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FAULKNER'S NOVELS CONTINUALLY RESIST a simplistic or binary description of race relations and patterns of socialized behavior. Race cannot be read as the absolute determinant of intelligence, moral quality or competence of his characters, nor does it represent a static system of power and social status. Rather race is continually revealed to be a central focal point for the formation of white subjectivity as in both the novel and Clarence Brown's cinematic adaptation of Intruder in the Dust. Despite their necessary differences, both versions of the story are primarily concerned with the emergent social and personal consciousness of Chick, or Charles Mallison Jr., who learns to negotiate and locate his own sense of self within the culturally ingrained conventions and expectations of his Southern community. Chick's development operates through his relationship with black characters who define the tension of his emerging manhood. Lucas Beauchamp represents the ultimate challenge to his sense of self while Aleck Sander functions as a comfortable affirmation of his superior social status. The significance of these two characters is demonstrated in the two crucial journeys that Chick takes away from his home environment, specifically, the rabbit hunting expedition and the exhumation of the Gowrie grave. In these sequences, both versions of Intruder in the Dust rely upon the creation of black characters as abstractions constructed by white psychic need. However, while the film consolidates white narrative power by focusing upon the role of John Gavin Stevens, the novel is more suggestive of an independent black voice. This significant difference ultimately makes the movie a more comfortable viewing experience for its 1950s white audience as it entirely denies black subjectivity.
Chick is introduced in Faulkner's novel as a boy struggling with his emerging sense of independence and with a desire to claim his own freedom. His entrance into manhood is largely hindered by his family, especially his mother who "would never really forgive him for being able to button his own buttons and wash behind his ears" (33-34). This excessive coddling is strongly emphasized in one of the movie's opening scenes during which Chick sits down to eat with his family. Both his parents are confused by their son's emphatic response to Lucas's incarceration and are bewildered by Stevens's statement that the...