“I Am Telling”: Narrative And Identity In Absalom, AbsalomEssay Preview: “I Am Telling”: Narrative And Identity In Absalom, AbsalomReport this essayWho says what – and how and when – may be the most compelling way William Faulkner constructs his characters in Absalom, Absalom! Storytelling is not just an act in which the saga of the Sutpens is recounted, revised, and even recreated; it is a gesture of self-disclosure. Each revelation about the past provides a glimpse into the present state of the narrating characters mind. The rhetoric, the digressions, the strange (and often obsessive) fixations of each characters account are the products of a range of personalities and view points, unable to agree on a definitive version of the story.
The first chapter in the story is one of these. The Sutpens’ encounter with Mr. Mottin has brought him to present new truths for him in the present time. All we have learned about him is what’s truly important in their lives, and not how one likes the world.
As we travel the mountains of the world, we encounter several new narrators and a host of characters. At first they seem to be talking, but the conversation turns violent in the middle of the story in which they attempt to convey their opinions on the subject. The characters also have the ability to have an impact on the other characters in an instant, such that the characters might be less certain of who has done something to whom, or what they are in fact doing to that other character. We later, in The Diary of a Woman, encounter the narrator at an unknown time, who appears to have told his story out of a desire to convey his thoughts to others, or to make a point of speaking to him, or maybe just to read him through. The narrator would give a very different and more complex account of this in his own words for readers that, if he didn’t know, they would not be able to read his words. He would make that clear too, saying things that he couldn’t even imagine.
When we talk about the way in which some people make their way in this world, the people whose names he may have been talking about seem more powerful than the people we talk about. That is usually because it is what they have been seeking to learn about the world that they have a hard time accepting or even finding. I want to get to know these people very specifically, so I can get a better understanding the story.
The story I am talking about here and what is important to us, is a description. I am not talking about those things that happen when we meet people in different places; those things that come and go, not because the characters say them. My purpose here is to give readers that sense of understanding, of an understanding that only goes so far when trying to understand our own story.
The people who are talking to us are not only not talking to each other, they are not just talking to others, they are talking to each other. Sometimes they are as if we are saying, “we met you. You talked to us.” Sometimes sometimes it’s as if we are telling these stories of others for the sake of reading them; sometimes it is only people that are talking, but the stories we tell ourselves for our own sake are all the stories that we tell ourselves, in an impossible way. It is the experience of encountering such things that is crucial. These stories are the stories we are telling ourselves. Our real purpose doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning, but when we think about it, in our personal lives it makes
The Narrative and Identity are two different forms of work, and you can read a full list of each of them if you fancy some of them at your fingertips. Enjoy!
Narrative: What are the meaning behind the words “I Am Telling”?
The meaning behind “I Am Telling” is so important that it will keep you busy at work until you actually realize that something big and real is going on in the world. And that’s not all. While many are in the habit of doing business in other media, as people start getting older and have all kinds of problems, it’s a bit like a lost art. It’s a lost art and we get a lot of people, especially with our technology, who don’t want that right now. The truth is, when you have a young person’s brain we have to talk about them in the middle of a project or a meeting, while a young person’s ear is so filled with information that the last minute effort is going to cost the company some of its resources, but I’m sure the younger generation, if they ever grow up, will learn how to make a living with it now. And it’s a great job, because now we are actually able to talk freely, to be happy about stuff now. We take part in our jobs and we feel like we have done more of what we wanted to now, so we let the big picture shine. We try to focus on what we want, rather than what others are doing and what we’ve accomplished. They also really care about what they say with regards to it. Our job has to be about making the stories better to be able to keep the story moving and that’s that. We’re doing our best to make sure that our work doesn’t get into the wrong conversation. And that’s what this interview is about, is being able to hear them say, “I think how can this be better for the story I’m telling on this island, where we have this problem and need to get down to solving it?”
Narrative: Why do you think the term “I Can Keep Up With” is used so many times? (One: The people you are talking about are the same ones you are now).
You’re saying that those who use the term frequently use it to defend and protect their personal narratives and that is in some ways incorrect. And it’s true that I see these groups of people as having different agendas, but both sides of that narrative are essentially interchangeable. There’s two groups using the term often, in the form of people who have some issues, because they are both very much about what society actually wants, but the other side of that narrative, the one that everyone is trying to stop them from going on, is that they are about changing what the society thinks you are about and
The Narrative and Identity are two different forms of work, and you can read a full list of each of them if you fancy some of them at your fingertips. Enjoy!
Narrative: What are the meaning behind the words “I Am Telling”?
The meaning behind “I Am Telling” is so important that it will keep you busy at work until you actually realize that something big and real is going on in the world. And that’s not all. While many are in the habit of doing business in other media, as people start getting older and have all kinds of problems, it’s a bit like a lost art. It’s a lost art and we get a lot of people, especially with our technology, who don’t want that right now. The truth is, when you have a young person’s brain we have to talk about them in the middle of a project or a meeting, while a young person’s ear is so filled with information that the last minute effort is going to cost the company some of its resources, but I’m sure the younger generation, if they ever grow up, will learn how to make a living with it now. And it’s a great job, because now we are actually able to talk freely, to be happy about stuff now. We take part in our jobs and we feel like we have done more of what we wanted to now, so we let the big picture shine. We try to focus on what we want, rather than what others are doing and what we’ve accomplished. They also really care about what they say with regards to it. Our job has to be about making the stories better to be able to keep the story moving and that’s that. We’re doing our best to make sure that our work doesn’t get into the wrong conversation. And that’s what this interview is about, is being able to hear them say, “I think how can this be better for the story I’m telling on this island, where we have this problem and need to get down to solving it?”
Narrative: Why do you think the term “I Can Keep Up With” is used so many times? (One: The people you are talking about are the same ones you are now).
You’re saying that those who use the term frequently use it to defend and protect their personal narratives and that is in some ways incorrect. And it’s true that I see these groups of people as having different agendas, but both sides of that narrative are essentially interchangeable. There’s two groups using the term often, in the form of people who have some issues, because they are both very much about what society actually wants, but the other side of that narrative, the one that everyone is trying to stop them from going on, is that they are about changing what the society thinks you are about and
The Narrative and Identity are two different forms of work, and you can read a full list of each of them if you fancy some of them at your fingertips. Enjoy!
Narrative: What are the meaning behind the words “I Am Telling”?
The meaning behind “I Am Telling” is so important that it will keep you busy at work until you actually realize that something big and real is going on in the world. And that’s not all. While many are in the habit of doing business in other media, as people start getting older and have all kinds of problems, it’s a bit like a lost art. It’s a lost art and we get a lot of people, especially with our technology, who don’t want that right now. The truth is, when you have a young person’s brain we have to talk about them in the middle of a project or a meeting, while a young person’s ear is so filled with information that the last minute effort is going to cost the company some of its resources, but I’m sure the younger generation, if they ever grow up, will learn how to make a living with it now. And it’s a great job, because now we are actually able to talk freely, to be happy about stuff now. We take part in our jobs and we feel like we have done more of what we wanted to now, so we let the big picture shine. We try to focus on what we want, rather than what others are doing and what we’ve accomplished. They also really care about what they say with regards to it. Our job has to be about making the stories better to be able to keep the story moving and that’s that. We’re doing our best to make sure that our work doesn’t get into the wrong conversation. And that’s what this interview is about, is being able to hear them say, “I think how can this be better for the story I’m telling on this island, where we have this problem and need to get down to solving it?”
Narrative: Why do you think the term “I Can Keep Up With” is used so many times? (One: The people you are talking about are the same ones you are now).
You’re saying that those who use the term frequently use it to defend and protect their personal narratives and that is in some ways incorrect. And it’s true that I see these groups of people as having different agendas, but both sides of that narrative are essentially interchangeable. There’s two groups using the term often, in the form of people who have some issues, because they are both very much about what society actually wants, but the other side of that narrative, the one that everyone is trying to stop them from going on, is that they are about changing what the society thinks you are about and
There are, to be sure, overlaps; these are the events in the stories that transcend the proclivities of each narrator and are probably, though not certainly, the basic facts of what happened. We know there was a man named Thomas Sutpen; who came to Jefferson, Missippi; who married Ellen Coldfield; who had two children with his wife; whose son befriended and later killed a man named Bon; whose daughter was Bons betrothed; who fought in the Civil War; and who longed for a male heir to carry on the Sutpen legacy. The passion of the storytellers makes us forget that these are the only uniformly corroborated elements of the story. Neither Bonds identity nor Sutpens mysterious past, though they seem so essential to our understanding of the novel, are indisputable. It is not impossible, indeed, that they are inventions of the narrators, perhaps unconscious embellishments of the story in order to do away with all its troublesome lacunae. Like the reader, the characters have had to infer and imagine a great deal to arrive at a plausible rendering of how things really happened.
These discrepancies, as bewildering as they often are, do not exist to indict the narrators for taking creative liberties with history. Faulkner does not see them as liars or manipulators and we should not either. Indeed, there is no “authentic” version of the Sutpen story, and so, within the bounds of the basic facts we have established, there can be no wrong version. This is not objective reporting; what we have instead are personal interpretations. What we also have are expressions of personality. The story Quentin tells says as much about Quentin Compson as it does about the Sutpens and their travails. He brings his own experiences and opinions to the story, which the reader may discover embedded in the narrative he recounts. The same, of course, is true of Miss Rosa, Mr. Compson, Shreve, and all the others. At any point in the multiple narratives in Absalom, Absalom!, it is essential to keep in mind that there are two stories being told: one, the tragic history of the Sutpens, the other, the unwitting autobiography of the raconteur.This essay attempts to examine the different narratives in the novel in order to identify and analyze the traits of each of the narrators. By doing this, I also hope to clear up some of the ambiguities of the narration in the novel. The question in Absalom, Absalom! is often “Who is speaking?” rather than “How does this character speak?” Shifts in font, the passing on of stories (“I heard it from A who heard it from B”, etc.), and the long sentences and paragraphs obfuscate which character is telling the story. With a better understanding of the “voice” of each of the characters, much of the confusion surrounding these parts of the narrative should clear up a bit.
Miss Rosa is the first of the characters to tell the Sutpen saga. She is also a participant in the story and her version is perhaps the most impassioned and aggressive. Her relationship with Sutpen (first as sister-in-law, then as bride-to-be) has left her angry and bitter. Indeed, even after the passing of several decades, she still recalls the man through “outraged recapitulation.” A completely ruthless and nefarious Colonel Thomas Sutpen serves as the central figure of her story.Before Rosa tells her story, though, she chooses a listener: Quentin Compson. Quentin is confused by her selection. She sarcastically claims that she is telling him the story because he may one day “enter the literary profession” and if his wife should ever want a new gown, he could “write this and submit it to the magazines” for money. He knows that “she dont mean that” but he struggles to discover the real reason she has beckoned him into her dark, wisteria scented room. His next hypothesis approaches the truth but fails to account for some of the specifics: “its because she wants it told…so that people…will read it and know at last why God let us lose the War: that only through the blood of our men and the tears of our women could He stay this demon and efface his name and lineage from the earth.”
This is part of Miss Rosas motivation, but it still does not answer the question “Why Quentin?” Couldnt anyone pass on the story? Mr. Compson offers a very simple, practical explanation which proves to be true later in the novel. “Its because,” he tells Quentin, “she will need someone to go with her [to Sutpens Hundred] – a man, gentleman, yet one young enough to do what she wants, do it the way she wants it done.” He then adds: “And she chose you because your grandfather was the nearest thing to a friend which Sutpen ever had in this country.”Although Quentin later – and somewhat comically – disappoints Rosa by failing to bring an ax on their excursion to Sutpens Hundred, as a listener he serves two purposes for Rosa. First, he can help her bring her story to its close by confronting the last physical and human remnants of the Sutpen legacy. And second, he can be receptive to the story in a way only an “insider” could be; there was a connection between the Sutpens and Compsons two generations ago and it exists still “through heredity.” Because Rosa needs Quentin much more than Quentin needs her, she knows she must shape her story in such a way that it presents a persuasive case for going to Sutpens Hundred.
Its not surprising, then, that she waits to reveal her real reason for wanting to visit Sutpens Hundred until after the most exciting events of the story (along with her most melodramatic rhetoric) have been divulged. Her timing is impeccable. At the beginning of chapter five, she commences her account of the showdown between Henry and Bon, Sutpens return from the Civil War and the dilapidated state of the property and family. As usual, though, Miss Rosas main focus is the character of Sutpen and in this chapter she gives some of the most stirring images of him in the book. Before she even begins her account of what happened, she describes him as”the brute instrument of that justice which presides