The bloody corn cob is one of the most ghastly literary images I have ever encountered; indeed, I will be unable to drive past a harvested cornfield again without vomiting in my lap. Nonetheless, this symbol of abstract sexual aggression is an appropriate symbol for Faulkner's Sanctuary, a novel of vice after vice.
The novel's climactic action is the rape of protagonist Temple Drake (defiling the temple, eh?) with a corncob. Popeye, the perpetrator, evades justice through the aforementioned rape and two murders, eventually meeting his ironic demise at the end of a noose, convicted of the one murder in the novel that he did not commit himself.
It's hard to find a single likable character in Sanctuary. Even Temple Drake seems capricious and cold throughout. Her victimization, oddly enough, is more of a humanizing act in this context than a dehumanizing act; the juxtaposition of the corncob, a foreign object, against the very object of her womanhood, seems to punctuate this in a painful way.
Violence reigns throughout - castration, voyeurism, rape, murder, etc. Honestly, I was too busy gasping most of the time to do much deep analysis. This book seems to be further confirmation of Faulkner's abiding suspicion with humanity and wishy-washy misogyny. The fact that it was written just before As I Lay Dying, arguably a more sentimental (or at least more familial) novel seems rather strange.
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It was written before As I Lay Dying?
ReplyDeleteI agree that these characters were just not likable, and I didn't really care what happened to them.
I agree with everything you've said here, Ira. You make a good case. What I want to do is maybe take things a step further. Why the corn cob? Of all the objects Faulkner could have used in its stead, why the corn cob? Is he making a comment on the corrupt and violent nature of country life? Does the fact that the corn was itself once living and is in a way defiled by humans when we eat it have anything to do with it? Or was it simply chosen out of easy, just because (but as we are talking about Faulkner I highly doubt that this is the case)? The corn cob is an interesting choice, and it makes me wonder if perhaps POPEYE the Sailor Man's corncob pipe isn't as harmless as we may think...
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