A SHORT ANALYSIS OF POSTMODERNISM IN THE NOVEL OF

“ABSALOM, ABSALOM!” BY WILLIAM FAULKNER

Rizky Setiawan5190511104

The development of postmodernism in literature has been widespread rapidly

in 1970s and it was being popularized by Inhab Hassan on 1985. Postmodernist
literature can be a splendid way to enrich the reader’s self-consciousness to be more
concerned for such various issues that happens in a real world. Faulkner was being
the most influential-writer of American Literature in the late nineteenth century.
Thanks to the complexity of his writing style that makes him become inevitable in
literature and Faulkner acquired a Nobel Prize Lauerete from Oxford as given an
outstanding contribution in literary world. “Absalom, Absalom!” is one of the pivotal
novel in American Literature which was written by an American. Hence, in this
essay, the writer wants to identify and analyze the postmodernism framework in
which consist of maximalist structure of writing style, a grain of faction, and temporal
distortion within the novel of “Absalom, Absalom!” by William Faulkner.

Postmodernism is the movement of ideas to change of the era of modern

(Leahy, 1985: 271) or it can be simply defined as the endeavor to re-revise the
modern paradigm in literature (Emanuel, 2006: 93). Postmodernism was being
popularized by Hassan with his book entitled “The Culture of Postmodernism” on
1985. This terms Postmodernism means it mostly related to the question about world
and how to change one world to another outweigh experiences. It represents how the
realism occurs in real world compare to the works of literature story in order to
persuade the reader to aware the different ontological levels and considering the facts
data from real-events occasions. Hence, postmodernism can be assumed as a meta-
fiction, unreal events, self-reflection and interconnected between each other
timelines.
 In terms of literature, maximalist means a writing style that is broad and
complex which involving variety of elements. Maximalist can be defined as
disorganized, lengthy, and highly detailed writing. It is evident that the significance
of his highly detailed writing from one sentence to examine the suffering conditions
from the fourth chapter of novel, “sardonic cerebral pity of the intelligent for any
human injustice or folly or suffering” (pg. 83). Furthermore, in specific terms,
disorganized means an adequate order, systematization, planning and uncoordinated
(Cambridge Dictionary). It is clearly shown to the readers if Faulkner’s works, within
this novel, is extremely lengthy and unsystematically arranged. For instance, in
accordance to the early chapter 7, Faulkner’s examine the condition of Quentin
Compson heard a story from his grandfather who spent the time with Sutpen during
Civil War, “’That’s the way he got it. He had learned the difference not only between
white men and black ones, but …where regiments of niggers with white men
watching them planted and raised things that he had never heard of.” (pg. 171-173).
This long paragraph merely represent an occasion with a lengthy structure and verily
detailed of the phenomenon of each character have.

Faction is the way one author combine the actual historical events with
fictional events without clearly defining what is factual and what is fictional. It is
obvious that the setting of the story where often comes up in each chapter is the city
of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi county. Yoknapatawpha is the fictional city which
created by Faulkner as the main region where mostly the whole plot runs.
Yoknapatawpha is derived from two Chickasaw words which means a split land
where the ideas of racism and being a cursed language to pull out the racial effects
the descriptions of individuals. A grain of faction is eventually similar with the
greatest historical facts of USA such as Civil War of American since 1861 to 1865.
Many scholars assume that Yoknapatawpha is the location where many slavery
occurred towards the black in Southern of America like Mississippi, Virginia.
Kentucky and so on. According to the Historical Statistics of the U.S (1970), US
slaves lived primarly in the South which less than a tenth of the total Southern
population in 1680 grew considerably to a third by 1790. The data shown that the
number of slavery reach 293.000 slaves lived in Virginia and Mississippi states,
making up 42 percent of all slaves in the USA. Hence, the writer assumes that
whether Yoknapatawpha is fictional county or not, yet it could be seen as a
representative region where all the slavery happened in the Southern America.

The majority of the timeline which Faulkner’s applied in this novel is a non-
linear and his narrative skills depict a stream-consciousness plot, in spite of the real-
events of his life that he present within it. This terms is so-called a temporal distortion
where the style of one writer to put past-present-future events randomly in each
chapter. It is all about the time perception where Faulkner’s give an insight towards
his works what is going to be comes up in the near future – within the context of
“Absalom, Absalom!”. It can be seen from the first chapter where Faulkner’s wrote
about a lady, Ms. Rosa Coldfield, who narrated the whole story about the impacts by
a main character, Thomas Stupen, deeds in her life and the city. The first chapter
appear as an introductory chapter yet evidently given a view regarding the upcoming
events that is highly likely to occur. In simply, Faulker’s uses this technique in
oftentimes, specifically for the sake of irony, where jump forwards and backwards in
time randomly in each chapter.

By way of conclusion, the writer has identified and analyzed the

postmodernism within the novel by William Faulkner entitled “Absalom, Absalom!”.
As a consequence, it is true that Faulkner’s apply such a typical maximalist style of
writing, give a few insight about the similarity between fictional and real world, and
the plot that can be classified as stream-consciousness or so-called temporal distortion
technique of writing towards the novel of “Absalom, Absalom!”.