William Faulkner의 흑인관 = William Faulkner's views on Negroes

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the racial question in William Faulkner's Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, Go Down, Moses, and Intruder in the Dust.
As a Southern writer, Faulkner dealt with uniquely Southern materials with much emphasis on Black and White relationship. I have carried out this study on the assumption that the racial theme is one of the main themes in his novels. In this study I have investigated the cause and effect of the racial question and Faulkner's attitudes toward the solution to this question..
The racial problem resulting from the peculiar history of the South, slavery, is one of the most complicated and subtlest social problems in America, and quite naturally many of intellectuals are seriously concerned for its ideal solution. By 1950, when the opposition to the civil rights program was threatening to become violent, Faulkner was compelled to express his views on desegregation, equality, and civil rights in serious nonfiction statements. But his nonfiction statements were made under the influence of the surrounding circumstances, some of which were ambivalent or contradictory.
However, in his fictions where he could present his ideal without conflicting with reality, we can find a progression from his early Southern stereotype to personal vision of Negroes. These shifting attitudes were presented in his major Negro characters : Dilsey, Joe Christmas, and Lucas Beauchamp.
Dilsey in The Sound and the Fury emerges from th traditional black image of a loyal old black servant and stands out as an embodiment of love and endurance. Yet, she accepts her subservient position as "nigger" and expresses no criticisms of social inequality or racial discrimination.
Joe Christmas in Light in August is an image of a Negro in wander and resistance. Because of his dubious blood, he fails to identify himself and repudiates the society dichotomized to skin colors, and finally accepts death as the only way to peace. Evidently Faulkner deals with less sympathy mulattoes than pure Negroes, but he also suggests that miscegenation can be ultimate solution the problem of racial antagonism.
Lucas Beauchamp in Intruder in the Dust is a self-proud black man who asserts his individuality and human dignity against white people, and finally makes white people recognize and accept him as an equal man.
Faulkner suggests here that the only and the best way to the ideal black-white relationship is to transcend the racial barrier through pursuing and asserting humanity and dignity as individual human beings.
Finally we should remember that Faulkner, as novelist, intends to portray various universal problems which a man can face through Negroes' concrete alienation and plight in the South America.