Scholarship English Day

In English today, we were presented four lectures on a range of different topics relating to English. These lectures included subjects as broad as narratology theory, rhetorical theory, philosophy, and Shakespeare.

I especially liked thinking about how to apply each of these lectures to texts I had read, and in particular how Todorov's equilibrium theory could apply to the work of Faulkner. To focus in on Todorov, he had the theory that a narrative can be segmented into five stages. These stages include the initial state of equilibrium, the disruption of that equilibrium, the recognition of that disruption, the attempt to repair that disruption, and the reinstatement of equilibrium. In Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, we may consider the equilibrium to be the antebellum Southern United States, the disruption to that is the Civil War and resulting decay of the utterly destroyed and humiliated postbellum South. These first two stages are also mirrored with the corresponding initial prestige and then disgrace of the Compson family before and after the Civil War. And so thus, there are parallel narratives here, whereby the Compson family stands in as allegory for the Old South. One way in which the third and fourth stages are manifested is through Jason Compson chasing after Miss Quentin who has run away with a northerner. However, the fifth stage does not return to the first stage, but rather to the second stage, thereby implying that the past is irreversible, but yet nonetheless dictates our present and future. Other theorists that could be connected to The Sound and the Fury include Strauss, especially with his idea of binary opposites, which in the novel could extend to white versus black (the Compsons and their servant family, within the broader context of the South); young versus old as well as female versus male (Miss Quentin and Jason); as well as the overarching notion of the antebellum South and the postbellum South. Barthes' theory about code also comes into play here with regard to the fact that Miss Quentin ran away with a northerner - which reinforces the sense of humiliation the South felt following the Civil War through mirroring it with Jason's humiliation at his niece's promiscuity with northern gentlemen (although I'm not entirely sure which code this subtle fact relates to - I definitely need to research Barthes' theories more!).

All in all, I gained a lot from this day - the new ideas about narratological theories being just one aspect which I enjoyed learning about, in addition to rhetorical theory with regard to Baudrillard's hyperreality and Burke's Pentad, as well as discussing some ethical philosophy about the trolley problem and its different variations, to the Great Chain of Being (which I had never heard about before - and which was very interesting to learn about). Each of the lectures revealed many new fascinating ways of looking at literary texts and I would like to thank each of the teachers who presented today for their very enjoyable and useful presentations.