From Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft: The Social Transformation as Reflected in The Hamlet

Abstract

ABSTRACT Popular criticism tends to consider that Faulkner is preoccupied with formal experimentation to the pint of obliviousness and indifference to the tenor of the times. However, Faulkner's works especially his late fiction is not only socially challenging but also politically radical. Based on Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, two key concepts by Ferdinand Tönnies’,this paper analyzed the social transformation in American South through the portrayal of FlemSnopes’ economic reform and innovation in Faulkner's The Hamlet and revealed it's profound effect on the whole society on which the identity of the modern American South are founded.In the dramatization of FlemSnopes and his kin, Faulkner depicts them as an allegory and challenges the blind faith in the so called progress of human society.