Faulkner's sketch "The Kingdom of God"
appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on April 26, 1925. The
idiot in the sketch served as a model for Benjy in The Sound and the
Fury, published four years later.1
That Faulkner had a religious theme in mind when he wrote the early story
is suggested by its title. Just what that theme is, however, is not immediately
apparent. "The Kingdom of God" describes the abortive attempt of two bootleggers
to unload some liquor in an alleyway in New Orleans. Their efforts are
foiled, however, by the presence of the idiot brother of one of the men.
The idiot, whose eyes are "clear and blue as cornflowers," has a narcissus
gripped tightly in one fist. While the idiot's brother is trying to distract
a policeman, the other bootlegger, in a fit of frustration, cruelly strikes
the idiot and breaks the stem of the narcissus. The idiot screams - "a
horse [sic], inarticulate bellow" - which attracts a crowd and draws the
police to the scene. The two bootleggers are arrested, and the idiot continues
to bellow until the narcissus is splintered with a sliver of wood and a
bit of string. Then, with a police officer on each fender, "the car drew
away from the curb and on down the street, the ineffable blue eyes of the
idiot dreaming above his narcissus clenched tightly in his dirty hand."
The "cornflower blue" eyes of the idiot, the narcissus clutched in his
hand, the breaking of the narcissus, the splinting of the broken stalk,
and the final tranquillity that descends upon the idiot and is reflected
in his eyes, are used four years later in the final section of The Sound
and the Fury.
"I wish you wouldn't keep on bringin him to church, mammy," Frony said. "Folks talkin."Dilsey's "white trash" are the modern Pharisees, whose self-righteous hypocrisy prevents them from accepting Benjy and thus excludes them from the kingdom of heaven. Dilsey alone seems to understand the meaning of the Easter sermon, which is filled with reference to children ("Look at dem little chillen settin dar. Jesus wus like dat once. . . . Ma'y settin in de do' wid Jesus on her lap, de little Jesus. Like dem chillen dar, de little Jesus"), pride and arrogance ("I hears de boasting en de braggin"), and humility ("de meek Jesus"). Dilsey, in her simple faith and enduring humility, says to Benjy, "You's de Lawd's chile, anyway. En I be His'n too, fo long, praise Jesus." The destructive pride and self-love of the modern world are symbolized by the narcissus5 which is clutched by the idiot in both the sketch and the novel; in The Sound and the Fury the narcissus represents the self-love of Mrs. Compson and her sons Jason and Quentin.6 Traditionally, the narcissus has symbolized egotism and conceit, but it is also the plant of nemesis.7 In the classic myth, Hera ordered Nemesis, the deity of vengeance, to punish Narcissus for his egotism, and Nemesis changed him into the narcissus flower. Also, the Fates wore wreaths of narcissus flowers, the scent of which was so painfully sweet as to cause madness, a reminder that narcissism, the symbol of egotism and conceit, will be ultimately punished.8 Faulkner's sketch, "The Kingdom of God," thus not only contains the model for Benjy in The Sound and the Fury but also the idea that was to be developed in the concludeing chapter of what Faulkner considered his finest novel. The idiot and his narcissus serve as both a symbol of innocence and a warning against overweening self-love. Acceptance of the idiot - an extension of Christian charity and humaneness to the "innocents" of the world - prepares one for entrance into the kingdom of God; a failure to do this through spiritual arrogance (symbolized by the narcissus) will result in destruction, "de darkness en de death everlastin upon de generations."9 NOTES 1. Carvel Collins, in his edition of New Orleans Sketches, was the first to note that the idiot in "The Kingdom of God" anticipated the character Benjy in The Sound and the Fury; see New Orleans Sketches (New Brunswick, N. J., 1958), p. 27. Quotations from "The Kingdom of God" are from this text; [the story is also rep. Above, pp. 45-48 - Ed's Note]. 2. Faulkner's interest in language is attested by his brother John: "Bill always claimed the English language didn't have enough words in it. I guess, so far as he was concerned, he was right about that. He certainly used just about every one there was and sometimes some most of us didn't even know we had. Every now and then I would think Bill had made up one but I'd look in the dictionary and there it would be. That's one thing Bill did for us. He made us become familiar with our dictionaries": My Brother Bill; An Affectionate Reminiscence, (New York, 1963), p. 264. Faulkner's ability to find the mot juste should be remembered when he describes the idiot's "heavenly blue" eyes as "ineffable." One of the meanings of ineffable is "too sacred to be spoken, celestial, divine." 3. Malcolm Cowley, ed., Writers at Work, The Paris Review Interviews (New York, 1958), pp. 131-132. 4. The Sound and the Fury, p. 306. All references to the novel in this note are from the Modern Library Edition. 5. Lawrence E. Bowling, in "Faulkner and the Theme of Innocence," Kenyon Review, XX (Summer 1958), 485, argues that "the narcissus has also a Christian tradition, for it is the flower which in the Bible is called 'the rose' and is identified with Jesus. Thus Benjy's narcissus, like Benjy himself, symbolizes not only the worlds selfishness but also its need for love." Bowling refers to Isaiah 35:1 and to the Song of Songs, 2:1. 6. In Sartoris, Narcissa receives anonymous, and obscene, love letters. In the short story, "There was a Queen," Narcissa gives her body to the blackmailer in order to get them back, preferring to sleep with the man rather than risk someone reading the letters and thinking that she is not virtuous. In Sanctuary a perverted sense of respectability causes Narcissa to betray her brother Horace and to have Ruby Goodwin driven from town. 7. See "The Language of Flowers," in Ernest and Johanna Lehner, Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants, and Trees (New York, 1960), p. 122. 8. Lehner, p. 73. 9. The Sound and the Fury, p. 312. |