Date Thesis Awarded
4-2019
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
English
Advisor
Varun Begley
Committee Members
Richard Lowry
Melanie Dawson
Charles Palermo
Abstract
This thesis examines the absurd aesthetic present in William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun (1951), in order to both re-open an otherwise disregarded text for more fruitful interpretations, as well as consider what constitutes a “successful” or “failed” text. By applying Albert Camus’s theories of the absurd developed in The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) and The Rebel (1951), a sense of logic or intention is revealed in Requiem for a Nun’s abrasive structural disjointedness and narrative incoherence. This absurd logic presents a subversion of the standards of successful narratives, as the text appears to self-reflectively meditate on the ability of a narrative to truly achieve significance.
Recommended Citation
Hani, Blake, "An Incongruous Present: Identifying the Absurd Aesthetic in William Faulkner’s "Requiem for a Nun" (1951)" (2019). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 1421.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1421
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Please italicize Requiem for a Nun in the title.