earticle

영어

Although William Faulkner inherited white racial prejudice from his traditional Southern community, he began to attack publicly the inequality in the black and white relations after the 1940s. Such anti-racist attitude was threateningly criticized by the white racists. The dialectical change from his racism to anti-racism results in his synthetic attitude toward racial problems. Accordingly, he took a so-called 'middle-road-position' in order to seek the solution to reconcile the conflict between the two races. To alleviate the torment caused by his middle-road-position, he drank much more alcohol for those days and thereafter created the comic novel, The Reivers, in his artistic world. In The Reivers, Faulkner portrayed, with his comic vision, an ideal, pleasant world similar to the 'good ole days' in which black and white races coexist in harmony. Ned McCaslin, a black comic hero created by Faulkner's brilliant comic vision, appears a fully developed individual. He is not 'an object of comedy,' but a subject of comedy, that is, he is a smart and intelligent black who controls a comic situation, not an inferior, rebellious and vicious negro stereotype.