Comparing Bayard Sartoris of Faulkners The Unvanquished with the Cavem

Comparing Bayard Sartoris of Faulkners The unconquered with the Caveman of Platos republic Bayard Sartoris in William Faulkners The Unvanquished is en atonicened from an ignorant boy unconcerned with the horrors of war to an intelligent young man who realizes murder is wrong no matter what the circumstances. His transformation is similar to the cavemans transformation in Platos Republic. Bayard Sartoris journeys through Platos cave and finds truth and goodness at the end of the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Bayard was as ignorant as the caveman. Bayard heard only the stories of war, the cannon and the flags and the anonymous yelling.1 He didnt consider the reality death, bloodshed, and disease. His fathers stories of war were just reflections of the reality, shadows on the wall. Bayard paid no attention to the reasons behind the war. Bayard just imagined what it would be want to be General Pemberton or General Grant. Faulkners diction in the first chapter is full of descriptive references to shadows and darkness similar to the description of the wall in Platos cave. Plato depict the cave and its prisoners in the following way Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling, with an entrance a long way up, which is both open to the light and as wide as the cave itself Theyve been there since childhood, fixed in the same place, with their necks and legs fettered, able to see only in front of them, because their bonds prevent them from taming their heads around. stir up is provided by a fire burning far above and behind them. Also behind them, but on higher ground, there is a course stretching between them and the fire. Imagine that along this path a low wall has b... .... 5. Faulkner, 18. 6. Faulkner, 28. 7. Faulkner, 25. 8. Plato, 169. 9. Faulkner, 60-61. 10. Faulkner, 61. 11. Faulkner, 61. 12. Faulkner, 66. 13. Plato, 169. 14. Faulkner, 153. 15. Faulkner, 171. 16. James Hinkle and Robert McCoy, Reading Faulkner The Unvanquished. (Jackson University Press of Mississippi, 1995), 141. 17. Faulkner, 178. 18. Julia Annas, Understanding and the Good Sun, Line, and Cave, In Platos Republic Critical Essays, ed. Richard Kraut (Lanham Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997), 152-153. 19. Plato, 168. 20. Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, in Platos Republic Critical Essays, ed. Richard Kraut (Lanham Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997), 174.