The analyses of allegoric characters in Faulkner's “A fable”

What A Fable “is” seems to be a central question for some critics in determining its structural features. Thomas H. Carter, for instance, felt that it was basically cleanly structured, but “the other sub-plots obscure the simple rightness of the Corporal's story”. Many see the essential failure occurring in the attempt to mix genres and tones which, in their view, it is impossible to mix. Most critics read A Fable as an allegory which has either been contaminated or enriched in a dreadful way by certain “realistic” features which clash with the main action, the Passion whether it is contaminated or enriched is apparently owing to whether the critic personally prefers the realistic or the symbolic mode. One may easily contrast this opinion to that of Hyatt Howe Waggoner, who sees the novel's process as “almost the opposite of the symbolic”, one that emerges from “an interpretation of scripture based on the supposition that historic Christianity was founded upon a hoax”. Roma King feels that Faulkner's view is basically Christian, but that the book fails because he has “no systematic intellectual grounding or comprehensive theology”, and the allegory “gets lost among naturalistic irrelevancies and details”. But for Lawrance Thomson the “allegorical skeleton sticks through the flesh unpleasantly”. And Irving Howe considers the book to be “a splendidly written fable that is cluttered and fretted with structural complexities appropriate only to a novel”. And finally, we may go to Carter again, who delivers another critical edict. “Whatever its symbolic structure is A Fable must be judged by the standards of naturalistic fiction” [1, p. 147-148]. The parallel between the representative of the open society and dynamic religion, and the inherent antagonism that this new being must project upon the established institutions, is thus clearly drawn. Another facet of the “deep dialect” - one which is based on experience - is thus established and one may draw obvious implications from the parallel, fusion as it were, of dynamic religion with the open society. The Corporal is both the representative of the open society and that individual who has immersed himself in the elan vital, and, as his confrontation with the priest illustrated, has embodied within himself, as a “species composed of a single individual”, the power to overcome the casuistry of dialectic simply by “being”. The Corporal is one who, in the Bergsonian sense, has immersed himself into “real” time, which “if it is not God, is of God”, and the “religion” which emerges from this inundation is one which cannot be defined by ethical laws or theological argument. It is “a religion of men, not laws” [2, p.187]. One may still reasonably ask why Faulkner had to choose the obvious parallel to the Gospel stories, why he could not have demonstrated these ideas on their own merits rather than borrow from the Gospels. Bergson may again supply us with an explanation. But just as the new moral aspiration takes shape only by borrowing from the closed society its natural form, which is obligation, so dynamic religion is propagated only through images and symbols supplied by the myth-making function. A careful reading of the novel shows the reasons for the trappings of Christian allegory in A Fable.

The most striking “supernatural” incident parallels, in a rough way, the “multiple deaths” of the Corporal, it occurs in the scene describing the Groom's return to the town in Tennessee where they had first raced the horse. He had earlier appeared at the church, but now appears at the loft above the post office where the men are shooting dice. He suddenly appears there, no one speaks, he goes to the game, a coin mysteriously appears at his foot “where 10 seconds ago no coin had been”, he plays the coin, and immediately wins enough for food. The scene below describes his exit and return:“He went to the trap door and the ladder which led down into the store's dark interior and with no light descended and returned with a wedge of cheese and a handful of crackers, and interrupted the game again to hand the clerk one of the coins he had won and took his change and, squatting against the wall and with no sound save the steady one of his chewing, ate what the valley knew was his first food since he returned to it, reappeared in the church ten hours ago; and - suddenly - the first since he had vanished with the horse and the two Negroes ten months ago” [3, p.194].

The necessary response is a crude one, but it nonetheless resembles the Corporal's ability to cut past speech and force action. The Groom's mysterious abilities to create the fierce loyalties of those around him links him to the Corpoml also. It is this ability which carries over into the main action, and is the means by which he and the Runner are joined. But in the context of the main action, the Runner is a different person, a point which will be taken up below. His mysterious qualities are even highlighted in the near play on words Faulkner employs in Sutterfield's pronunciation of his name, “Mistairy” for Mr. Harry. The Groom is, in a sense, “resurrected” also. His mysterious reappearances are not the only point of resemblance in this sense. Faulkner describes him at the very beginning of the “horsethief” episode as having undergone a sort of rebirth as a result of his experiences with the horse. The rebirth is somewhat analogous to the Corporal's final interment in the tomb of the unknown soldier, since it suggests outwardly everything that he was not previously, and also points to the anonymity of the Corporal as far as the world is concerned.

“Tell him [the Marshall] that” [3, p.364-366].

To the Marshall's long argument in the “Maundy Thursday” scene, he first answers simply, “there are still ten” (meaning his disciples), when the Marshall indicates the futility of his martyrdom [3, p.346]. To the last part of the Marshall's argument, when the Marshall expands at length upon the “narrative of the bird” to reinforce his offer of life, the Corporal simply answers:

“Don't be afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing worth it” [3, p.352].

The Corporal is equally taciturn in other scenes. He does not speak his first word until page 249; he speaks fewer words than any other major character in the novel, unless one considers the Groom to occupy equal stature, and even the Groom is referred to as constantly mouthing curses, even though Faulkner does not record them for the reader.

Actually, the Corporal's lack of speech is simply part of his makeup. He is exhibiting the mystic temperament as Bergson conceives of it. A calm exaltation of all its faculties makes it see things on a vast scale only, and in spite of its weakness, produce only what can be mightily wrought.

This passage, which goes far to explain the Corporal's peculiar actions also in relation to the other characters in the novel and the events which surround him, bears a resemblance to Faulkner's description of the Corporal as he calmly watches from his prison window above the rage and turbulence of the crowd below. “He looked exactly like a stone-deaf man watching with interest but neither surprise nor alarm the pantomime of some cataclysm or even universal uproar which neither threatens nor even concerns him since to him it makes no sound at all” [3, p.227].

The Corporal is able to transcend much of the human passion that is normally aroused either in argument or in anxiety over one's future. Bergson may offer a reason for the Corporal's “odd” qualities of character when he writes of the difference between ordinary ideas of love and the mystical love of mankind.

A Fable denies the institution, both in the action that is outside those parts which resemble the Passion directly, and, more importantly, by internal differences between those portions that do parallel the original Gospel stories, owing mainly to its treatment of those portions. In fact, the very parts that seem to offend most of the critics, the character of the Corporal, the “degrading” last supper scene, the barbed wire crown, the ironic resurrection, the final interment in the military monument and certain aspects of “character” of the Corporal, find their ethical and “theological” perspective, not in the codifications of institutionalized Christianity, which in A Fable is equated with “static religion”, but in “dynamic religion” as Bergson describes it.