The Contemporary Novel: Sagging Conscience in Recent Fiction

As its major book review a recent issue of the Saturday Review carried an analysis of the second novel by a young American, William Styron. The novel, described by critic Granville Hicks as “rich and deep,” is Set This House on Fire, a violent and bloody story of Americans in conflict Its theme, as is so common among contemporary novelists, is the frantic and passionate search for self-satisfying pleasures by a trio of young men “without hope and without God in this world.”

In the course of his novel Styron introduces three characters to typify his view of man. The narrator is commonplace enough, describing himself as being “something of a square.” The villain of the piece is a despicable fop whose tales of his own manly exploits had enthralled his fellow students at prep school, and now as a young-man-about-anywhere he is still using any means to attain the selfish ends he proposes. The hero, as for want of a better term he must be known, is himself something of a villain by accepted Christian standards. But he is saved from general condemnation by the fact that his crimes are all for love, while his antagonist’s sole motivation is his own gratification.

A Window on Corruption

Mr. Hicks reminds his readers that Styron is a disciple of William Faulkner. In certain respects the comparison is obvious: both men reveal the true nature of man to be wildly passionate, innately corrupt; both writers settle upon physical violence as man’s most creative expression of himself—the thing he does best is self-destruction. In Styron’s book he includes most of the popular literary forms of brutality and bestiality: murder, rape, homosexuality, pornography, degraded drunkenness, illicit love, and so on.

To be sure, all of this, and sometimes much more, can be read in Faulkner. One need only recall the actions of Benjy, Joe Christmas, or Wash Jones to substantiate the statement. But there is a quality in Faulkner that is missing in Styron and in so many of his kind. Or shall we reverse the assertion and say there is an element in Styron, in Grace Metalious (Peyton Place and The Return to Peyton Placed, in James Jones (From Here to Eternity and Some Came Running), that is not apparent in the more mature and vastly more gifted expatriate from Yoknapatawpha. That certain something which shows through the writings of these younger, passion-ridden novelists is the flaw that distinguishes gold from pyrites. It is a superficial, self-conscious, ostentatious delight in presenting the sordid and ugly in life, in lifting the lid from the world’s garbage can to revel in its abominable state.

The Lost Power of Good Writing

One could almost judge that sensationalism has carried away any power of good writing these novelists possessed. Note might be made of the extent to which Styron, Metalious, Jones, and the others will go to stimulate and shock their readers. Styron permits gross obscenities among his characters at their Italian resort; Metalious wallows with her sometimes frigid, sometimes nymphomaniac Jennifer in atrocious masochism; Jones in a mildness that is itself dangerous creates a “peeping Tom” of a respected citizen. It seems that a malevolent contest is being waged in current American literature to determine which author can create the most hideous specimen of humanity.

Stripping Sin of Its Penalties

But Faulkner is rarely guilty of presenting “sin for sin’s sake.” Like Hawthorne and Melville before him, and unlike Poe, Faulkner is more concerned with the consequences of sin than he is with its lurid description. Why do his characters often meet a violent end? It is because of the wrong done in the past. Faulkner does not forget the biblical warning of judgment upon the children of the third and fourth generations because of the sins of the fathers.

For these current writers there does not appear to be a consequence to sin. Punishment may be enacted upon the guilty, or not, depending upon how skillful has been his preparation. In Styron’s story the law is represented as being benevolent because of the circumstances. Conversely, in the late Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger, the law, represented by an insensitive theist, is harsh and condemnatory. The French winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize presents a hero who, although he admits to a criminal offense, is not conscious of any sin nor of any need to repent. Metalious allows one of her vixens the distinct pleasure of beating an erstwhile assailant to death with a poker; another counteracts her mother-in-law’s plot to kill her by pushing the older woman down a flight of stairs to her death. Neither killer is subjected to the law’s retribution.

In so representing “life,” these writers affect or infect their readers strongly and divide their audience into three distinct groups: those who are revolted and repelled by the open and matter-of-fact presentation of sex and sin; those for whom the actions of the fictitious characters provide a vicarious thrill; those who find their own course of action and manner of living described and thereby gain justification for their own misdeeds.

The Breakdown of Decorum

The present crop of horror-mongers finds itself championed by the playwright, Tennessee Williams, whose goal seems to be the complete breakdown of all dramatic decorum in choice of topic and theme. With increasing daring Williams has descended the scale of decency from A Streetcar Named Desire to the sodomy and cannibalism of Suddenly Last Summer. The New York Times magazine section recently published an article which questioned the reason for such an outpouring of violence both on the stage and screen and in books.

In a subsequent issue of the Times, Williams defends his point of view and that of his literary fellow travelers, Camus, Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot, Krapp’s Last Tape), Lillian Hellman (Toys in the Attic), and Bertolt Brecht (Mother Courage). His argument in support of the morbid subjects he chooses is simple: his material and characters come not from the sewers of society but from the main stream of life. “No significant area of human experience … should be held inaccessible, provided it is presented with honest intention and taste, to … writers of our desperate time.”

The Exploitation of Decadence

This quotation itself reveals a point of view which lacks a major ingredient to make it acceptable to the Christian mind. Granted that the world is consumed by sin; that violence and injustice are front-page news; that juvenile delinquents vie with each other for top-billing alongside the adult gangsters. Granted that divorce cases attributed to marital infidelity are increasing; that moral standards have lowered immeasurably; that this is, as Tennessee Williams calls it, “our desperate time.” Granted that all this is true, the task of the contemporary writer is not to exploit the decadent condition. He may not be able to correct it, and he certainly cannot ignore it, but he can do one thing which Williams has failed to state: he can provide his reader with conscionable characters. No matter the intention of the author or his careful choice of words, he has failed to present life accurately if he ignores the conscience—both of his characters and of his audience.

What of National Conscience?

Our minds have been directed recently to thoughts of our national purpose. It may well be contended that any national purpose stems from a national conscience. Our generation appears to be lacking even the pin-pricks of conscience. The lack appears most strikingly in the literature of our time, full of protagonists who know no distinction between right and wrong, “having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” It is as a corollary, therefore, to our lack of conscience that we find our lack of purpose. No book, no matter how talented its author may be, can be considered “rich and deep” unless a positive attitude toward good and evil is engendered by the author through his characters to his readers.

Stony Brook, N. Y.

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