SOURCE: Holland-Toll, Linda J. “Absence Absolute: The Recurring Pattern of Faulknerian Tragedy.” Mississippi Quarterly 51, no. 3 (summer 1998): 435-52.

In the following essay, Holland-Toll explores the pattern of alienation and absence in Faulkner's tragic novels.

Between the conception           and the creation Between the emotion           and the response           Falls the Shadow                     Life is very long(1) 

At the heart of Faulknerian tragedy lies the Shadow, the absolute absence of any other and complete alienation from the communion through which life and love flourish. In many Faulknerian tragedies, a character, at times a seemingly marginalized character, lies at the center of an abnegation of humanity so widespread that this corrupting condition defines the Void as the heart of tragedy. This corruption, through which all positive values are perverted, abrogates the capacity for and importance of any positive community-oriented values and results in its victims' inability to live lives that are other than those...