“How many more are there? How much longer is this going on?”: eugenic discourse and themes in Faulkner’s snopes trilogy

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dc.contributorMcNaughton, James
dc.contributorPeterson, Erik L.
dc.contributor.advisorCrank, James A.
dc.contributor.authorWesley, Shelby Miranda
dc.contributor.otherUniversity of Alabama Tuscaloosa
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-07T14:36:47Z
dc.date.available2021-07-07T14:36:47Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.descriptionElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US
dc.description.abstractWilliam Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy (comprised of The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion) follows the rise of the Snopeses, an impoverished white family that moves into Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, and begins to replace the area’s aristocrats. It is remarkably easy to read the Snopes trilogy as an epic saga primarily revolved around social climbing and class anxieties, but a reading such as that must take into account how the socioeconomic themes in the trilogy are intersected and influenced by eugenic discourse. This thesis argues that, in all three novels, Faulkner engages in eugenic characterization, rhetoric, and language and portrays eugenic situations in order to capture the zeitgeist of the American eugenic era and expose eugenic discourse as illogical and potentially dangerous. While Jay Watson believes that eugenic discourse simply “represented a complex, ambiguous cultural legacy for Faulkner” and that Faulkner may have had complicated sentiments regarding the eugenics movement, this thesis will establish the idea that the Faulkner that appears in the Snopes trilogy is staunchly critical of eugenic ideology and continuously warns the reader of the folly and danger that lurks within it (J. Watson 53). A thesis of this sort is especially relevant today since the eugenic panic is just now reemerging into the public consciousness after years of being a distant memory avoided by history teachers who feel pressured to obscure one of America’s darkest moments.en_US
dc.format.extent82 p.
dc.format.mediumelectronic
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.otheru0015_0000001_0003784
dc.identifier.otherWesley_alatus_0004M_14459
dc.identifier.urihttp://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/7863
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Alabama Libraries
dc.relation.hasversionborn digital
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Electronic Theses and Dissertations
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections
dc.rightsAll rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated.en_US
dc.subjectAmerican literature
dc.title“How many more are there? How much longer is this going on?”: eugenic discourse and themes in Faulkner’s snopes trilogyen_US
dc.typethesis
dc.typetext
etdms.degree.departmentUniversity of Alabama. Department of English
etdms.degree.disciplineEnglish
etdms.degree.grantorThe University of Alabama
etdms.degree.levelmaster's
etdms.degree.nameM.A.

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