Not gone or vanished either: William Faulker\u27s use of memory and imagination

This thesis examines the role that memory and imagination play in three of William Faulkner’s novels: The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom! and The Unvanquished. While most scholars perceive Faulkner’s characters as burdened, debilitated, and destroyed by the past, I argue that Faulkner presents a wide spectrum of engagement with the past which includes the potential for memory to serve as a tool of redemption and power. Henri Bergson’s notion of the fluidity of all time past, present, and future forms the center of Faulkner’s understanding of time, and in this paradigm, Faulkner’s characters are capable of creating and re-creating their pasts through memory and projecting their futures through imagination. In emphasizing Dilsey’s role as a rememberer in The Sound and the Fury, Shreve’s role as an imaginer in Absalom, Absalom!, and Bayard Sartoris’s role as defeater of his cultural and familial past in The Unvanquished, I demonstrate that while Faulkner does present memory and imagination as harmful forces, he also illustrates their potential for preservation and redemption