Sanctuary’s Reversible Bodies
Sanctuary’s Reversible Bodies
This chapter examines the textual body of William Faulkner’s novel Sanctuary, focusing on Temple’s narration of her rape during a court testimony. It looks at the repetition of the singular neuter pronoun “it” in the novel and argues that it is Faulkner’s way of directing attention away from the violence of the girl’s traumatic rape. The chapter considers Faulkner’s grammar and syntax, and how they enact a semantic conflict in the novel between the grammatical violence of the body of the text and the material violation of Temple’s body. It also shows that the pronouns point beyond a simple denial; Temple attempts to reconstruct the rape in such a way as to reverse her own violation. The chapter suggests that Temple’s texts, more specifically her grammar and her crafty deployment of pronouns, open up a space for her own female agency and that Faulkner—much like Temple—attempts to reconfigure the white female body as a locus of power.
Keywords: rape, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, violence, grammar, syntax, pronouns, female agency, female body, power
University Press of Mississippi requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
