Allegoric character of the novel

3.2 Allegoric character of the novel

What A Fable “is” seems to be a central question for some critics in determining its structural features. Thomas H. Carter, for instance, felt that it was basically cleanly structured, but “the other sub-plots obscure the simple rightness of the Corporal’s story”. Many see the essential failure occurring in the attempt to mix genres and tones which, in their view, it is impossible to mix. Most critics read A Fable as an allegory which has either been contaminated or enriched in a dreadful way by certain “realistic” features which clash with the main action, the Passion whether it is contaminated or enriched is apparently owing to whether the critic personally prefers the realistic or the symbolic mode.

One may easily contrast this opinion to that of Hyatt Howe Waggoner, who sees the novel’s process as “almost the opposite of the symbolic”, one that emerges from “an interpretation of scripture based on the supposition that historic Christianity was founded upon a hoax”. Roma King feels that Faulkner’s view is basically Christian, but that the book fails because he has “no systematic intellectual grounding or comprehensive theology”, and the allegory “gets lost among naturalistic irrelevancies and details”. But for Lawrance Thomson the “allegorical skeleton sticks through the flesh unpleasantly”. And Irving Howe considers the book to be “a splendidly written fable that is cluttered and fretted with structural complexities appropriate only to a novel”. And finally, we may go to Carter again, who delivers another critical edict. “Whatever its symbolic structure is A Fable must be judged by the standards of naturalistic fiction” [9, p. 147-148].

The parallel between the representative of the open society and dynamic religion, and the inherent antagonism that this new being must project upon the established institutions, is thus clearly drawn. Another facet of the “deep dialect” - one which is based on experience - is thus established and one may draw obvious implications from the parallel, fusion as it were, of dynamic religion with the open society. The Corporal is both the representative of the open society and that individual who has immersed himself in the elan vital, and, as his confrontation with the priest illustrated, has embodied within himself, as a “species composed of a single individual”, the power to overcome the casuistry of dialectic simply by “being”. The Corporal is one who, in the Bergsonian sense, has immersed himself into “real” time, which “if it is not God, is of God”, and the “religion” which emerges from this inundation is one which cannot be defined by ethical laws or theological argument. It is “a religion of men, not laws” [3, p.187].

One may still reasonably ask why Faulkner had to choose the obvious parallel to the Gospel stories, why he could not have demonstrated these ideas on their own merits rather than borrow from the Gospels. Bergson may again supply us with an explanation. But just as the new moral aspiration takes shape only by borrowing from the closed society its natural form, which is obligation, so dynamic religion is propagated only through images and symbols supplied by the myth-making function. A careful reading of the novel shows the reasons for the trappings of Christian allegory in A Fable.

The most striking “supernatural” incident parallels, in a rough way, the “multiple deaths” of the Corporal, it occurs in the scene describing the Groom's return to the town in Tennessee where they had first raced the horse. He had earlier appeared at the church, but now appears at the loft above the post office where the men are shooting dice. He suddenly appears there, no one speaks, he goes to the game, a coin mysteriously appears at his foot “where 10 seconds ago no coin had been”, he plays the coin, and immediately wins enough for food. The scene below describes his exit and return:

“ He went to the trap door and the ladder which led down into the store's dark interior and with no light descended and returned with a wedge of cheese and a handful of crackers, and interrupted the game again to hand the clerk one of the coins he had won and took his change and, squatting against the wall and with no sound save the steady one of his chewing, ate what the valley knew was his first food since he returned to it, reappeared in the church ten hours ago; and - suddenly - the first since he had vanished with the horse and the two Negroes ten months ago” [14, p.194].

The necessary response is a crude one, but it nonetheless resembles the Corporal’s ability to cut past speech and force action. The Groom’s mysterious abilities to create the fierce loyalties of those around him links him to the Corpoml also. It is this ability which carries over into the main action, and is the means by which he and the Runner are joined. But in the context of the main action, the Runner is a different person, a point which will be taken up below. His mysterious qualities are even highlighted in the near play on words Faulkner employs in Sutterfield’s pronunciation of his name, “Mistairy” for Mr. Harry. The Groom is, in a sense, “resurrected” also. His mysterious reappearances are not the only point of resemblance in this sense. Faulkner describes him at the very beginning of the “horsethief” episode as having undergone a sort of rebirth as a result of his experiences with the horse. The rebirth is somewhat analogous to the Corporal’s final interment in the tomb of the unknown soldier, since it suggests outwardly everything that he was not previously, and also points to the anonymity of the Corporal as far as the world is concerned.

“Three things happened to him which changed completely not only his life, but his character too, so that when late in 1914 he returned to England to enlist it was as though somewhere behind the Mississippi Valley hinterland ... a new man had been born, without past, without griefs, without recollection” [14, p.151].

What Faulkner has done in his treatment of the Corporal is to let the action around the Corporal speak for him rather than letting him speak for himself; often the action seems to run a contradictory course to what is being verbalized by cliaracters around the Corporal. This observation goes to the heart of the Corporal’s character and the implications toward which his presence in the novel points. The Corporal, for all his taciturnity and seeming passivity, is the essence of action - meaningful action. He is the essence and embodiment of what Bergson considers the mystic, the representative of “dynamic religion”. The Corporal, if not exactly suspicious of ritual, at any rate has no need of ritual, for ritual is extraneous to the dynamic religion he represents. It is, as Bergson states, “a religion of men, not rules”, a religion in which “prayer is independent of its verbal expression; it is an elevation of the soul that can dispense with speech. Bergson, in attempting to define “dynamic religion”, equates it with mysticism, but not the Eastern type of mysticism we generally identify with the Hindu ascetics. These are not true mystics, according to Bergson.

What the Corporal attempts to do, and succeeds in doing for a while, is exactly this. All the action of A Fable is generated by his act of mutiny. This failure will be explained within that context, but for the moment we may see this characteristic, dynamism, operating in relation to the Corporal in the particular way Faulkner has chosen to portray it. The Corporal does not have the gift of rhetoric - he has no need of it; action, experience, is his primary method of expression. His monosyllabic answers to the casuistic arguments of the priest and the Marshall are not owing to stupidity or sullenness. An examination of his answers to most of the questions put to him shows that he does not answer the question directly so much as simply state a “fact” which ultimately has bearing upon the question. For example, in answering the priest’s charges that he must bear the responsibility for Gragnon’s execution, he simply repeats:

“Tell him [the Marshall] that” [14, p.364-366].

To the Marshall’s long argument in the “Maundy Thursday” scene, he first answers simply, “there are still ten” (meaning his disciples), when the Marshall indicates the futility of his martyrdom [14, p.346]. To the last part of the Marshall's argument, when the Marshall expands at length upon the “narrative of the bird” to reinforce his offer of life, the Corporal simply answers:

“Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing worth it” [14, p.352].

The Corporal is equally taciturn in other scenes. He does not speak his first word until page 249; he speaks fewer words than any other major character in the novel, unless one considers the Groom to occupy equal stature, and even the Groom is referred to as constantly mouthing curses, even though Faulkner does not record them for the reader.

Actually, the Corporal’s lack of speech is simply part of his makeup. He is exhibiting the mystic temperament as Bergson conceives of it. A calm exaltation of all its faculties makes it see things on a vast scale only, and in spite of its weakness, produce only what can be mightily wrought.

This passage, which goes far to explain the Corporal’s peculiar actions also in relation to the other characters in the novel and the events which surround him, bears a resemblance to Faulkner’s description of the Corporal as he calmly watches from his prison window above the rage and turbulence of the crowd below.

“He looked exactly like a stone-deaf man watching with interest but neither surprise nor alarm the pantomime of some cataclysm or even universal uproar which neither threatens nor even concerns him since to him it makes no sound at all” [14, p.227].

The Corporal is able to transcend much of the human passion that is normally aroused either in argument or in anxiety over one's future. Bergson may offer a reason for the Corporal’s “odd” qualities of character when he writes of the difference between ordinary ideas of love and the mystical love of mankind.

The Corporal, as mystical, intuitive man, then, becomes the embodiment of the open society, which must emerge from the universal love of mankind, as well as the embodiment of the “dynamic religion” which is embodied in men, not rules.

It is the Corporal’s “presence” which causes action more than any direct action he engages in. By this method his effect is felt throughout the entire novel. He has no personal eloquence, nor radiance, nor energy of the usual sort associated with action. The key to his effectiveness lies in his presence. He is dynamic in the deepest sense, not merely kinetic. He embodies in himself all of the facets and possibilities that the complex of attitudes arising from and involved in the refinement of the intuition posit. Just as the Marshall depends upon ritual, meeting, dialectic, and intelligence, so does the Corporal have no need for any of them. He is beyond the . neces sary rhetoric of the preacher, the casuistry of the plotter, or the energy of the builder. He is effective nonetheless, because his presence alone suffices to cause meaningful action. As the old man at the ammunition dump, who first informs the Runner of the Corporal’s mission, tells him:

“- Go and listen to them, the old porter said, - you can speak foreign; you can understand them.

- I thought you said that the nine who should have spoken French didn't, and that the other four couldn't speak anything at all.

- They don’t need to talk, the old porter said. - You don’ need to understand. Just go and look at him” [14, p.67].

Events which occur as a result of the Corporal’s “presence” are the action of A Fable. Although he is not described energetically, the Corporal embodies dynamism in everything he does, as opposed to the essentially static character of his antagonist, the Marshall, who engenders much kinetic activity in the novel. Images of movement and stasis surround these two antagonists constantly and reinforce their essential characteristics.

The Corporal and the Marshall are brought together at the beginning of A Fable in a confrontation scene which foreshadows the later, climactic “Maundy Thursday” scene above the city of Chaulnesmont. More important than fore- shadowing is the way in which each is described in relation to the other in this scene.

“The Corporal is riding in a lorry earring the 13 “ringleaders” of the mutiny to the stockade. It passes the Hotel de Villa where the three generals still stood like a posed camera group [the Corporal and the Marshall] stared full at each other across the moment which could not last because of the vehicle’s speed - the peasant’s face above the corporal’s chevrons and the shackled wrists in the speeding lorry, and the grey, inscrutable face above the stars of supreme rank and the bright ribbons of honor and glory on the Hotel steps, looking at each other across the fleeting instant” [14, p.17].

The setting of this first encounter clearly puts the two in opposition in more than mere foreshadowing; they are immediately seen in terms of motion and stasis. The “deep dialectic” of the human condition is thus very early joined, with each antagonist’s essential qualities pointed up by the setting in which each appears. The Corporal is dynamic, moving, even though manacled. The Marshall is static, posed, though apparently free. The two are seen in paradoxical relationship at the very outset, also, since the apparently “free” omnipotent man, the Marshall, is fixed; and the apparently shackled man, the Corporal, is moving. This paradoxical relationship will widen and encompass all of the action of the novel as it progresses, for paradox is the main method by which action is resolved in A Fable.

“-Fear implies ignorance. Where ignorance is not, you do not need to fear: only respect. I don’t fear man’s capacities, I merely respect them. "

-And use them, - the Quartermaster General said.

-Beware of them, - the old general said” [14, p.329].

Here is an adequate explanation for the seemingly indifferent mannerisms of the Corporal. He is not indifferent he has, in a sense, won the world by going beyond the world. He has attained this state before the opening action of the novel, and Faulkner's initial presentation of him, “the face showing a comprehension, understanding, utterly free of compassion” [14, p.17] can, in this light, be seen as far more than mere indifference to his fate.

Events which occur as a result of the Corporal’s “presence” are the action of A Fable. Although he is not described energetically, the Corporal embodies dynamism in everything he does, as opposed to the essentially static character of his antagonist, the Marshall, who engenders much kinetic activity in the novel. Images of movement and stasis surround these two antagonists constantly and reinforce their essential characteristics.

The “capacities” referred to become more precisely defined moments later when the Quartermaster repeats the charge that the Marshall is afraid of man. The Marshall's respon.se is set clearly in terms of stasis and dynamism.

“I respected him [man] as an articulated creature capable of locomotion and vulnerable to self-interest” [14, p.331]

Although the Marshall refers here only to the dynamic quality of man, one must conclude that he is speaking from his opposite viewpoint in “respecting” this quality in man. The action (locomotion) is referred to here in potential terms, also. The fact that self-interest is inimical to the Marshall’s position would coincide neatly with Bergson’s claim that the intelligence must counter the very bent of intelligence (the ego) by intellectual means, which the Marshall does.

Another character who resembles the Marshall closely in his intellectual apparatus and attitudes toward man is the lawyer who seeks, and fails, to spellbind the crowd with rhetoric (“Ladies, gentlemen Democrats”) in the courthouse in the “horsethief” episode. The crowd ignores him and as it brushes past him, he notes “my first mistake was moving” [14, p.185]. Real action is inimical to those who rely on intellect alone and who are the manipulators in the closed society. The lawyer's long internal monologue is couched in slightly different terms, but his views on man are essentially the same as the Marshall's.

Thinking (the lawyer) how only when he is mounted on something ... is man vulnerable and familiar; he is terrible; thinking with amazement and humility and pride too, how no mere immobile mass of him . . . mounted on something which, not he but it was locomotive, but the mass of him, moving of itself in one direction toward an objective by means of his own frail clumsily jointed legs . . . threatful only in locomotion and dangerous only in silence [14, pp.186-187].

It is important to note here that the lawyer, although contemptuous in part, still has the feeling of amazement and pride when thinking of this aspect of man, an attitude which parallels the Marshall’s in the “Maundy Thursday” scene when he tells the Corporal “with pride” that man will prevail. The above passage tends to reach back to the introductory scene where the Corporal is introduced riding in the lorry, and to underscore the point that, although he is at that time vulnerable to the machinations of the military, the action which had precipitated all the later action (the mutiny) had already been accomplished . The Corporal has been able to set a mass of men in one direction simply through the power of his presence in better fashion than the military, which had consciously aimed at this end (witness the statement of l’Allemont, the corps commander, to Gragnon [14, p.52]) with its references to disciplinary training and rituals of honor and glory. One may also compare the actions of the civilian arm of the closed society, the crowd, in respect to meaningful action. Much has been written of how the crowd, mass man, is reduced to bestiality or complete passivity, as though Faulkner were attempting to demean man. As one negative critic put it, “You do not lift the heart of man by rubbing his face in the dirt”. But the crowd’s action, which is not really action at ail, can best be seen in the context of the civil arm of the closed society.

“…not that they had no plan when they came here, nor even that the motion which had served in lieu of plan, had been motion only so long as it had had room to move in, but that motion itself had betrayed them by bringing them here at all, not only in the measure of the time it had taken them to cover the kilometer and a half between the city and the compound, but in that of the time it would take them to retrace back to the city and the Place de Ville , which they comprehended now they should never have quitted in the first place, so that, no matter what speed they might make getting back to it, they would be too late” [14, p.131].

Allegory, to function as allegory, as H. R. Warfel has demonstrated, 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. I believe that analogical qualities in A Fable which resemble the Passion work primarily on the first and second level, but that it denies much of the third level which is necessary for allegory.

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.