mixing labels, or a disregard for labels and borders.

  • Puxan-Oliva, Marta. “A Mysterious Heart: ‘Passing’ and the Narrative Enigma in Faulkner’s ‘Light in August’ and ‘Absalom, Absalom!”.” Amerikastudien / American Studies, vol. 58, no. 1, 2013, pp. 51–78. www.jstor.org/stable/43485859.

This article focuses on a “narrative enigma of the characters who are able to pass for White, and because that narrative enigma is not resolved and it remains unclear if the characters passing, need to do so or if it is just paranoia.  Faulkner focuses more so on the fear that white Southerners have towards characters who can pass, than the actual passing.

 

  • Snead, James A. “Light in August and the Rhetorics of Racial Division.” Faulkner and Race: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha (1986): 152-169. Print.

This chapter focuses on the fracturing that a society imposes on itself because of the rigid divisions and racial rhetoric it creates and upholds. As stated, “The futility of applying these strictly binary categories to human affairs is the main lesson in Faulkner’s novels” is demonstrated with characters such as Charles Bon, Joe Christmas, and to an extent, Thomas Sutpen.

 

  • Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. “Writing ‘Race’ and the Difference It Makes.” “Race,” Writing, and Difference. Ed. Gates. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986.1-20. Print.

This essay also focuses on author’s rhetoric on race and how it transforms characters and the world they inhabit. I am not entirely sure if I will use this source, however, I want to give myself a few more days to read it again and make a decision.

Black Blood Rumors

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For my final paper, I would like to explore the concept of speaking calumny into existence through the use of the “one drop” rule regarding Black ancestry.

Speaking aloud the perception that someone could be Black becomes a fact [they must be Black because it was a thought and so they are] which then becomes that character’s doom. In the case of Joe Christmas [LIA] and Charles Bon [AA], their fates are doomed when someone whispers “black blood.” Joe Christmas’s ancestral lineage remained a mystery throughout most of his life and yet, when someone whispered or shouted about Joe’s potential black blood, Joe was a pariah and was either removed or he fled to a new unknown. In AA, Sutpen confronts the arrival of Charles Bon at his Hundred by revealing to his son Henry Bon’s paternal lineage – Sutpen was his father [from a previous marriage which, Sutpen walked out on upon discovering that his wife also had negro blood] and thus, Charles was unfit to be betrothed to Judith -their – sister. Potential incest, though jarring, had a solution – keep the lovers apart. However, when Sutpen later reveals that Bon has black blood, the disgust and betrayal proves too much for Henry, who kills Bon right in front of his sister-bride at the gates to Sutpen’s Hundred.

There is great but damning power in revealing if someone has “black blood,” however, there were times in Joe Christmas’s life in which he took that damning power and made it his whenever he chose to reveal that possibility about his lineage. He would use it as a taunt, such as when he taunted his adopted father with the possibility that he [McEachern] had raised, clothed, and fed a negro. To the people, such as McEachern who were suddenly faced with the calumnity of association to “black blood,” it would mean to be tainted.

 

Sutpen and “innocence”

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I’ve been reading Richard Godden’s amazing meditation on Absalom, Absalom!, race, and labor. Godden discusses what Jason Compson refers to as Sutpen’s main problem: his “innocence.” That is, Compson believes that Sutpen is an arriviste who lacks the comprehensive, sophisticated worldview of the established plantocracy; thus, he sows the seeds of his own defeat. Godden correctly states that Compson is “wrong” to call it innocence and that it’s more accurate to call his innocence a “solution” to the persistent veil of self-deception the entire plantocracy must draw over itself in order to convince itself of its own solidity and mastery, surrounded as they are by the agents and the products of black labor that they, the planters, did not create.

I’m getting ahead of ourselves here, obviously, but I wanted to share an image, shot by one Waldo Jacquith in Virginia in 2006 (CC license here), of a bumper sticker that succinctly captures this “innocence” and testifies to its persistence in the political unconscious of today’s South:

It’s a disgusting representation of a disgusting sentiment, and I remember seeing it on t-shirts, caps, and bumpers growing up. It testifies to precisely the kinds of amnesia and occlusion of the transhistorical flows of bodies, capital, and narratives that Faulkner’s novel is at such pains to recover.

Pop South post on “The Mammy of Natchez”

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In the wake of our reading of LIA and anticipating our first stab at AA, check out this fascinating post from the excellent Pop South blog.  It details “Mammy’s Cupboard,” a cafe located near Natchez, MS (my mom’s hometown: I’ve seen it many times) that’s in the shape of a tray-bearing woman.  Not to steal the post’s thunder, but this object captures a lot of the grotesque aspects of race and gender in the South, especially when considering the history Prof. Cox outlines in the mini-essay.

Faulkner, Kubrick and Nietzsche

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Faulkner, Kubrick and Nietzsche

    At first glance, a comparison between William Faulkner and Stanley Kubrick appears to be a stretch, at best. They are two artists operating in different time periods and in decidedly different mediums. Both produced works that were misunderstood at the time of its premiere, only to be later revered as classics. Both produced works that were labeled as too complicated, or pretentious. Both were, for at least at one point in their careers, considered to be “moralists” – Wyndham Lewis, a prominent painter/author/satirist criticized Faulkner in his book Men Without Art, published in 1934, with a chapter dedicated to Faulkner entitled “The Moralist with a Corn-Cob” (a reference to his  novel Sanctuary which has a female character raped with a corn-cob pipe), and Kubrick was labeled a moralist by numerous film critics after the release of “Eyes Wide Shut” in 1999. These men were not moralists, but could be characterized as humanists, and it can be sen how both were heavily influenced by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. It also can be said (and has been) that the true subject of many of Faulkner’s novels and Kubricks films is not in fact the travails of the characters, but instead the nature of humanity seen through the actions of these characters. While neither can truly be considered moralists, they both do interact with the subject of morality and the way that it intersects with the lives of its characters, as well as on a broader spectrum in terms of human nature. Faulkner and Kubrick, in their respective works Absalom, Absalom!, and “Eyes Wide Shut” come to the conclusion that modern man is unable to progress past the moral state in which he currently exists, as defined by Nietzsche in his collection of essays On the Genealogy of Morality.
    *To re-cap the plot of “Eyes Wide Shut” for those who have not seen it (the plot to Kubrick’s films are often relatively unimportant, especially in this particular one), Dr. Bill (Tom Cruise) finds out his wife (Nicole Kidman) has an affair and ends up walking the streets of Manhattan and having one unintentionally sexually charged encounter (without actually engaging in any form of sex or adultery) after another culminating with his crashing of a large, secret mansion party where a ritualistic orgy with masks is taking place. Dr. Bill is an uninvited guest here and makes his presence as an outsider known, and gets kicked out, but remains unharmed due to the self-sacrifice of a masked woman who is part of the ceremony. He continues on his surreal journey, finds out that the woman who sacrificed died of an overdose later that night, then is given a brief run-down of the plot of the movie by a wealthy client of his named Ziegler, who also reveals he was at the orgy, and that it was thrown by other wealthy elites, then returns home to his wife. The next day he confesses what happened the night before and suggests everything could have been avoided if he had only been more attentive/loving to his wife.
    The comparison between Absalom, Absalom! and “Eyes Wide Shut” starts with the scene at the mansion where Dr. Bill encounters this utterly foreign world where everyone is sexually uninhibited and the rules of normal society do not apply. As Ziegler points out in a crucial scene at the end of the film, the rules are created and dictated by the members of the secretive, wealthy few. The introduction to this world, and its “rules” is the crux of the film. Similarly, the introduction of Henry Sutpen to the underground society in New Orleans where black women are “bred”, essentially, by a group of white men for their own sexual desires, is crucial to his denial of Charles Bon as husband/brother-in-law/vicarious lover, which is where most of the mystery of the novel stems from. It is important, then, to understand where each of the parties involved in these two scenes lie along the lines of morality generated by Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morals.
    In his first essay “Good and Evil, Good and Bad”, Nietzsche outlines the two predominant modes of morality that exist: noble morality and slave morality. The introduction to the text by Keith Andall-Pearson succinctly states that “Western morality has historically been a struggle between elements that derive from a basic form of valuation derived from ‘masters’ and one derived from ‘slaves’.” (Andall-Pearson, xxi) Morality of the ‘master’ or ‘nobles’, as Nietzsche will refer to it, derives from strength and domination. While discussing his research into the etymology of the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’, he notes that “Instead it has been ‘the good’ themselves, meaning the noble, the mighty, the high-placed and the high-minded, who saw and judged themselves and their actions as good, I mean first- rate, in contrast to everything lowly, low-minded, common and plebeian.” (Nietzsche 11) Here is seen that the elite control the definition and align themselves with ‘good’ in contrast to lower classes, who are ‘bad.’ However, Nietzsche then goes on to state that ““The Masters” are deposed; the morality of the common people has triumphed.” (Nietzsche 19) He links this back to the Israelites and the emergence of Christianity (which gave salvation to the poor) as the original triumph of the slave morality over the noble morality, and this victory created the way that good and bad are perceived today, as well as the reason why most people are bound to this “slave morality”.  Nietzsche continues to define the differences between slave and noble morality: “Whereas all noble morality grows out of a triumphant saying ‘yes’ to itself, slave morality says ‘no’ on principle to everything that is ‘outside’, ‘other’, ‘non-self ’: and this ‘no’ is its creative deed.” (Nietzsche 20) It can be seen then, how embracing the uninhibited is indicative of this noble morality and how self-denial can be  aligned with the slave morality.
    The wealthy elite of “Eyes Wide Shut”, who are represented as anonymous but for Ziegler, align themselves with this noble morality. The elite in “Eyes Wide Shut” are allowed to engage themselves in behavior that the common people are prohibited from. Sex is at the forefront, and indulgence is necessary. The lavishness and exuberance of the mansion party/orgy/ceremony is the “triumphant yes” of the noble elite. They are putting their power and wealth and sexual appetite on display. The secretive society Charles Bon subscribes to, and to a degree Jason Compson (for he is the one re-telling Bon’s bringing of Henry to the “brothel) are the ones from Absalom, Absalom! who align themselves with this noble morality. It can also be said that Thomas Sutpen is included here as well. In an essay entitled “Is Bill Supposed to Cheat?”, Alex Jack argues that the opposition to the slave morality wold be “a new self-made morality that values independence, individuality, and the pursuit of one’s own human-emotional sex drive over the collective.” Even though this was written about “Eyes Wide Shut” this perfectly encapsulates the morality of both Charles Bon and Thomas Sutpen. Jack does not mention the “noble morality”, but it applies here directly: Sutpen skirts the conventional rules of society to seize his mansion from the wilderness and take a wife who will secure his place, saying “yes” to himself in his determination to use his indomitable will to get what he wants. He is justified in his own actions because he makes the rules. Charles Bon also displays this “noble morality.” His own sex-drive is at the forefront of his inclusion in this underground society that breeds these women. He fully embraces this morality when describing the society: “We-the thousand, the white men-made them, created and produced them; we even made the laws which declare that one eighth of a specified kind of blood shall outweigh seven eighths of another kind.” (AA 91)  These men who engage this “noble morality” are the creators and authors of this society as well as the rules which define the rest of society. Their actions are “good” in their mind and in this type of morality because they (the noble, the aristocratic) are associated with it.  Charles Bon’s morals are also on display when he comes to realize that Judith is most likely his half-sister and he still wants to marry her. Clearly, self-interest and sexual desire are at the forefront of his thinking. This echoes the sentiment Ziegler puts forth to Dr. Bill at the end of “Eyes Wide Shut”. Those who favor this morality (the wealthy elite, or those who aspire to be the wealthy elite) are the ones who get to define what is good and bad, and the good hinges on themselves and their own sexual appetite. Bon (through Jason Compson) later says that “Because though men, white men, created her, God did not stop it….a principle apt docile and instinct with strange and ancient curious pleasures of the flesh (which is all: there is nothing else)” (AA 92) The prevalence of sex at the forefront of life and the subordinance of God to man further shows how Charles Bon engages this “noble morality” and justifies it. Of course, Faulkner and Kubrick seek to make a statement about “noble morality.” This morality is representative in both works of a progression of humanity – a higher plane of intellectual and spiritual existence. It is the embracing of the individual and the pursuit of self-centered goals. This progression of human nature, however, is not to come now, according to Faulkner and Kubrick. Charles Bon is shot down by Henry, and Sutpen is torn down by Wash Jones. Dr. Bill is unable to participate in the sexual depravity going on at the mansion party and returns to his wife more engaged in the “slave morality” than ever. Man is not able, therefore, to move past the current moral state and progress to a new plane of morality, one that is heavily influenced by the ideals of the previous dominating mode of morality (“noble morality”).
    The “slave morality” is seen to be victorious in both of these works, as it was for Israel when it re-defined valuations and morals for the common people (according to Nietzsche). This victory can also be seen as a failure for man to progress from the “slave morality”. Henry Sutpen, Quentin Compson and Dr. Bill are the embodiment of this failure on behalf of mankind. When Henry is first introduced to this world with different values and emphasis on sexuality/self-interest, he is thrown into a pit of confusion. Faulkner writes, “…so into a place which to his puritan’s provincial mind all of morality was upside down and all of honor perished – a place created for and by voluptuousness, the abashless and unabashed senses…” (AA 91) His vision of morality is literally inverted and he is simply unable to accept it. This society is not the only thing that leads to his murder of Bon, but the moral atmosphere behind it is the driving force. Bon’s morals, including the fact that he is willing to marry his half-sister, are what drives Henry to commit murder and therefore vanquish any hope of succeeding to a different moral plane. It is interesting to note that Henry is able to step out of the “imagined revenge” that Nietzsche talks about when referencing the slave morality and actually commit physical harm to the representative of the noble morality. Faulkner is decisive in his commentary that man cannot progress this way. Quentin Compson is seen in The Sound and The Fury to be unable to grasp this concept of a morality different than the one taught to him in the South. His struggle, however, ends with his suicide. Kubrick similarly denies Dr. Bill the same progression. The whole movie Dr. Bill is denying sexual advances and when he finally appears to give in at the orgy, he stops himself right before he commits the act. He retreats back to his comfortable morality of self-denial for the sake of the greater entity (in this case, his marriage). The individual is not where importance is placed, but rather what must be told “no” and denied what it may want. In this way Jason Compson is part of the slave morality as well. Jason is seduced by the idea of Charles Bon, the free-thinking, sexually progressive badass, but cannot bring himself to commit to the actions himself: he is only able to fantasize about the actions of someone else.
    It is not the inability of man to progress to this existence, because the options for their characters are there- it is instead an unwillingness. Henry and Quentin are unwilling to engage in this individualistic and sexually indulgent moral code and lash out in violence, against another and against himself. Dr. Bill is confronted with this progression and is unwilling to consummate (literally and figuratively) his induction into the lifestyle. In an interview with the New York Times in 1968, after the release of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, Kubrick stated that “…my view is that man will probably remain more or less in the state he is in now…Somebody said man is the missing link between primitive apes and civilized human beings…We are…needing some sort of transfiguration into  a higher form of life. Man is really in a very unstable condition.” This unstable condition is something that Faulkner, Kubrick and Nietzsche have all aspired to seek out in their respective works, and it is clear that Kubrick and Faulkner don’t see it changing anytime soon.