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During the 1957 and 1958 Spring semesters, William Faulkner was the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia. During that time he appeared at thirty-six different public events, reading from his work and answering over 1400 questions from students, faculty and others. Thanks to two members of the Department of English, Frederick Gwynn and Joseph Blotner, most of those sessions were recorded, and preserved on tape in the University of Virginia Special Collections Library. Over 28 hours of the recordings have been digitized, and are available online in the Faulkner at Virginia audio archive . The mp3 clips available below have been taken from that archive, and are playable on most devices. How did Uncle Buck end up marrying Sophonsiba? (11 March 1957; 0:44) |
How did Uncle Buck end up marrying Sophonsiba? (11 March 1957; 0:44)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Sir, in "Was," you tell us how Uncle Buck successfully foiled an attempt by Mr. Hubert Beauchamp to get him to marry Sophonsiba. Well, eventually they do get married, and I wonder if you could give us any idea as to how she eventually caught him?
William Faulkner: Oh, I think that—that women are much stronger, much more determined than men, and just because these men had wasted an evening over a deck of cards, that hadn't changed Miss Sophonsiba's intentions at all. And probably Uncle Buck finally just gave up. That was his fate, and he—he might just as well quit struggling. [audience laughter]
When did you begin writing "The Bear"? (8 May 1958; 2:38)
Moderator: I think I'll take the moderator's [privilege and ask the first question,] if I may. I'd like to know a little bit about the circumstances of the composition of "The Bear." Can you remember when it was that you first thought of it and put it down [...]?
William Faulkner: I couldn't—couldn't say. That story is probably a summation of—of my whole experience from the first time I was big enough to go into the woods where bears were with a gun until I became a man. Probably—that story may be autobiographical, in the sense that it was that little boy's confrontation with something big and important, for he himself to find how he would meet it, to—as Hemingway says, "to meet it with grace." What I mean is, probably I was composing that story from the first moment I went into the—what we call the big woods and—and realized what it was. There would be bigger animals, wilder animals than the rabbits and possums and things that I had experience with when I was not big enough yet to carry a gun into the woods.
Unidentified participant: You really began composing it when you were Isaac's age?
William Faulkner: I think so, yes, or remembered it, and then when I had acquired some skill in the craft of writing, to write my own biography against something which was a—a fine pleasure to me, a worthwhile pursuit, which is probably a part of any boy's life, any American boy, unless he has—was bred and lived all his life in the city. I imagine there are not many of you here who haven't hunted. When you first have a gun, rabbits, possums—and then you got big enough to hunt bigger game than that.
Is "The Bear" about a boy growing up? (1 May 1958; 1:41)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Was your purpose in "The Bear" to show the growing up of a boy?
William Faulkner: I'm sorry would you—
Unidentified participant: Was your purpose in "The Bear" to show the growing up of a small boy? How he grew up?
William Faulkner: Not the growing up, but to show a small boy in conflict with the adult world which he would have to cope with. That is, he would have to be a part of it and be a good decent man or it would destroy him. The—the small boy's world is a—is a world of innocence, different from the adult world, and his job is not in putting on inches and—and pounds. It is simply in adapting himself morally and mentally to the adult world which he will have to be a part of, and that to me is—is one of the most interesting phases of man's struggle with the human dilemma, is how the child grows up to cope with the adult world. That to me is always interesting. I've written about that lots of times for that reason. It's how the child grows up and takes the—the knocks and the—the broken head and the skinned knuckles, which he must take to become a man without being destroyed, to bring into the adult world something of the—of the—the child's belief in some innate goodness, or in decency, or in courage, in compassion.
How should we see the conflict between man and wilderness? (8 May 1958; 1:57)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Sir, one of the most interesting aspects of "The Bear," to me, is the conflict between man and the wilderness. I would like to ask you if you intend for the reader to sympathize more with Old Ben and his conflict with hunters or with the hunters and their conflict with Old Ben?
William Faulkner: Well, not sympathize. I—I doubt if—if the writer is asking anyone to sympathize, to choose sides. That is the reader's right. What the writer is asking is compassion, understanding that—that change must alter, must happen, and change is going to alter what was. That no matter how fine anything seems, it can't endure because it—once it stops—abandons motion, it is dead. It's to have compassion for the—for the anguish that—that the wilderness itself may have felt by being ruthlessly destroyed by axes, by—by men who simply wanted to—to make that earth grow something they could sell for a profit, which brought into it a condition based on an evil like human bondage. It's not to—to choose sides at all, just to compassionate the—the—the good, splendid things which change must destroy, the splendid, fine things which are a part of man's past, too, part of man's heritage, too. But they were obsolete and had to go. But that's no need to—to not feel compassion for them, simply because they were obsolete.
Could you discuss the scene between Ike and his wife? (8 May 1958; 3:11)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Sir, I'd like some help on understanding the—what I call the bedroom scene in the fourth section of "The Bear." You made one statement, "She is lost. She was born lost." Can you help me to understand what you meant by that?
William Faulkner: Who does that refer to?
Unidentified participant: That refers to Ike McCaslin's wife. In—in that section [...]—
William Faulkner: Yes, I—I think I remember now. She—from her background, her tradition, sex was—was something evil, that it had to be justified by acquiring property. She was, ethically, a prostitute. Sexually she was frigid. I think what he meant—he knew that—that there was no warmth that he would ever find from her, no understanding, no—no chance ever to—to accept love or return love because she was incapable of it. That's probably what he meant.
Unidentified participant: And I wondered why she laughed and laughed when [...]?
William Faulkner: She realized then that he was going to give up the land. She married him because she was going to be chatelaine of a plantation. And then she found he was going to give all that away, and the only revenge she knew was to not—to deny him sexually, that was the only triumph she had. And she was going to make him suffer for that just as much as she could to get even with him.
Unidentified participant: So that she intended from the beginning of her marriage to deny him this one thing that he had requested until it was useful in blackmail [...]?
William Faulkner: Well, she assumed when they got married that she was going to be chatelaine of a plantation, and they would have children. And she was going to be as—according to the rules of the book—a good wife to him. She'd still be frigid and cold and a shrew probably, but she'd be a good wife. Then when he was going to throw the plantation away for idealistic folly, all she—the only revenge she had was that. At least he would have no children from her. He'd have no wife from her. And she hoped—
Unidentified participant: Well, Ike—[excuse me, sir].
William Faulkner: And she hoped that he would—would make him grieve.
Unidentified participant: Well Ike says here [...] Did she realize when he was saying this that he did not mean it?
William Faulkner: Did not mean what?
Unidentified participant: [...] that he would go back to the land.
William Faulkner: She must have understood he was not going to [retract and] take his heritage. Yes, I'm sure she was convinced of that, no matter what he might have said.
Why did Boon kill Sam Fathers? (11 March 1957; 1:02)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Sir, in your story "The Bear," why did Boon kill Sam Fathers?
William Faulkner: Because Sam asked him to. Sam's life had finished then. He was an old man. He was sick, and—and Sam at that point represented his whole race. The white man had dispossessed the whole race. They had nothing left, and Sam was old. He was weak and sick. That was the—the Greek conception. And Sam knew that Boon and this little boy who was too young to have used the knife, or whatever it was, would defend Sam's right to die and would approve of the fact that Boon, the instrument, was willing to—to kill Sam. But Sam was done with life, and he wanted that done, and—and Boon was the servant that did it.
Did Ike fulfill his destiny? (11 March 1957; 1:29)
Frederick Gwynn: Mr. Faulkner, do you look on Ike McCaslin as having fulfilled his destiny, the things that he learned from Sam Fathers and from the other men as in his—when he was twelve to sixteen? Do you feel that they stood him in good stead all the way through his life?
William Faulkner: I do, yes. They—they didn't give him success, but they gave him something a lot more important, even in this country. They gave him serenity. They gave him what would pass for wisdom. I mean, wisdom as contradistinct from the schoolman's wisdom of education. They gave him that.
Frederick Gwynn: And was—did he ever have any children?
William Faulkner: No.
Frederick Gwynn: Was he able to pass on this wisdom—
William Faulkner: No, no, children.
Unidentified participant: That had been transmitted to him?
William Faulkner: In a way, every—every little eight- or ten-year-old boy was his son, his child, the ones that he taught how to hunt. He had passed on what he had. He was not trying to tell them how to slay animals. He was trying to—to teach them what he knew of—of respect for whatever your lot in life is, that if—if your lot is to be a hunter, to slay animals, you slay the animals with—with the nearest approach you can to dignity and to decency.
Is Ike a Christ figure? (1 May 1958; 1:28)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Sir, in "The Bear" is there any intended symbolism in Ike McCaslin taking on the profession of carpenter rather than store clerk or—or training—training in some other profession?
William Faulkner: Not symbolism on my part but probably on—on Ike's part, in that the symbols which the writer puts into his work are the same symbols which the reader reads into it. That is, they come from a Christian background. It may be that Ike, without stopping to rationalize it, had deliberately assumed the symbol of—of Christ as a—a protest against an evil which he could not and would not condone. He probably, at that moment, didn't have time to hunt around and say "Oh let's see, what shall I do? I'll do something that Christ did." He just said that "I will—I will become a carpenter." He didn't go through the process of remembering—this was the symbology which he had inherited from the moment his—his mama taught him to say his prayers at night. That was a part of his—his literate background.
How is Part 4 related to the rest of "The Bear"? (15 February 1957; 1:35)
Frederick Gwynn: In "The Bear," Mr. Faulkner, many readers come across Part Four and—and find it written in quite a different style than the other parts and the conclusion—well, it gets far ahead in years beyond Part Five. Was there any conscious plan in that?
William Faulkner: Only this. "The Bear" was a part of a novel. That novel was—happened to be composed of—of more or less complete stories, but—but it was held together by—by one family, the—the Negro and—and the white phase of the same family, the same people. "The Bear"—
Frederick Gwynn: [I mean] Go Down, Moses.
William Faulkner: Yeah, "The Bear" was just a—just a part of that—of a novel.
Frederick Gwynn: So that it was all right for Ike to think ahead or [...] to run up to his thirty-fifth year—
William Faulkner: Yes, that's right, because the rest of the book was a part of his past, too. To have taken that story out, to print it alone, I have always removed that part, which I have done in one anthology.
Frederick Gwynn: Yes, some of the textbooks do that.
William Faulkner: As a—as a short story, a long short story, it has no part in it, but to me "The Bear" is part of the novel, just a chapter in the novel.
Is Ike's predicament that of modern man? (24 April 1958; 1:06)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner, Isaac McCaslin in "The Bear" relinquishes his heredity. Do you think he may be in the same predicament as modern man, under the same conditions that he can't find a humanity that he can fit in with?
William Faulkner: Well, there are some people in any time and age that—that cannot face and cope with the problems. There seems to be three stages. The first says, "This is rotten. I'll have no part of it. I will—will take death first." The second says, "This is rotten. I don't like it. I can't do anything about it, but at least I will not participate in it myself. I will go off into a cave or—or climb a pillar to sit on." The third says, "This stinks, and I'm going to do something about it." McCaslin is the second. He says, "This is bad, and I will withdraw from it." What we need are people who will say, "This is bad, and I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to change it."
Is Ike's comment about interracial marriage still true? (11 March 1957; 1:21)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Sir, in "Delta Autumn," in a—the thoughts of Ike McCaslin when he's talking to the colored girl, you write, "Maybe in a thousand or two thousand years in America, but not now, not now." I was—I was wondering how you might apply that to the present-day conditions that have happened since the writing of the story, with the Supreme Court decision and what-not.
William Faulkner: He used "a thousand or two thousand years" in his despair. He had seen a condition which was intolerable, which shouldn't be, but it was, and he was saying, in effect, that—that this—this must be changed. This cannot go on, but I'm too old to do anything about it, that maybe in a thousand years, somebody will be young enough and strong enough to do something about it. That was—that was all he meant by the numbers, but I think that he saw, as—as everybody that thinks, that a condition like that is—is intolerable, not so much intolerable to man's sense of justice but maybe intolerable to—to a condition, to the condition, that—that any country has reached the point where, if it is to endure, it must have no inner conflicts based on a—a wrong, a basic human wrong.
Do you share Ike's view that there's a curse on the land? (8 May 1958; 1:04)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Sir, you explained to us that Ike—the story of Ike in "The Bear" is, in a manner of speaking, autobiographical. Does Ike's theory of a curse on the land in any way reflect your feeling of a curse on the land?
William Faulkner: No—well, if—if it—if it should, it would not be, maybe, as strong as Ike's. I think that any author should—should put on the—a full page in his book that he is not responsible for the ideas expressed by any of his characters, their ideas or political convictions or—or religious beliefs. I—I think that Ike probably carried that a little further than—than I might have because it was necessary for my story that he should. That he was a—he was a poet, in his way, an idealist, which I probably am not or, anyway, not as good a one as Ike.