Hello. My name is John Padgett.
This is a brief video for how students and teachers can ...
use Digital Yoknapatawpha, or DY as we call it,
to better understand the fiction of William Faulkner.
The text I will focus on here is his 1936 novel Absalom,
Absalom!. This video will analyze the ...
novel as an example of the Gothic literary tradition,
but please understand, the techniques and uses of ...
DY I demonstrate here can be used to approach ...
Faulkner's fiction from numerous other critical ...
perspectives as well
Before diving into the novel per se,
it might be helpful to review some key characteristics of ...
Gothic literature. At the top of the list is the ...
presence in Gothic texts of a "haunted"
castle or mansion, or sometimes just a setting of ...
gloom or foreboding. Gothic stories often have a ...
fixation or obsession with the past,
especially of the distant past. Gothic lit often features the ...
supernatural and the presence of ghosts,
monsters, or other beings.
Another frequent attribute in Gothic texts is the ...
doppelgänger, or instances of character ...
"doubling" or alter-egos.
There is often a sense of dread,
horror, or terror in Gothic fiction.
And finally, there is often a feeling of ...
uncertainty or ambivalence between what is "real"
and what is not.
These are just some of the gothic motifs in Absalom,
Absalom!, and DY can be used to ...
highlight or illuminate how these motifs work in the novel.
Take, for instance,
the uncertainty or ambivalence between what is ...
"real" and what is not.
In some ways, this characteristic of gothic ...
can be traced back to what is considered the very first ...
gothic novel in English: The Castle of Otranto,
first published on Christmas in 1764 by British novelist ...
Horace Walpole. In the first edition,
Walpole led his readers to believe that the source of his ...
"story" was a medieval manuscript in ...
Italian by one Onaphrio Muralto.
It was not until the publication of the second ...
edition in 1765 that Walpole came clean and admitted he ...
had written the novel. Incidentally,
a small change in the novel's subtitle - Walpole added the ...
word "gothic" to describe the kind of story ...
about to be told - became the name for the literary genre for ...
future works written in this style and manner.
Readers of Absalom, Absalom!
are not likely to mistake Faulkner's text for a recently ...
discovered manuscript from long ago,
as Walpole's first readers did, but even so,
there are certain aspects in Faulkner's novel that make it ...
seem somehow more real or historical,
less than a mere fictional story.
As an aid to readers confused by the novel's ...
convoluted story of Thomas Sutpen and his progeny,
Faulkner included three supplements to his main text:
a "chronology" of key events in the novel,
a "genealogy" briefly describing the main ...
characters, and most important of all,
a map of Yoknapatawpha County identifying some of ...
the locations of events in the novel.
The map is significant, however,
because it not only depicts events from Absalom;
it also identifies locations of events from his previously ...
published Yoknapatawpha novels and short stories.
To learn more about Faulkner's cartographic skills,
you may want to read an essay in DY on the subject of ...
Faulkner and Maps. It can be found by clicking ...
the top menu item for "Commentaries."
This essay goes into some detail about the Absalom ...
map and another one prepared for the 1946 ...
"Portable Faulkner" published by Viking Press,
and it highlights some of the ways Faulkner's apocryphal ...
county resembles the actual Lafayette County,
Mississippi, where Faulkner lived.
On the main DY page, you can see links along the ...
bottom for each of the novels and short stories set at least ...
in part in Yoknapatawpha County,
arranged chronologically by the order in which they were ...
published. Links on this page can also ...
display these texts alphabetically or separated ...
by genre. Click the first-edition cover of ...
the novel to open the DY page on Absalom, Absalom!
The first thing you will notice as the page loads is a base ...
map of Yoknapatawpha County,
with some natural and human-created structures ...
present along with a number of icons representing the ...
locations of event in the novel.
Controls allow you to turn on which features you want to ...
see, but one important thing to ...
realize is that much of the county has been grayed out:
the only "finished" roads and natural features on ...
the map are in the center of the county,
near the town of Jefferson, and in the northwest corner ...
of the county where Thomas Sutpen's plantation is ...
located. In this regard,
the map indicates at a glance which places in the county ...
are significant.
Inset maps for the region, the nation,
and the world highlight additional locations for events ...
in the novel. Of these,
probably the most important is in the "nation"
map for Harvard University, where Quentin spends the ...
second half of the novel starting in Chapter 6.
Along the bottom of the page can be seen a visual ...
representation of the nine chapters in the novel,
the width of each proportional to the number of pages in ...
each one, and two "player"
timelines which, when played,
will represent visually the geographic location of each ...
event and the approximate time at which it occurred.
The two timelines offer you two ways of watching the ...
novel's events "play": either linearly as the events ...
unfold page by page in the novel,
or chronologically as the events unfold in time.
Hitting the "play" button for either one ...
demonstrates almost immediately just how out of ...
joint time is in this novel. The vertical black bar on the ...
timeline represents the time at which the novel begins,
in September 1909, but as the jumping back and ...
forth on the timeline indicates,
the Sutpen story Quentin is being told in this opening ...
chapter very quickly goes back in time to Sutpen's first ...
arrival in Yoknapatawpha some 70 years earlier.
As events "play" in the timeline,
heat maps appear on the map to offer a visual ...
representation of how the events play out in various ...
places within the county or beyond.
If allowed to play, these timelines can provide a ...
kind of snapshot overview of when and where events in ...
the novel take place, but you can also choose to ...
go through these timelines step by step,
which allows greater precision and detail.
Let's start by clicking the step icon for the chronological ...
timeline. Doing so opens a popup ...
window with the first eight to 10 words of the event,
which you can then open to get more information.
The earliest depicted event in the novel is of ships landing ...
in Jamestown from the Old Bailey sometime between ...
1730 and 1770, well before the next earliest ...
event in 1808 when Sutpen was still a child.
The timelines demonstrate the fluidity of time as well as ...
the preoccupation with the past that is a key gothic ...
attribute of this novel. I would encourage you to ...
play with these timelines and use them with your own ...
reading of the novel to understand how events ...
unfold in the novel. You can,
for instance, click on a particular chapter ...
to focus on just that part of the novel,
or you can manually move the "scrubber"
for either player to see the shifts in time and location in the novel.
Next, let's look at how DY captures ...
information about characters in the novel.
On the control panel, you have the power to ...
choose which characters will be represented on the map,
ranging from just major characters to all characters.
This is what a view of ALL characters looks like.
This is a view of just Major and Secondary characters.
And this is a view of just the characters deemed by the DY ...
editors as "major. By default,
characters show up on the map near the location in ...
which they are first referenced,
even if they happen to originate from or even ...
actually be somewhere else during the event.
You can, however,
remedy some of that confusion by clicking the ...
"home" option;
this will move character icons whose homes are known to ...
those approximate locations. All of the Sutpens,
for instance, are moved to the vicinity of ...
Sutpen's Hundred in the northwest of the county.
Each character icon is visually rendered to reveal at ...
a glance the gender or race of that character,
or if it is plural character group.
The enslaved people on Sutpen's plantation,
for instance, can easily be distinguished ...
from the whites in Sutpen's family,
and even those of mixed race heritage can be discerned by ...
the icons. Since miscegenation and ...
racial lineage are important themes in the novel,
DY allows you to identify these characters quickly.
By clicking on an individual character icon,
you can learn more about that character.
Of most obvious interest is the brief bio for each ...
character, and these can identify ...
information important for a gothic literary analysis of the ...
novel. By clicking on the icon for ...
Thomas Sutpen, for instance,
you can get a precise overview of his life and why ...
he is so important in the novel.
The ending of the Sutpen bio is a clear indication of one ...
reason Absalom, Absalom!
is a gothic novel: "Sutpen's design,
to revenge himself upon the plantation aristocracy by ...
creating an aristocratic dynasty of his own,
fails - tragically, or ironically,
or perhaps even justly. But his legacy remains to ...
haunt the characters who inherit his story."
In addition to the bio, each character box includes ...
other information that may prove helpful from a gothic ...
literary point of view. The events in the novel in ...
which the character appears or is mentioned are listed,
for instance, and there are other data ...
points, including dates of birth and ...
death when known and causes of death,
that could prove useful in an analysis of the novel as a gothic text.
Next, let's turn our attention to ...
locations in the novel. Since one of the hallmarks of ...
gothic literature is a "haunted"
castle or mansion, perhaps the most obvious ...
place to begin is the Sutpen plantation house,
first seen in many editions of the novel in the illustration on ...
the cover or dust jacket. In DY's introduction to the ...
novel, which can be accessed by ...
clicking the title box, you will learn that Faulkner's ...
working title for this novel was the same as his original ...
title for Light in August: "Dark House."
To view all the locations within proximity of Sutpen's ...
mansion in the northwest corner of the map,
you can use the control to zoom in closer.
Each location, as with events and ...
characters, features a description of it ...
along with relevant data points.
The description of the Sutpen plantation house highlights ...
its opulence, but more important in a ...
gothic reading of the novel, perhaps,
is the eventual dissolution and destruction of the house by fire.
In addition to the house itself, the area is riddled with other ...
locations that were either the scene of incredible violence ...
or now hold the consequences of such ...
violence: These include the stable ...
where Thomas Sutpen wrestled with his slaves for ...
an audience, the plantation gate where ...
Henry shot and killed Charles Bon,
and the fishing camp where Wash Jones killed Thomas ...
Sutpen (and later lost his own life after the murder of ...
his grand- and great-grand-daughter).
And of course there is also the Sutpen cemetery,
where so many of the Sutpen family are buried,
including Charles Bon and his son,
Charles Etienne St. Velery Bon.
The gothic significance of the cemetery is made more ...
concrete in the description of the cemetery:
"The epitaphs are notable for what they clarify (including a ...
number of specific dates), what they misrepresent,
and what they leave out about the relationships ...
among the dead who lie there."
The DY page on Absalom, Absalom!
provides a lot of information that could prove helpful to ...
use with the novel for a close analysis or reading of it as a ...
gothic literary text, but I will conclude this ...
overview by demonstrating how you might use several ...
additional DY tools for a deeper dive into this novel:
the Visualizations tab and the Search tab.
First, visualizations.
Clicking this reveals several other ways of visualizing ...
Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha, even some period ...
photographs of the world Faulkner attempted to create,
but I want to focus here on the Character-Character graph.
Start first by narrowing your focus to Absalom,
Absalom! If you click Search without ...
setting any further parameters,
you will see an intricate web of character connections ...
showing characters who shared at least one event ...
with another character.
I am going to contrain these results to make them more ...
manageable by choosing the "rank"
option and opting for just major characters.
The result, as you can see,
shows connections between key members of the Sutpen ...
family, Charles Bon,
and our contemporary characters of Quentin and ...
Shreve. From your reading of the ...
novel, you are probably aware of the ...
various levels of "doubling," especially in the second half ...
of the novel, between Quentin and Shreve ...
and Henry and Bon. By examining the relative ...
weights of the connections between characters,
you can clearly see a strong bond (no pun intended) ...
between Henry and Bon, as well as between Quentin and Shreve.
The final technique I want to demonstrate here is DY's ...
powerful "Search" engine to locate characters,
locations, and events,
from this novel and others, that meet certain criteria.
I am going to choose "Events"
for this demonstration, though this can be used for ...
locations and characters too.
First, you can narrow your results ...
to just Absalom. If you are looking for ...
connections to other Faulkner texts,
of course, you can leave this blank.
Clicking search without setting any other parameters ...
will result in a list of every event in the novel,
ordered linearly by page number.
You can use this list alongside your own copy of ...
the novel to look up commentary for virtually any ...
passage in the novel, though be aware,
DY's data covers just the nine chapters of the novel proper;
it does not include the ancillary map,
genealogy, or chronology at the back of the book.
By adding parameters to the search,
you can limit your results to just events that meet your ...
research or analytical needs. One of the ways I have found ...
most helpful is to use the keywords search to find ...
events that meet certain criteria.
You can see listed the six broad areas in which ...
Faulkner's texts have been keyworded:
Environments, Actions,
Cultural Issues, Themes and Motifs,
Relationships, and Aesthetics.
Each of these has a number of second- and third-level ...
subcategories that you can use to "browse"
Faulkner's fiction for any number of themes,
motifs, or ideas you might have in mind.
You can also use the various text boxes to search for ...
matches. DY's robust search engine ...
will locate events with some variation on whatever you ...
type in, whether in an event ...
summary, character or location names,
or event keywords.
Well, there you have it:
Just a few ways you can use Digital Yoknapatawpha to ...
further explore the fiction of William Faulkner.
All of us on the DY team encourage you to make use ...
of this resource and try things out.
Thank you for watching this video.