Parable thinking in W. Faulner's novel "A fable"

A Fable denies the institution, both in the action that is outside those parts which resemble the Passion directly, and, more importantly, by internal differences between those portions that do parallel the original Gospel stories, owing mainly to its treatment of those portions. In fact, the very parts that seem to offend most of the critics, the character of the Corporal, the “degrading” last supper scene, the barbed wire crown, the ironic resurrection, the final interment in the military monument and certain aspects of “character” of the Corporal, find their ethical and “theological” perspective, not in the codifications of institutionalized Christianity, which in A Fable is equated with “static religion”, but in “dynamic religion” as Bergson describes it. And therefore, A Fable is not a true allegory if one sees the Passion story in the sense that an allegory is supposed to bring us into contact with the ethical and moral teachings of an institution in order to further its teachings. In relation to the Passion one may say that A Fable merely utilizes a profound and meaningful story as background to add force to its own meanings.

3.3 Christian symbolism in A Fable

A Fable has aroused many unfavorable comments and only three searching attempts at an interpretation. None of the commentators saw a totally unified structure and consequently the meaning of the book has not been clarified by them. The title and the decorative symbol of the Cross have led most critics to stray into paths which Faulkner really did not enter. The novel is not a fable in the technical sense of that narrative form; rather it is a story, probably meant by the author to be as meaningful as any of Aesop's writings, but equally probably not to be as simple in outline or depth. One of the chronological frames through which the story progresses is indeed Holy week, but only in a limited degree does the sequence of events relate to the final events in the earthly life of Jesus [21].

A sounder critic, Ursula Brumm, noted that A Fable was constructed around slightly different antitheses. The division between the meek of the earth and the rapacious but creative ones “who participate in the works of civilization” forms the essential conflict in the novel. Miss Brumm cites the long apostrophe to rapacity by the Quartermaster [8] as the focal point of A Fable and maintains that this passage, which is a parody of Paul's message on “charity” in Corinthians 13:8, may be seen as the final indictment of civilization and all its works.

Faulkner, by equating Christianity with Civilization, has written a novel that is absolute heresy in Christian terms. The Corporal is the son of God or the founder of Christianity, but Christ the archetype of man suffering, and of those who expiate the guilt of civilization by renunciation of the power and the privilege.

Another thoughtful early criticism is Philip Blair Rice's review. Rice offers provocative and penetrating insights into the novel which unfortunately lead to the usual cul de sac rather than to a unified vision, because he seeks that vision using the wrong index to meaning. Rice, seeing A Fable as the most monumental task Faulkner had yet assumed, responded to it in like manner. It demands he states “a comparison with such awesomely mentionable names as Melville, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Mann”. A Fable does not live up to expectations for Rice, and fails to even render its explicit message, which to him is that message contained in the Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Rice believes, as do most of the critics cited above, that Faulkner's failure is essentially an intellectual failure. He has failed to offer a coherent theology which to Rice is the implicit message of A Fable. Rice's real problem with A Fable is the apparent ambiguity of the “theological” elements. This basic ambiguity is what engenders his criticism of the novel, and he directs his criticism toward theological rather than artistic considerations. For Rice, Faulkner's religious commitment is vague, not orthodox, most likely “a non super naturalistic rendering of the Christian symbolism” which offers “no theodicy and no other-worldly beatitude”. What shocks Rice is that the words of the Nobel Prize acceptance speech “Man will prevail” are uttered by the Marshall instead of the Corporal. To Rice this assignment is a “breathtaking reversal”, since the Marshall must be a figure of evil (Caesar or Satan) according to the reading Rice imposes on the novel. He notes also that the Corporal's entombment in the monument of the Unknown Soldier, although a sort of victory, is too heavily ironic to constitute a real victory for primitive Christianity, since the monument also glorifies nationalism. These and other inconsistencies lead Rice to the conclusion that three thematic resolutions of the implicit message of A Fable lie open to the reader [40].

3.4 The figure of Christ in the novel

The limited vision of critics appears to parallel those who demanded that the Corporal correspond to certain attributes they held to be necessary in portraying a “Christ-figure”. Their preconceptions were focused on characterization while the above named critics demand certain formal structural characteristics to be present (i.e., a fable should be allegorical and symbolic, a novel should be realistic and naturalistic), yet both groups resemble each other in their propensity to proscribe certain practices rather than analyze what these practices might attempt to accomplish in a given work.

One might well wonder, in the light of the conditions the “crucifixion” imposed upon the Runner, just what attitude he could assume in order to “prevail” in a manner pleasing to Mr. Stavrou, since to do other than what Faulkner has done would obviously be to falsify what the experience of history has taught us (i.e., the mutiny did not end the war - in fact the war itself did not end wars, nor have the ideals of Christianity prevailed or the crucifixion itself, even though much of the world is Christian).

One may make point in reference to the use of the Gospel stories. A Fable does not clearly offer an allegorical presentation of the Passion. Allegory does not generally make specific references to the institution behind the action represented, but allows the parallels to make the connection. Were this simply a modern allegory of the Passion, the obvious parallels of action would certainly have been sufficient to draw the resemblance, but Faulkner goes much beyond this. There are many references to the original Christ throughout the novel. The Runner states at one point, in his usual ironic fashion, that the Corporal's job is more difficult than Christ's was.

“His prototype had only man's natural propensity for evil to con tend with: this one faces all the scarlet and brazen impregnability of general staffs” [34, p. 56].

The old porter in admonishing the Runner to go and see the mysterious 13 men who preach pacifism tells him:

“-Just go and look at him.

-Him? - the Runner said. -So it's just one now?

-Wasn't it just one before? - the old porter said” [14, p.67].

The priest, after having warned the Corporal to “beware whom you mock by reading your own mortal's pride into Him” [14, p.363] reflects before his suicide upon the mercy of Christ.

“He was nailed there and he will forgive me” [14, p.370]. Even during the “last supper” scene one of the Corporal's men refers to Christ, “Christ assoil us” [14, p.337], punning on the word, since the prisoners are talking about their becoming manure to enrich the soil of France.

One can hardly be confused as to the Corporal's role within the frame of an allegory. He clearly is not Christ. Whatever symbolic reflections accrue to him by the actions he imitates is something else again. If the novel is read as an account of the Second Coming, the problem arises of explaining other relationships, such as the connection between the Corporal and the Marshall. One might also easily concede that if A Fable is a novel about the Second Coming of Christ, one hardly needs to employ all of the cumbersome machinery of the combined Gospel stories, plus the whole framework of the war. But in A Fable Faulkner has obviously gone out of his way to evoke similar patterns, even to the extent of wrapping a barbed wire crown of thorns around the Corporal's head and other such “excesses” of similarity.

Another point to consider is why the Second Coming, if it is that, should be destined to end so far below the first, especially after its author had made a speech in Stockholm four years earlier which was practically a testament to man. Certainly one must concede to Faulkner that lie was aware of the differences as well as the resemblances between his novel and the Passion story.

If we consider that the resemblance, even a close and obvious resemblance, between a new work and one which has already become established as a key, or even the core structure of an institution (be it a religious or national or whatever institution) - does not of itself demand that the new work under consideration adhere to the ethical, moral, or metaphysical beliefs of the institution which the original focused upon; our critical perspective need not be hamstrung by these considerations. Allegory, to function as allegory must function on at least three of four possible levels. The story must be a literal story; it must establish parallel relationships between it and the original story upon which it is based (if it is based on a story); it must establish parallel relationships between it and the institution which lies behind the original story; and it must establish a final universal or metaphysical level on which it may be read [11].

A Fable denies the institution, both in the action that is outside those parts which resemble the Passion directly, and, more importantly, by internal differences between those portions that do parallel the original Gospel stories, owing mainly to its treatment of those portions. In fact, the very parts that seem to offend most of the critics, the character of the Corporal, the “degrading” last supper scene, the barbed wire crown, the ironic resurrection, the final interment in the military monument and certain aspects of “character” of the Corporal, find their ethical and “theological” perspective, not in the codifications of institutionalized Christianity, which in A Fable is equated with “static religion”, but in “dynamic religion” as Bergson describes it. And therefore, A Fable is not a true allegory if one sees the Passion story in the sense that an allegory is supposed to bring us into contact with the ethical and moral teachings of an institution in order to further its teachings. In relation to the Passion one may say that A Fable merely utilizes a profound and meaningful story as background to add force to its own meanings.

The parallels between certain obvious incidents in A Fable and the Gospels, insofar as the purely imitative qualities go, may be read simply as part of the complex symbolic extension of the static religion of the closed society, much the same as the war is the symbolic extension of the military, and the city of civilized man. The allegorical trappings are simply part of the agglomeration of myth surrounding the institution, and the resemblance of the Corporal to the historical Christ is simply another manifestation of the mythmaking function of the intelligence. This action is obviously “earthed”. But the reduction of much of the agony of Christ to the mute, impassivity of the Corporal, the grotesqueries of the barbed wire crown, the irreverence and scatology in the last s upper scene, the ironic resurrection, point to something beyond a mere retelling of the original story [11, p.67-83].

This impetus is thus carried forward through the medium of certain men, each of whom thereby constitutes a species composed of a single individual. If the individual is fully conscious of this, if the fringe of intuition surrounding his intelligence is capable of expanding sufficiently to envelope its object, that is the mystic life. The dynamic religion which thus springs into being is the very opposite of the static religion born of the myth-making function, in the same way the open society is the opposite of the closed society.

The Corporal can't be supposed to be both a soldier and a pacifist. It's impossible to believe in the palpable reality of the Corporal when everyone is conscious that he is Christ. The Corporal's “palpable reality” is a strange one - he is essentially a mystic. Both Fiedler and Malin, like the other dissenting critics, offer a view which is tempered by their preconceptions of what a “Christ figure” ought to be, and they take umbrage at obvious deviations from the “norm” of presentations. A Christ figure may embody paradoxes, but the contradictions the Corporal presents are seemingly irresolvable ones. Humble, pleasant, meek, and mild, or even robust, he may be, but surly he must not be. The Corporal is obviously more in accord with the last two attributes than he is in accord with the first group - at least this is the way it appears on the surface, but Faulkner has used a rather singular method of presenting the Corporal [11, p.69-80].

The priest, after having warned the Corporal to “Beware whom you mock by reading your own mortal's pride into Him” [14, p.363] reflects before his suicide upon the mercy of Christ.

“He was nailed there and he will forgive me” [14, p.370].

Even during the “last supper” scene one of the Corporal's men refers to Christ, “Christ assoil us” [14, p.337], punning on the word, since the prisoners are talking about their becoming manure to enrich the soil of France.

One can hardly be confused as to the Corporal's role within the frame of an allegory. He clearly is not Christ. Whatever symbolic reflections accrue to him by the actions he imitates is something else again. If the novel is read as an account of the Second Coming, the problem arises of explaining other relationships, such as the connection between the Corporal and the Marshall. One might also easily concede that if A Fable is a novel about the Second Coming of Christ, one hardly needs to employ all of the cumbersome machinery of the combined Gospel stories, plus the whole framework of the war. Novelists who depict modern parallels to the Passion generally avoid following the lockstep pattern of imitation, and Faulkner himself is no exception to this rule in his previous novels. Carvel Collins points with pride to his being the first to discover the use of elements of the Passion in The Sound and the Fury.

A more reasonable explanation of the use of the Gospel stories is that Faulkner used them in relation to certain artistic and philosophical considerations which he must have been well aware of, and that he felt free to use them strictly in accordance with his art rather than subjecting them to strict religious dicta. That the Passion is the most profound story in our immediate culture few would deny; but that all treatments of any part of it must reflect, or at least simply, in that part the whole range of theological or ethical considerations surrounding the Passion is not necessarily valid literary criticism. This idea is what most of those who object to Faulkner's usage ultimately fall back on, although their objections are not stated so baldly as this. The Corporal's “Christianity” offends them because it does not in some way “measure up” to what Christianity means to them. Especially offensive are the ironic scenes and the final interment of the Corporal in the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

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