The radical party consisted of a loose congeries of psychoanalysts and philosophers …, surrealist litterateurs, and advocates of various forms of sexual liberation. The liberal party consisted of the group of second-generation Freudian theorists and therapists known as the Neo Freudian Revisionists…. Both parties extended, although in different ways, the romantic questioning of the incest taboo. For René Guyon …, [a radical,] all forms of the incest taboo are merely conventional. Because “a weakening in the moral and social condemnation of the incest … usually accompanies the growth of a general tendency to call into question the taboo on sex,” he says, “in time the community itself will cease to be interested in this out-of-date taboo.” Within the liberal faction, by contrast, no call for a literal abandonment of the taboo exists; but an ameliorative romantic optimism nonetheless reveals itself in the tendency of the Neo-Freudians to view sibling incest fantasy and play as simply a normal and expected stage of adolescent sexual development, fated to be outgrown and therefore not requiring severe cultural or parental disapprobation.[1]
Even though the article hardly talks about incest in the context of The Sound and the Fury, or even though it relates this novel with some of Faulkner’s other novels, including Absalom, Absalom!, as well as incest, the article was very interesting. Zender articulates his argument very well by specifically linking each of Faulkner’s novels with one another by pointing out similarities and differences in an apparently commonly portrayed incest theme. The article as well discussed the literary difference between parent-child and sibling incest. Apparently, “parent-child incest is universally condemned in Romantic literature…; sibling incest, on the other hand, is invariably made sympathetic, is sometimes exonerated, and, in [Lord] Byron’s and [Percy] Shelley’s works, is definitely idealized.” This Romantic concept about incest fits nicely with the liberal idea that incest is acceptable as a transitory phase of sexual development. Romantics use parent-child incest to portray a tyrannical patriarchal social order, while sibling incest carries egalitarian ideals. On a separate note, incest was preferred for maintaining class and ethnic gene pools. While none of these political aspects are particularly to The Sound and the Fury, they still provided some fascinating insight into incest and its literary and political applications.
Specifically in reference to Quentin in The Sound and the Fury, Zender’s article is spot on and incorporates some of the other themes in the novel. Zender observes that the incest motif “joins with doubling, repetition, and revenge to enact a doomed oedipal struggle against the priority of the father over the son and of the past over the present and the future.” Furthermore, it also “expresses ‘the inability of the ego to break out of the circle of the self and of the individual to break out of the ring of the family,’ and it becomes a symbol ‘of the state of the South after the Civil War, … of a region turned in upon itself.” In other words, the use of this motif emphasizes Quentin’s constant feelings of confinement in his family history and in the Code of the South. In addition, because incest is supposedly such a base action, its existence in the novel represents the dying years of the old South after the Civil War. Another aspect of this motif is that Quentin feels as though Time is haunting him, as he cannot escape it. He breaks his watch, but it still works; the shadows around the city tell him the location of the sun and, in turn, the time; and the clocks chime at every quarter hour. Quentin is haunted by everything in his life. Even though he and Caddy never commit incest, the incest motif accentuates Quentin’s inability to elude his past. As a result, Quentin commits suicide because he felt overwhelmed by time, his burdens, and most of all by Caddy’s lingering presence.
While Zender writes a compelling argument, there are numerous medical and ethical reasons that contradict any possible social acceptance of incest. While Zender did not address the argument’s opposing aspects in the article, I do have my own opinions on the matter that I would like to express. From a medical and more objective standpoint, incest should not be permissible because any children that are produced will be born with genetic disorder. It is not fair to the baby to have to endure lifelong difficulties because of his or her parents’ sexual desires. From an ethical and more emotional perspective, no one should allow incest because it crosses all familial boundaries. Brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers are meant to be a family, not a family of lovers and inter-relationships. Furthermore, parent-child incestuous relationships are forms of child abuse usually stemming from a particularly dominant parent. On a larger scale, incest also disrupts the natural order of the world, the human law or instinct that says to find a suitable mate to procreate. Incest, in connection to the biological impediments, does not allow suitable reproduction. It benefits everyone if incest is disallowed.
Overall, Zender’s article is fairly intricate with many details and information about a number of Faulkner’s novels; however, the article was still intriguing to read. Even though The Sound and the Fury itself is a minor part of the article, it was fascinating—and admittedly a little weird—to read about the political aspects of incest on a national scale. One piece that I thought was lacking from the article was the existence of the dominant sexual tension between Caddy and Quentin. Nonetheless, Zender offers an insightful and educational piece about incest, but I still believe that incest should never be acceptable in my life or in the rest of the world.
[1] Karl F. Zender, “Faulkner and the Politics of Incest,” American Literature 70.4 (1998), JSTOR, 22 Oct. 2008
