Words are no good: Unconscious and language in the major novels of William Faulkner

This thesis is mainly concerned with the relationship between language and the layers of the human psyche and the ways in which psychoanalysis deciphers what is hidden in the unconscious of the characters of William Faulkner who is among the most significant literary figures of American modernism. In the first part,the concept of the unconscious mind will be discussed in the light of the theories of the most influential psyschoanalysists like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Jacques Lacan. In the later part, the focus will be on their contribution to the development of literary modernism, Lacan's reading of Freud through Saussure and Levi- Straus and the key concepts he introduced to psychoanalysis. Julia Kristeva's interpretation of Lacan's work on the unconscious and language will also be considered. In the final part, Faulkner's use of modernist literary techniques and his contributions to the narration of what is repressed in the unconscious will be studied. From a psychoanalytical point of view, the relation between the unconscious mind, repressed desires and traumas and how they reveal themselves during the development of the characters in his major novels will be analyzed.