Father-Daughter Relationship in the Film, William Faulkner: A Life on Paper :: Movie Film Essays

Father-Daughter Relationship in the Film, William Faulkner A Life on ideaWhile the relationship between military chaplains and sons has been documented at length, the overprotect/ young lady dynamic figures less prominently in literary tropes in concomitant the last canonical piece I can recall variant was Euripedes Electra in high school. The tenuous relationship between Daddy and his small-minded girl, however, harbors depths much than personal and tangible than Greek tragedy and psychological analyses invoking the Electra complex. The emotionally void or aloof father in particular oft burdens the female psyche, for his absence proves just as palpable as his desire after presence, shaping the landscape of a daughters next relationships and the construction of a self-image fragmented and disjointed by an early and sexual knowledge of rejection and abandonment. Transcending characterizations attached primarily to filial duty as go through by the matriarch, the father f igure remains the subject of mythologization, just as Sylvia Plath turned her father into a Colossus, a cold, inanimate st champion building revealing none of his secrets or affection. If the absent or emotionally untouchable father takes on shades of grandeur for the daughter that knew little of him, one can only imagine the impression left by the father figure whose imagined significance in the eyes of his child is only matched by the reality of his fame. William Faulkner, A Life on Paper conveys an image of the literary colossus that both perpetuates the persona of the great American writer and deflates it. Representing the designer as a fallible man who endows the world with a floor legacy while leaving his own daughter little more than a few candid glimpses into his character, the film relays the commentary of Faulkners daughter as she attempts to piece together a sketch of an apathetic, mercurial, and brilliant father. Jill Faulkner Summers pulls from her shop pictures of her father as extremely courtly and elegant only when deficient a depth and sincerity in his personal relationships Pappy didnt rightfully care about people. I think he cared about me, but I also think I could have gotten in his representation and he would have walked on me. Faulkners coarse words penetrated more than the page as well. After imploring pappy not to succumb to other drinking bout, Faulkner informs his daughter, no one remembers Shakespeares child. The film, then, relates a father/ daughter dynamic built upon emotional lack, as the father expressly negates the significance of his own child.