The 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
Bayard is far more mature than other heroes in Faulkner's fiction. It is what Bayard doesn't say that constitutes the core of the story. This is because the author has used a different technique this time to effectively highlight the problems and conflicts of war that words may sometimes fail to impress upon the readers. There is something more disturbing and darker about this book than we would find in other writings of Faulkner. 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 . This resulted in semi-death of The Unvanquished which is by all literary standards, a work of genius. 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. 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. 257) Details are missing and surrealism takes over as Bayard constructs his own world to make sense of the events. The whole point of this stoicism is obvious from Bayard's reflection on war at one occasion in the novel.
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