Cole Elliott

ERH-481

13 December 2017

 

Senior Capstone Project: Literature Review

 

1. LaBudde, Kenneth. “Cultural Primitivism in William Faulkner’s ‘The Bear.’” American Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 4, 1950, pp. 322–328. JSTOR, JSTOR,  jstor.org/stable/3031223.

 

• LaBudde’s source provided me with a unique look at the southern culture aspect of The Bear. Given that the story is written by Faulkner, the average audience will suspect a Southern setting and resulting cultural spin, but LaBudde provides critical analysis of what the story does to depict that more vividly. I used LaBudde to look into all three aspects of my these—“rite of passage”, “coming of age”, and Faulkner’s linguistic and stylistic abilities and decision-making employed in the story to work to synthesize what I was trying to say and the connection amongst all three of them. In addition, the source was a great starting point to my writing process—and allowed me to build confidence in my paper moving forward.

2. Lehan, Richard. “Faulkner’s Poetic Prose: Style and Meaning in The Bear.” College English, vol. 27, no. 3, 1965, pp. 243–247. JSTOR, JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/373116.

 

• Richard Lehan wrties on how Faulkner’s style in The Bear is very similar to that of poetry. The source was, in many ways, the bulk of the body of my paper and served as the source that I extracted the most from. Lehan provides quality scene analysis—more so than any other source I consulted—and allowed me to integrate a credible scholarly opinion writing specifically relating to several different key scenes. Overall, this allowed me to really illustrate how specific scenes and character developments were consistent with my original thesis.

3. Bell, H. H. “A Footnote to Faulkner’s ‘The Bear.’” College English, vol. 24, no. 3, 1962, 179–183. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/373281.

 

• Bell centers his work primarily around questioning and uncertainties that he has compiled after reading the story. Many of these involve questions about familial structure within the story, but Bell also elaborates on many different thematic elements of the story as well. Bell’s source challenged me to further question what was occurring in the story, and I valued several of his insights regarding characters and their meanings from The Bear. Bell was not a source frequently referenced in my paper, but it was one that I think provided consistency and validation when he was referenced.

4. Proctor, Nicolas W. Bathed in Blood Hunting and Mastery in the Old South. University Press of Virginia, 2002.

 

• Proctor’s book was a source that came to me later in the game of completing my Capstone project from the suggestion of MAJ Knepper. Proctor has effectively done a wonderful analysis of what hunting really means—and what is truly under the surface of everything that comes along with the sport. Its regional spin—the American South—made it a natural choice for inclusion in my literature for my paper, and I thoroughly enjoyed going through and examining what Proctor had to offer within the book.

5. Gohdes, Clarence. Hunting in the Old South. Louisiana State University Press, 1967.

 

• Similar to Proctor’s source, Gohdes gave me a perspective very unique to the paper. Absent of academic writing embedded in research theorization and analytical qualities, the stories represented in Gohdes work allowed me to look through and think of what would truly help benefit and synthesize the experience of hunting—and it wasn’t too hard as he included two bear hunting entries. Gohdes realism in depicting the non-fiction element of hunting by providing the true conscious of the hunters—and providing the framework for the readers to imagine the conscious of the hunted—gave my paper a more surreal element that I was glad to include.

6. Faulkner, William. Go Down, Moses. First Vintage International Edition ed., Vintage Books, 2011.

 

• Finally, I referenced the actual text of The Bear for certain scene analysis and to literally state what Faulkner was saying. Utilized early in my writing, it was another source that gave me a start to my writing. I found that as my paper progressed, what I quoted early on from the actual text of The Bear and it became more clear that what I was revealing now through scholarly journals and such was adhering to what I had presented earlier from the literal text. Ultimately, the paper would obviously not have been possible without the literal text, but it also gave me another great perspective to represent Faulkner’s work directly in my writing.