A Comparative Analysis of Selected Works by Faulkner, Hewingway and Shanley - Essay Example

? A Comparative Analysis of Selected Works by Faulkner, Hemingway and Shanley. The works I have selected for this paper include two short stories andone play: William Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily’ (1930), Earnest Hemingway’s ‘Soldier’s Home’ (1925) and John Shanley’s Doubt (1964). Throughout the paper I shall attempt a thorough comparative analysis both of and between each of the three selected works. This analysis will encompass areas such as the setting, style and structure as well as a discussion on the relative characters and themes involved before attempting to identify the general tone and symbolism apparent in each piece. First, here follows a very brief summary of each of the works. Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily’ focuses on the life of Emily Grierson, an eccentric spinster. The circumstances are related by an unidentified narrator, detailing her relationships - both individual and collective – whilst consistently alluding to a terrible secret she stubbornly conceals. Hemingway’s ‘Soldier’s Home’ revolves around the problems faced by the main protagonist, Harold Krebs, on his return from WW I and his attempts to reintegrate himself into society. Finally John Shanley’s play, Doubt deals with the fraught relationship between an austere disciplinarian nun, Sister Alonysius and the younger and more easy-going Father Flynn. Both are part of a Catholic school and when Sister Alonysius suspects the priest of ‘interfering’ with one of his students the remainder of the play focuses on the ensuing doubts each of the protagonists endure, hence the play’s title. Before going into detail on the style and structure of the three works let us take a brief look at the settings and then the characters relative to each. The crucial factor with regards to the settings is that each of the authors has chosen to unfold their dramas in settings that are both familiar and well-known to them. While Faulkner’s piece is set in the fictional county of Yoknapata, Mississippi, David Minter states in his biography of the author how the fictional county is based on the real county of Lafayette while the city of Jefferson is based on the real city of Oxford, places where Faulkner spent much of his life (Minter 84). Moreover the setting here is essential to the story as the main protagonist Emily appears to be trapped to an extent in the city’s past “Our whole town went to the funeral…a sort of respectful affection to a fallen monument”(Faulkner para. 1). Hemingway’s story again is set in the South, the area where the author grew up. More crucial here, however, is the surprise most readers will experience when they learn that the ‘soldier’s home’ of the title is not the expected recreational home that war veterans retire to, but rather simply the childhood home of the chief protagonist himself. The story is set only a few years in the past just after the First World War and this is a period that, having such a profound effect on all involved, writer’s such as Hemingway were keen to explore. John Shanley’s play sees him follow the same method as above by setting the drama in the Bronx, the place where the author was raised. More specifically, the play is set in a Catholic school and is based in 1964. Whether this school represents the author’s own I am not sure, but the essential point in setting the stories in places that are well-known to the author is that it allows them to ‘flesh out’ the characters both more authentically and more convincingly. So let us now examine these characters in more detail. The similarity here between the Faulkner story and that of Hemingway is that they both employ the use of a third-person narrative to relate most of the tale. In fact, in a sense (certainly in the case of ‘Rose for Emily’) it can be argued that the narrators are actually the main characters in each piece. In both cases the narrator remains largely unknown although the narrator in Faulkner’s story appears to be collective “So the next day we all said, ‘She will kill herself’, and we said it would be the best thing” (Faulkner ch IV para. 43) in comparison to the more individual voice of Hemingway’s narrator. Furthermore, while Faulkner’s narrator has character (humor and intelligence specifically) Hemingway’s narrator is, on the whole, lifeless – a mere conveyor of facts “It was late summer, he was sleeping late in bed… eating lunch at home…” (Hemingway para. 7). The result here is that the narrator for Hemingway serves to mirror the lifeless and flat character of Krebs himself who, having returned from the war, simply wanted to “Live along without consequences” (Hemingway para. 12). Elsewhere, aside from the main protagonists, the other characters in the two short stories are relatively minor although their actions and viewpoints not only have some impact on events but also as we shall see later serve as a kind of symbolism. For me, perhaps due to its length, the characters in Shanley’s play are significantly more interesting. As noted above, the play revolves around the tensions and rivalry between the two chief protagonists. Neither character is afraid to say exactly what they think, almost demanding to be heard. Nonetheless, perhaps the most effective aspect of Shanley’s way of dealing with his characters here is how they both turn out to be quite different underneath from how they appear on the outside. The effect is that the audience will generally begin with feeling unsympathetic towards the austere, suspicious and largely cynical Sister Aloysius, and conversely sympathetic towards the friendly easy-going Father Flynn. As the drama unfolds, however, the audience’s feelings are literally turned upside-down as Sister Aloysius’s underlying humanity is revealed through her compassion, tolerance and courage, while conversely the priest appears significantly less decent than at the beginning of the play. Let us now turn to the structure and style of each piece. Although the works are written at around the same time the styles of Faulkner and Hemingway here are essentially quite different. Most significantly perhaps is Faulkner’s method of often using many words to create long sentences for example, “Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows – she had evidently shut up the top of the house – like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which”. (Faulkner para. 51). This is in contrast to Hemingway who prefers creating shorter sentences constructed from simple monosyllabic words: “The girls are not beautiful. The Rhine does not show in the picture”. (Hemingway para. 2). The results of this are quite vast. Firstly, while Faulkner tends to create an intricate picture that unfolds in the reader’s imagination, Hemingway is more direct and ‘hard-hitting’. Secondly, while Faulkner’s writing seems packed with emotion, Hemingway seems to be actually writing about emotion. This all has the effect that the deeper meanings or themes of the story are more immediately evident in Faulkner’s case while in Hemingway’s the themes are more hidden beneath the apparently simple style. For some readers perhaps Hemingway’s style will ultimately mean his themes will enter on a deeper level while for others they may go completely unnoticed. Despite these differences both Hemingway and Faulkner were typical of the writers of the Modernist movement. This means they were both willing to experiment with language and style to some extent. Here, Hemingway’s writing is perhaps the more experimental of the two, his sparse sentences such as the one above so different from that of the previous century. Nonetheless, both writers are not afraid of being blatantly honest on their respective subjects and both, especially Hemingway, are good examples of the fairly ‘macho’ style of the Modernist writers. Although both use flashbacks to an extent, in terms of structure ‘A Rose for Emily’ is significantly more complex than ‘Soldier’s Home’. In the former the story is related in a series of random (though obviously connected) flashbacks that are not restricted to any chronological order. This has a largely realistic effect in the sense that in most cases our memories operate in a similarly chaotic manner. Another technique that Faulkner uses is that of ‘foretelling’. This technique is used to create a tension through the expectation of future events. The climax of the story is ‘foretold’ in several places including for example when Emily herself is compared to a “drowned corpse” (Faulkner para. 32) Faulkner thus uses time in two different ways to create both atmosphere and emotion. Due to being written almost a half a century later and of course intended for a different kind of audience (a theatre audience in fact) Shanley’s play is different from the short stories in both style and structure. Nonetheless, while Shanley doesn’t make use of a narrator, much of the play is written in the style of monologues that are presented by Father Flynn. These monologues serve in much the same way as a narrator does in the sense that they reveal certain information to the audience that is nonetheless concealed from the other protagonists. The various styles and structures used by each writer, however different, serve to express certain themes, the details of which I shall turn to next. A common theme that runs through all three works here, although perhaps more so in our two short stories, is the theme of isolation. In ‘Rose for Emily’ her father’s death leaves Emily in a virtually solitary existence, “[She] Fell ill in the house with the dust and the shadows, with only a doddering Negro man to wait on her.” (Faulkner para. 52). The isolation of Harold Krebs, however, is perhaps more acute because he is surrounded by people. Nonetheless, while to begin with the people of the town want Harold to speak of the war, their preconceived ideas force him to lie and to tell them merely what they want to hear. His isolation is all the more worsened by the similarly problematic relationship he has with his mother. Krebs isolation is well expressed when, having been urged by his mother to find work “There can be no idle hands in his Kingdom” he relies flatly, “I’m not in his Kingdom” (Hemingway para. 37). Further along he reinforces his situation by confessing “I don’t love anybody”. (para. 39) Further themes in ‘Rose for Emily’ include those of death and decay. Both the house and the town as well as Emily herself grow old and either lose their looks or their sanity (in Emily’s case both). The story is thus a reminder of how all things pass. While as mentioned above the theme of isolation is evident in Shanley’s Doubt “Now you see the world as through a window. On one side of the glass happy untroubled people: and on the other side: you.” (Act 1 Scene 3 ll. 60-64), the essential theme throughout the play is, as the title suggests, that of doubt and uncertainty. This is made even more telling by the fact that the setting is one where faith is supposed to exist in no uncertain terms. While both Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn stubbornly refuse to see anybody else’s point of view but their own, the doubt they have for each other’s authenticity also at times extends to themselves as when Sister Aloysius cries “I have doubts. I have doubts”. (Act VIII scene III ll. 33). The remaining characters meanwhile (Sister James and Mrs Miller) appear entirely gripped by uncertainty. On the whole it can be said that the themes in Faulkner’s story are both more numerous and more complex (change, progress, the passing of time, mind as dependant, free will etc.) than in Hemingway’s where the theme are more simple, (loss of belief in systems - religion, traditions etc.), although none the less powerful. Again in Shanley’s play, while the theme of doubt is powerfully expressed it remains the one essential theme throughout the piece. Aside from the style of writing another way of expressing the themes is through the use of both symbolism and tone, a discussion of these will conclude this paper. The three works all contain a fair amount of symbolism. The characters in each case can be seen as symbols for larger issues: The characters of Jefferson are symbolic of the whole of the South at the turn of the century, Krebs relationship with his parents represent his hostile view towards post war America while both Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn symbolize the opposing attitudes that were (and still are) prevalent in the Catholic Church. The ‘rose’ of the title in Faulkner’s play could be symbolic of a kind of tribute to Emily herself although the irony is evident here because Emily’s life was not beautiful at all (as a rose should be). Irony is also evident in Hemingway’s title. As noted above a ‘soldier’s home’ is usually somewhere where veterans can retire to a comfortable life where they are respectfully treated. Kreb’s life in his own ‘soldier’s home’, however, is anything but these things. The book that Kreb’s turns to also plays a symbolic role here. Specifically, it symbolizes his inability to leave the war behind and continue his life as it once was. Thus, this symbol represents the lasting and traumatic effect that war can have on those who experienced it. While the tone of ‘Soldier’s Home’ is perhaps largely lifeless and flat, there appear to be several different ways that the tone of ‘A Rose for Emily’ could be described. I would include here: ironic, hopeful and angry as well as confessional and ‘gossipy’. Again the irony of the title is evident as throughout the piece Emily is actually handed thorns rather than roses. However, the fact that Faulkner decides to give her a rose as tribute despite her being a murderer, suggests how forgiveness can perhaps offer us some hope. The first line of chapter four that reads “So the next day we all said, ‘she will kill herself’; and we said it would be the best thing” (Faulkner para. 43) is one example where the reader is given the impression that the narrator is somehow angry. However, lines like these could also be read as somewhat confessional. Finally, while the tone of Shanley’s play is a rather dark and unsettling (as the subject matter undoubtedly demands) the general tone of the piece could be regarded as one of scepticism. This would suggest the author’s wish here was to put forward his belief that a position of ‘blind faith’ is not one that anyone should choose to adopt. Works Cited Minter, David. William Faulkner: The Life and Works, The Johns Hopkins University Press; 2nd edition (August 28, 1997). Print Read More