Interpreting The Hamlet | Elyssa Dahl So that was out Its because of what it will do to me.

William Faulkners The Hamlet is a modernist exploration of the dichotomous nature between love and economics, and how that tension manifests in the people of the rural South. In the Eula section, Faulkner provides a glance at a woman whose captivating sexuality poses a threat to the established patriarchal order. It is through the consciousness of her schoolteacher, LaBove, that Eulas powerful allure is illustrated. His reflections on the morality of pursuing Eula are so deeply troubling that they have the potential to emasculate him. This technique as positing Eulaand women in generalas a threat to men is echoed in the novel as a whole and is emblematic of the inevitable destruction of traditional Southern society. What is most striking about LaBoves reflections on Eula is that he advocates switching roles with her, forfeiting his masculine position to take on her effeminate submissiveness. In his laments about being unable to be with Eula, he envisions, he would be like a young girl, a maiden, wild distracted and amazed, trapped not by the seducers maturity and experience but by blind and ruthless forces inside herself which she now realized she had lived with for years without even knowing they were there (132). Here Faulkners adoption of the feminine pronoun she is vague. Although we know it applies to the regendered LaBove in his dream, the same words could describe Eula discovering her sexuality. The impulse to understand the transformation of Eula into a knowing adult captivates LaBove so strongly that more than possessing Eula he would like to usurp her role. LaBoves masculinity is what gives him power in Southern society, yet he is blinded by Eulas allure. While LaBove revels in Eulas sexuality, he also feels the urge to destroy her. As he considers pursuing his student, he reflects, there would be times now when he did not even want to make love to her but wanted to hurt her, see blood spring and run, watch that serene face warp to the indelible mark of terror and agony beneath his own (132). Thus, his view of Eula as a purely sexual object is complicated. She not only attracts men for her beauty and innocence, but because she is lasting and timeless, and a potential source of life. Eulas power to create is just as threatening to the men of the rural South, LaBove included, than her ability to destroy their society. Were LaBove to destroy Eula, he would be confirmed that she was once a vibrant source of life, but it would also leave some indelible mark of himself on [her face], whereby he could watch it even cease to be a face (132). With LaBove at such a delicate state, it is clear Eulas mere existence is a threat. Despite the great power Eula possesses to destroy the institutions of men, men do not resist her. In fact, they dream of welcoming her into their lives. This is true not only of LaBove, but of Jody, Flem, and the boys who follow her around town. Faulkners use of the future tense suggests not that women might destroy everything the South knows, but that they will: I am afraid of what I might do, not because of her because there is nothing I or any man could do to her that would hurt her. Its because of what it will do to me (133). Like in The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, Faulkner alludes to the downfall of

established order. In The Hamlet, however, Eula ultimately threatens all of society, whereas Caddy destroys only her brothers and Dewey Dell her family name. By introducing Eula to The Hamlet, which was initially focused almost exclusively on economic exchanges, Faulkner complicates not only economics, but the role men and women play within Southern life. Eulas depersonalization into merely a face suggests that she could be any young, beautiful girl. If a generation of such girls emerges into a market-based society, it is inevitable that men will not be able to uphold their masculine power much longer. Similarly to how LaBove eventually gave up his masculinity freely, Southern men will soon give into impulse and disregard the ration that allows them to maintain dominance. Although women fail to have much direct influence on the course of life, their sexuality, as it is symbolized in Eula, affords them greater power to create and destroy than they would otherwise have.