The Past Is Never Dead, It’s Not Even Past: Memory, Trauma, and Obsession in The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!
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2025-06-15
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en
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The purpose of this study was to ascertain in what ways various forms of memory, trauma, and obsession shape the lives and behaviour of the principal characters of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1929) and Absalom, Absalom! (1936). The analysis relied on terms used in the fields of memory and trauma studies. The main conclusion is that characters in TSTF and AA who experience unresolved personal and collective trauma generally exhibit behaviour that displays a distortion of their perceptions of reality through obsessions and recurring memories, often leading to self-destructive behaviour. In the novels, Faulkner uses several types of memory to illustrate the relationship between memory on one hand, and trauma and obsession on the other hand.
Key words: William Faulkner; The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom!; memory; trauma; obsession
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