• Band of Brothers?The Complications of Fraternity in Faulkner's World War I Fiction¹
• John Wharton Lowe

Beware a brother,For every brother plays the role of Jacob,And every friend spreads scandal.One deceives the other …Fraud upon fraud, deceit upon deceit.

—Jeremiah 9:3–5

That was something that probably every soldier in war has felt … that my brother is the man I am trying to kill.

—William Faulkner

The first line of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina Tells us that "Happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." William Faulkner grew up in an unhappy family. His parents, Maud and Murray Falkner, did not get along, and their discord eventually had a negative effect on the relations among their four sons, whom they played off each other. William's envy of his brothers, which had begun in childhood, expanded exponentially when he and his sibling Jack joined the allied forces during World War I, a conflict that, like many wars, was read as pitting brother against brother.

Most people grow up alongside siblings, who have both positive and negative effects on each other. Psychologists tell us that these relationships are the gateway for friendships beyond the family, and more generally, to personal socialization. Faulkner repeatedly depicted troubled sets of brothers. Only bands of brothers, however, it is said, can gain victory in combat. I would like to interrogate this myth of fraternity, [End Page 1] examining its relation to armed struggles. Fraternity lies deep in the heart of our culture, and it permeates Faulkner's work, especially the magnificent stream of writing he produced from 1926 through 1936, from Soldiers' Pay to his masterwork, Absalom, Absalom!. Faulkner's troubled relations with two of his brothers meant that many of the narratives he created had much to do with what I call his "fraternal fury." This obsession led Faulkner into much more than biographical fiction, for in his quarrel with Jack and John Falkner he found a metaphor for war, regional animosities, finance capitalism, the split consciousness of literary modernism, and, finally, the tragic racial history of the region and nation, as he turned to the "brother in black" and interracial sexuality and conflict, particularly in the masterful Go Down, Moses, which dramatizes relations between white and black members of the McCaslin family.

War became for Faulkner a central pole of masculine identity, partly through the legacy of his great-grandfather, William C. Falkner, "the Old Colonel" who fought in both the Mexican-American War and the Civil War but also became the founder of a railroad and, more importantly, a successful novelist. Throughout Faulkner's life, he was fascinated with the circumambient and glamorous legend of the Lost Cause, reiterated endlessly by his great aunts, but he would condemn war as the ultimate human disaster. In his six World War I stories, and in his novels The Unvanquished, Absalom, Absalom!, and A Fable, we see this paradox repeatedly. What has not been noted, however, is that Faulkner felt actual combat would enable him to reclaim his prominence within his family and his community, which had evaporated after he became a high school dropout, a heavy drinker, and failed to achieve either a career or marriage and paternity.

How did Faulkner's envy of his brothers begin? Identity of any sort proceeds from the mother. As Maud Falkner's firstborn, Faulkner always had a special relation to her. When he was a child, his position as eldest and, for a time, the largest of the siblings presented him with privilege and power. Faulkner's solitary reign ended in 1899 when his brother Murry Charles Jr. ("Jack") was born. Two years later a second rival, John Wesley Thompson III ("Johncy") joined the family. Ominously, Johncy was born on September 24, a day before William's fourth birthday. This meant that for the rest of their lives, his birthday would be celebrated the day before William's, even though William [End Page 2] was born first. As the brothers aged, Jack—and especially the tall and handsome John—came to exceed William in size and in athletic ability and...

• 兄弟乐队？福克纳的第一次世界大战小说中博爱的复杂性¹
• 约翰·沃顿·劳

当心一个兄弟，因为每个兄弟都扮演雅各的角色，每个朋友都散布丑闻。一个欺骗另一个…欺骗欺诈，欺骗欺骗。

耶利米书9：3-5

那可能是每个战争士兵都感到的……我的兄弟是我要杀死的人。

威廉·福克纳（William Faulkner）

Ť他的第一线牛逼olstoy的 一个NNA ķ arenina牛逼厄尔我们， “H APPY家庭是相似的;每个不幸的家庭各有各的不幸” 威廉·福克纳（William Faulkner）在一个不幸的家庭中长大。他的父母毛德（Maud）和穆雷·福尔克纳（Murray Falkner）并没有相处，他们的不和最终对他们的四个儿子之间的关系产生了消极影响，他们互相延长了儿子的年龄。威廉对兄弟的嫉妒始于童年，在第一次世界大战期间，他和他的兄弟姐妹杰克加入盟军时，对他的兄弟的嫉妒成倍增长。与许多战争一样，这场冲突被理解为让兄弟与兄弟为敌。

大多数人与兄弟姐妹一起长大，兄弟姐妹对彼此都有积极和消极的影响。心理学家告诉我们，这些关系是家庭以外的友谊的门户，更广泛地说，是通往个人社交的门户。福克纳一再描绘陷入困境的兄弟。但是，据说只有兄弟乐队才能在战斗中取得胜利。我想审视博爱的神话，[第1页]考察其与武装斗争的关系。博爱深深地植根于我们的文化中心，它贯穿了福克纳的作品，尤其是他从1926年到1936年间创作的宏伟作品，从士兵薪水到他的杰作押沙龙，押沙龙！。福克纳与他的两个兄弟之间的关系陷入困境，这意味着他所创造的许多叙述与我所说的“兄弟般的愤怒”有很大关系。这种迷恋使福克纳不仅从事传记小说的创作，因为在与杰克和约翰·福克纳的争吵中，他发现了一个比喻：战争，地区敌对情绪，金融资本主义，文学现代主义的分裂意识，以及最后的悲剧性种族历史。地区和国家，因为他转向“黑人兄弟”以及异族性行为和冲突，尤其是在精湛的摩西（Go Down）中，该剧戏剧化了麦卡斯林家族的白人和黑人成员之间的关系。

福克纳的战争成为男性身份的中心极点，部分原因是他的曾祖父威廉·C·福尔克纳（William C. Falkner）的遗产。铁路，更重要的是，成功的小说家。在福克纳的一生中，他一直对周围的，迷人的《迷失的事业》传奇着迷，他的大姨妈不断地重申这一传奇，但他会谴责战争是人类的终极灾难。在他的六次第一次世界大战故事中，以及在他的小说《胜利者》，《押沙龙》，《押沙龙！和一个寓言，我们反复看到这种悖论。然而，没有注意到的是，福克纳认为实际战斗将使他重新获得自己在家庭和社区中的突出地位，这在他成为高中辍学，酗酒者之后就消失了，而他既没有从事任何职业或婚姻和亲子关系。

福克纳开始嫉妒他的兄弟们是如何开始的？任何形式的身份都来自母亲。作为莫德·福克纳（Maud Falkner）的长子，福克纳（Faulkner）一直与她有着特殊的关系。当他还是个孩子时，他的职位是老大，而且有一段时间以来，最大的兄弟姐妹给了他特权和力量。福克纳（Faulkner）的独占统治于1899年结束，他的兄弟穆里（Murry Charles Jr. Jr.）（“杰克”（Jack））出生。两年后，第二个竞争对手约翰·卫斯理·汤普森三世（“约翰西”）加入了家族。不祥的是，约翰西（Johncy）于9月24日出生，也就是威廉四岁生日的前一天。这意味着即使威廉（William [End Page 2]首先出生。随着兄弟俩的年龄增长，杰克-尤其是身材高大的约翰-的身材，运动能力和...都超过了威廉。