William Faulkner, His Eye for Archetypes, and America's Divided PDF
Preview William Faulkner, His Eye for Archetypes, and America's Divided
GGeeoorrggiiaa SSttaattee UUnniivveerrssiittyy SScchhoollaarrWWoorrkkss @@ GGeeoorrggiiaa SSttaattee UUnniivveerrssiittyy English Dissertations Department of English 7-16-2008 WWiilllliiaamm FFaauullkknneerr,, HHiiss EEyyee ffoorr AArrcchheettyyppeess,, aanndd AAmmeerriiccaa''ss DDiivviiddeedd LLeeggaaccyy ooff MMeeddiicciinnee Geraldine Mart Harmon Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn Harmon, Geraldine Mart, "William Faulkner, His Eye for Archetypes, and America's Divided Legacy of Medicine." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2008. doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1059560 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WILLIAM FAULKNER, HIS EYE FOR ARCHETYPES, AND AMERICA’S DIVIDED LEGACY OF MEDICINE by GERALDINE MART HARMON Under the Direction of Dr. Thomas L. McHaney ABSTRACT The medical division between constitutional homeopathy and allopathic medicine shaped the culture in which William Faulkner grew up and wrote. Early 20th century America was daily subjected to a variety of conflicting approaches to maintaining or recovering physical, psychological, or spiritual health. The culture was discussing the role of vitalism for good health; the use and dosage of medicine to treat the individual or to treat the disease instead; the interaction of the mind, body, and spirit; the tendency of personality to emerge from inherent biology or acquired traits; the varied explanations for illness; and the legitimacy of doctors, their philosophies, and their remedies. These competing definitions of psycho-biological health informed Faulkner’s character conceptions and portrayals. In their psycho-biological traits, some of his characters represent concurrently published homeopathic descriptions of constitutions quite accurately. Faulkner’s own life may have offered him opportunities to learn about alternative medicine and generated an interest--along with other medical dissidents--in opposing the newly-garnered authority of modern scientific medicine. It is also likely that Faulkner’s own beliefs about a divinity present in humans and the human capacity to neglect their spiritual essence would have instead supported the older, more romanticized, homeopathic ideas based on mind-body typology to balance an invisible vitalism. Medicine and literature has recently established itself as an engaging and complementary-paired field in the humanities. This study contributes to the maturing interdisciplinary field by contemplating a famous author and some of his character portrayals from a medical or health perspective. This study of the writer and his fictional people suggests that the unorthodox ideology of homeopathy continued to play a role in the culture through literature, even as it lacked legitimate authority from the newly established medical community. INDEX WORDS: William Faulkner, Character study, History of medicine, Medicine and literature, Alternative medicine, Homeopathy, Energy medicine, Mind-body typology, Theories of personality. WILLIAM FAULKNER, HIS EYE FOR ARCHETYPES, AND AMERICA’S DIVIDED LEGACY OF MEDICINE by GERALDINE MART HARMON A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the College of Arts and Science Georgia State University 2008 Copyright by Geraldine Mart Harmon 2008 WILLIAM FAULKNER, HIS EYE FOR ARCHETYPES, AND AMERICA’S DIVIDED LEGACY OF MEDICINE by GERALDINE MART HARMON Committee Chair: Thomas L. McHaney Committee: Nancy Chase Marti Singer Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University August 2008 iv DEDICATION This project is dedicated to the memory of my father Albert Mart, a life-long electrician who understood the risks and rewards of directing energy to overcome obstacles. His humble ingenuity is deeply missed. It is also dedicated to the memory of my mother Camille Mart, an artist in disguise who brought a delicate, precise, and disciplined touch to her pursuits, and whose greatest fulfillment emanated from not simply raising, but shaping, her children. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to recognize the patience of my dissertation committee and their helpful suggestions throughout this process, particularly the suggestions from Dr. Thomas L. McHaney, whose buoyant optimism never wavered. I also wish to acknowledge my committee who offered steady encouragement for an unconventional union of topics. I wish to acknowledge my husband Jonathan who shared my desire to complete this project with equal sacrifice, and my son Jackson who inspired the essential idea on which this work is founded. I am also indebted to my valuable friend Kokila Ravi who provided sanctuary from demands that threatened to interfere with this task. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the early interest and support from an older generation of general practitioner doctors who attended a conference at The Medical College of Georgia. Perhaps they grew up on Faulkner and are similarly intrigued by his characters. Perhaps homeopathy is a taste of forbidden fruit that they allowed themselves to experience only now. Or perhaps these medical generalists, like some of their unlikely predecessors, the constitutional prescribers of homeopathic remedies, tend to use their diagnostic eye to observe some fictional characters as patients. If some homeopathic concepts are still alive anywhere in the regular medical community today, I suspect it may be with the oldest of the doctors of family medicine who, unlike specialists, consider their patients’ psycho-biological health. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: Why Combine Faulkner and Homeopathy? 10 CHAPTER TWO: The Roots of American Homeopathy 19 CHAPTER THREE: A Homeopathic Diagnosis of Faulkner 38 CHAPTER FOUR: Biographical Evidence of Faulkner’s Medical Associations 75 CHAPTER FIVE: Literary Evidence--Representations of Selected Characters and Their Homeopathic Archetypes 105 CONCLUSION 148 WORKS CITED 153 WORKS CONSULTED 159 1 Introduction The ideological conflict between members of the newer, regular, allopathic medicine and the older, “irregular,” or homeopathic medicine created a prevailing discourse at the turn of the 20th century. Homeopathy, widely practiced throughout the 19th century, was effectively driven underground by the new medical establishment. Physicians of both camps were suspicious of each other, leaving common people who needed medical care to decide for themselves which group to follow. The powerful American Medical Association forced homeopaths out of legitimate practice, forbidding regular doctors to treat patients who had consorted1 with homeopaths or risk losing their licenses. But homeopaths, effectively branded as medical heretics, did not completely disappear from circulation. In fact, in early 20th century America, homeopathy expanded its practice from treating primarily physical illnesses toward identifying and treating emotional and psychological symptoms coupled with, and linked to, the physical ones. Constitutional homeopathy took a developmental leap forward, and it claimed to be able to diagnose and treat specific illnesses based on a patient’s unique collection of psycho- biological symptoms. American homeopaths of the late 19th century added significantly to the descriptions of the various types or portraits evident in human nature, and it thus broadened the symptom portraits already established by the homeopathic archetypes. Homeopathy asserted that its medicines or remedies balanced the patient’s disturbed “vitalism,” responsible for producing overall health. The cultural context of such medical division, William Faulkner’s family history of serious illness and alcoholism, family visits to “cures,” and his own reading about 1 Notice the pejorative choice of the the word “consorted” instead of “consulted.”
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