Lees 1 Eric Lees Professor Rodrigues ENG 434 5/24/17 Of Myths and Monsters: Narrative Framing and the Power of Storytelling inAbsalom, Absalom! There is no question of the controversy of what some regard as William Faulkner’s magnum opus, the Southern Gothic novelAbsalom, Absalom!It’s sprawling and complexly layered and purposefully confusing and misleading narrative has proved to scare away many readers, even diehard Faulkner apologists. However, Faulkner’s overly obtuse deceiving layout is not one without rhyme or reason. By makingAbsalom, Absalom!as seemingly arbitrarily complex as it is, Faulkner is showcasing how one story can be shaped in so different ways by diverse interpreters, as well as attesting the power of mythical storytelling, what it does to the subject of the stories themselves, and how individuals can react to said stories, with comparisons between the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen to the American South pre and post-American Civil War. The reading and analysis ofAbsalom, Absalom!is made difficult due to its narrative style, in which the same story is told three different times in different ways by different people with different perspectives. American literary critic Richard Poirier within his critical essay “Strange Gods’ in Jefferson, Mississippi” citedAbsalom, Absalom!as being "a novel about the meaning of history" and how history is written by its various players through their own lenses.
