Unvanquished by William Faulkner

¶ … Unvanquished: The silences and gaps The Unvanquished is believed to be one of the lesser works of William Faulkner on the grounds of its failure to internalize emotions or offer rhetorical descriptions of war. While there are many ways to study this novel and many reasons can be presented for its inferior status among other Faulkner's writings, I feel that The Unvanquished is a typical Faulkner story presented in a more stoic manner keeping with the character of the protagonist Bayard.

The fact that Bayard believes actions are superior to words may not have done well with the readers, but it actually offer a more in depth study of war than in other works by the author. In the days when The Unvanquished was written, there was a whole section of literature especially fiction devoted to the Civil War. Some of the writings were highly acclaimed for their vivid descriptions, their war rhetoric, its impact on people and the internalization process carried out through language.

But all these novels were replete with war cliches-something that you do not find in The Unvanquished, thus making the story more outstanding and more powerful than many would want to believe. Faulkner was not given the credit for creating a different war story- to treat Civil war in a more stoic manner than he usually did in his writings. This resulted in semi-death of The Unvanquished which is by all literary standards, a work of genius.

The whole point of this stoicism is obvious from Bayard's reflection on war at one occasion in the novel. The author wants to convey the message that there is definitely more to war than what meets the eye and it is what you cannot see which is more dangerous and hence more powerful. If we see Bayard not commenting on some situations, it is because the author expects us to detect the tension of war through Bayard' silence.

The following passage explains why Faulkner chose actions over words: "So we knew a war existed; we had to believe that .. Yet we had no proof of it.

In fact, we had even less than no proof, we had had thrust into our faces the very shabby and unavoidable obverse of proof, who had seen Father (and the other men too) return home, afoot like tramps or on crow bait horses, in faded and patched (and at times obviously stolen) clothing, preceded by no flags nor drums and followed not even by two men to keep step with one another, in coats bearing no glitter of golden braid and with scabbards in which no sword reposed, actually almost sneaking home to spend two or three or seven days performing actions not only without glory [plowing, etc.] ..

Father's whole presence seemed .. To emanate a kind of humility and apology, as if he were saying, "Believe me, boys; take my word for it: there's more to it than this, no matter what it looks like. I can't prove it, so you'll just have to believe me." (pp. 107-108) Bayard's silence on some occasions, the fact that he failed to internalize his emotions or articulate his feelings, can be blamed for the novel's relative obscurity.

But it is the same silence that should have served to raise the standard of this piece of Faulkner's because here the moral side of characters, the immorality of war itself, the real impact of destruction are all more prominent that in any other work by the author. It is what Bayard doesn't say that constitutes the core of the story. On many occasions, Bayard's actions are not accompanied by any thoughts.

This may leave readers craving for more since they want to understand why the protagonist is doing what he is doing but Bayard is not interested in articulation of his feelings. It is like he knew words could never do justice to how he feels. This is what he explains in the concluding chapter: "I realized then the immitigable chasm between all life and all print -- that those who can, do, those who cannot and suffer enough because they can't, write about it" (p. 262).

Bayard is far more mature than other heroes in Faulkner's fiction. He completely understands that words can sometimes fail to successfully shoulder the burden of true feelings. And this silence permeates the novel on several occasions. For example when Grumby's men rape a woman, the only words she utters are: "Kill them." Similarly when Granny, Bayard and Ringo watch their mansion burning, all that comes out of their mouths is "The Bastuds." The same language of absence, silence and reductionism has been maintained throughout the novel.

Faulkner deliberately chooses not to go into greater details of every single event because silence that fills the gap is more telling than the words. This is evident from the scene where Bayard is anticipating their arrival at John Sartoris' Mansion. This event could have been written about in great detail but author lets the silence do the talking.

But Bayard falls asleep during the journey and later muses: "the house didn't seem to get any nearer; it just hung there in front of us, floating and increasing slowly in size. ." (p. 30). The protagonist doesn't go into rhetorical justification of his actions on any occasion leaving a lot of gaps in between. His only real crime is killing Grumby which is approved by the society but hurts Bayard's own self -- image as he confesses to Drusilla: "They were men. Human beings" (p.

257) Details are missing and surrealism takes over as Bayard constructs his own world to make sense of the events. In one scene for example, he talks about the great locomotive chase that included the Confederates and Union troops in these words: "to have it happen, where we could have been there to see it, and were not: and this no poste and riposte of sweat-reeking cavalry.