Perpetual Flux and Unchanging Singularity: The Ideas of Heraclitus and Parmenides in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Perpetual Flux and Unchanging Singularity: The Ideas of Heraclitus and Parmenides in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Part two of a forthcoming book called Collected Essays: Volume Two.

The pre-Socratic philosophers are often seen as the start of western philosophy and knowledge. Thinkers like Heraclitus and Parmenides preceded Jesus Christ by some five-hundred years. They looked at ontological and metaphysical issues, which we still think about today. Indeed, Heraclitus’ ideas on change have been compared with Einstein’s discoveries in relativity (Kim 2017, p. 28). Heraclitus emphasised how things always change. Additionally, he had aphoristic insights on ‘the logos’ and as to how we have to use our reason. Although he spoke about fire being the causal factor of everything, which might make him seem like a unitarian, he wrote about clashing opposites and how they create change. Meanwhile, Parmenides claimed that everything that we see has to come out of something and that something cannot come out of nothing. This led him to the extreme view that nothing changes at all and that we live in a continuous present and he thought that there was no creation and no end to the world. This essay will use these ideas in dealing with close readings of two seminal modernist texts – the novel The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929) and the play Waiting for Godot (1953) by Samuel Beckett. Faulkner used stream of consciousness and interior monologues and his novel covers many points in time and space. Everything is in a constant state of flux and, like many other examples of stream of consciousness, he makes associations between many different things. As such, this essay will compare the novel with Heraclitus’ views on the perpetual flux and it will compare the novel with Heraclitus’ views on the Logos and clashing opposites. On the other hand, Waiting for Godot is situated in the same point in space. The characters joke as to how immobile they are and how so little happens. This essay will apply ideas on ‘what-is’ and the ‘unchanging singularity’ to close readings of the play.

This essay will start by looking at Heraclitus’ views on the underlying unity of the world, which he called ‘the Logos.’ The ‘Logos’ is a multifarious term which was used by many philosophers from ancient Greece and it was integral to Heraclitus’ philosophy. For Heraclitus, it was a principle that created the whole of reality. According to the Logos, there is harmony in the world and there is an underlying rational principle which explains the natural world (Waterfield 2000, p. 32). There is an underlying unity to things and it is divine (p. 33). The whole world is intelligent and alive, it speaks to the wise man and it communicates itself to wise sages like Heraclitus (p. 32). The truth, for Heraclitus, is only accessible through divine understanding; that is, an understanding which exists beyond the natural world (p. 33). Humans live as if they are asleep and they are not aware of it and, although they are not aware of it, the Logos is accessible to everyone, but we fail to see it (p. 33). Indeed, Heraclitus states the following in one of his remaining fragments: ‘Things keep their secrets’ (2003, p. 9). The Logos, the truth of all things, is universally apprehensible (p. 33). The appreciation of things is like the underlying harmony; it requires reflection, not just naïve reliance on the senses (p. 33). As such, Heraclitus casts doubt on the senses and their ability to explain the natural world (p. 33). The data supplied by the senses requires judicious assessment (p. 33). However, Heraclitus places more emphasis on introspection than wide learning and disparages thinkers like Pythagoras for this (p. 33).

            This essay will now examine how the characters perceive the underlying nature of things in the final third person chapter, the chapter narrated by Benjy and Quentin. The final chapter takes place in a church, it is narrated in third person and it is preceded by three viscerally subjective chapters. God might possibly be the closest thing in their society to the Greek Logos, as God is meant to be an omnipresent entity who overlooks all of nature and is only accessible via divine understanding. The church also creates bonds of community amongst the Afro-American and white communities: ‘Thinks he ain’t good enough fer white church, but nigger church ain’t good enough fer him’ (Faulkner 1929, p. 246). The church creates these bonds, but its followers also try to access a divine order. They go to a space where they can come into contact with a divine entity which controls outcomes: ‘Serene, tortured crucifix that transcended its shabbiness and insignificance. (…) Yes, Jesus!’ (Faulkner, 249). Also, the material world is imperfect, as the crucifix ‘transcends’ its ‘shabbiness,’ which suggests that the raw materials fail to approximate its grands significance. Additionally, Heraclitus claimed that we are sleepers who need to wake up and use our reason. This is similar to a lot of Christian rhetoric, as many preachers talk about being ‘awakened,’ ‘redemption’ and ‘born again’: ‘O sinner? I see de resurrection en de light. […] Ye shall live again’ (p. 252). Heraclitus’ awakening involved the use of reason whereas this kind of Christian language is very emotive. Heraclitus was an elitist whilst the characters in this church, and many of Faulkner’s writings, are illiterate and poorly educated. Indeed, the first chapter of the novel is narrated by Benjy who is mentally challenged. Benjy cannot speak, read or write. As such, he relies on his senses and does not use his reason to observe the world. Interestingly, he is also obsessed with fire, one of the central aspects of Heraclitus’ thought.

            The main component of Heraclitus’ thought is the idea of the ‘perpetual flux.’ Although he spoke about the world having an underlying harmony, Heraclitus stressed the flux of things rather than their stability (Waterfield, p. 33). Everything is in a constant state of flux, which is why he opposed unitarians such as Parmenides (p. 34). There is an underlying unity, which he calls the Logos, but this underlying unity occurs at a deeper level (p. 34). On the surface, everything is changing all the time. He has a famous metaphor about a river and how you can never step into it twice: ‘The river where you set your foot just now is gone – those waters giving way to this, now this’ (Heraclitus 2003, p. 27). He states the following in another fragment: ‘Just as the river where I step is not the same, and is, so I am as am not’ (p. 51). Dying and living things are a single continuum and they are all relative to each other (p. 34). Although Heraclitus speaks about a physical flux, he also speaks about an epistemic flux (p. 34). That is, everything changes in the natural world, but the world of knowledge is also always in a state of perpetual motion. Although Heraclitus claimed that everything was always changing, we needed to use our reason, wake up from our sleeping state and look at the underlying unity of things (p. 34). Like other pre-Socratic philosophers, Heraclitus claimed that there was one element that caused everything in the natural world and for Heraclitus this fire was this element. For Thales, possibly the earliest pre-Socratic philosopher, water was the primary element. Everything is in a state of perpetual flux, but fire, the casual factor of everything, always stays the same, partly because it preserves life through warmth (p. 34). He also thought that it was a divine property from the heavens (p. 34).   

            The first two chapters in The Sound and the Fury jump across large periods in space and time. As such, they are similar to Heraclitus’ ‘perpetual flux.’ The first chapter is centred around Benjy, who has severe learning difficulties. Benjy’s mind jumps across several different points in time, presumably due to his mental condition. The font changes from roman numerals to italics so as to signal this, which is jarring for the reader. Additionally, Faulkner makes no attempt to contextualise each episode and this makes things more difficult for the reader. Heraclitus spoke about a physical flux and an epistemic flux, but this chapter is primarily comprised of a mental flux. Everything is indeed in a constant state of flux, but this does not occur in a linear way. Time constantly jumps backwards and forwards in time and different memories are usually ignited by certain feelings. A memory usually appears when he sees a particular object or smells something. For instance, he thinks of his sister Caddy when he sees a fence, as he used to spend time with her there: ‘We went along the fence and came to the garden fence, where our shadows were. […] We came to the broken place and went through it’ (p. 2). This reminds him of his sister Caddy: ‘Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through’ (p. 2). He once more thinks of his sister Caddy when his hands get frozen. Once this happens, time shifts to a peculiar sentence: ‘Caddy smelled like trees’ (p. 4). This section is also similar to Heraclitus’ fragment about not being able to step in the same river twice, as memories are constantly being revisited and they acquire new resonances each time Benjy experiences something new. On another occasion, a black character called T. P. talks about the fence: ‘You can’t do no good, moaning and slobbering through the fence’ (p. 42). This instigates a memory of his father talking about the gate: ‘How did you get out, father said. Did you leave the gate when you came in, Jason’ (p. 42). T. P. is also a figure of authority and he jumbles him up with his father, another figure of authority. Similarly, he thinks that he might see his sister Caddy when he sees a group of girls near the fence. Caddy has left the house years ago, but he thinks that she might be with them, even though she would have aged since then: ‘“I’m scared to cross the street.” “He can’t get out.” They came on. I opened the gate and stopped. […] They were going up the hill where it fell away.’ Of course, as Heraclitus claimed, time always changes, but Benjy does not grasp this due to his condition.

            Having examined Benjy’s section, this essay will now examine how Heraclitus’ ideas on the perpetual flux come through in Quentin’s section. By contrast, Quentin is a highly literate and educated character, but his section also includes fragmented, cryptic and idiosyncratic language. Faulkner attempts to recreate his mental breakdown, so he uses stream of consciousness, run-on sentences and unpunctuated sentences. Everything is indeed changing Quentin’s mind; it is once again a mental flux. Interestingly, he has ruminations on the nature of time: ‘An apotheosis in which a temporary state of mind will become symmetrical above the flesh and aware of both itself’ (Faulkner, p. 150). Similarly, he also writes: ‘Natural events and their causes which shadows every mans brow even Benjys and you not thinking of finitude you are contemplating…’ (p. 150). Here he writes about natural events and how time progresses differently for different people. There are natural laws and there is a universal clock, but humans often perceive this through a subjective prism. Certain moments seem to an ‘apotheosis’ and seem to stand apart from other perhaps more mundane moments. Benjy often fixates on certain memories to the detriment of others, for example. Faulkner uses stream of consciousness and the continuous unpunctuated sentences try to capture the way that we think. Indeed, we do not often think in paragraphs and grammatically correct sentences. We also associate different things together. Maurice Ebeleen writes that stream of consciousness lays bare the inner thoughts of characters and stops them from evading unpleasant truths: ‘Stream of consciousness narrative mode evacuates authoritative narration who may meditate, mediate and re-envision the characters’ experiences from a privileged position’ (2014). Indeed, Quentin thinks about different points in time and juxtaposes them within a single protracted sentence: ‘Let us sell Benjy’s pasture so that Quentin may go to Harvard, and I may knock my bones to go together’ (p. 147). Time also encapsulates everything. He quotes his father when he first gives him his watch: ‘I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. […] gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience’ (p. 63). Everyone lives within a universal clock, but time can also be mental and subjective, which led to Immanuel Kant claiming that the perception of time is a priori, as it precedes experience (Janiak 2016). Although the perception of time is mental and subjective, everyone it experiences it together, which is what Quentin’s father calls ‘all human experience.’ This is a universal clock, but Quentin’s father emphasises how it is perceived in a particular way by an individual: ‘fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or her father’s’ (p. 63). However, although there is such a thing as objective time, the subjective memory is selective as to what it remembers: ‘I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it’ (p. 63). Time is always changing in an endless perpetual flux, but it is possible for the subjective mind to wander off and detach itself from it: ‘I don’t suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You don’t have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then in a second of blinking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminished time you didn’t hear’ (p. 63). Indeed, time is always changing, but subjective perception is not always in harmony with it. Time is a priori and mental, as Kant would have it, but the perception of time is still intelligible to all of us and he calls this ‘the transcendental apperception’ (Janiak). Additionally, the subjective perception of time is different every time. Moments in the universal clock can feel shorter or longer depending on the individual, which refies the dynamic nature of time. Indeed, this is in keeping with Heraclitus’ view that you can never step into the same river twice: ‘I suppose it takes at least one hour to lose time in, who has been longer than history getting into the mechanical progression of it’ (p. 69). Quentin’s mind is indeed also in a perpetual flux and the deteriorating syntax represents his fragile mental state. Interestingly, Maurice Ebileen writes that Faulkner’s use of stream of consciousness is reminiscent of psychosis (2014). Unlike Benjy, he looks at the underlying nature of things – what Heraclitus would call the Logos – and has ruminations on the nature of time, which are in some cases similar to Heraclitus’ philosophy.

Finally, the other central component of Heraclitus’ thought is the idea of opposites. Heraclitus thought that clashing opposites caused the perpetual flux, but these opposites were heterogenous and they were commensurable with each other. This was also consistent with the idea of fire being the causal factor of everything, since although it preserves warmth it can also be highly destructive (Waterfield, p. 34). Opposites tend to go in different directions, but they are essential to each other. Indeed, he states the following: ‘From the strain of binding opposites comes harmony’ (Heraclitus 2003, p. 46). He uses the bow as a metaphor for this idea: ‘The cosmos works by harmony and tensions, like the lyre and bow’ (2003, p. 37). This tension might also suggest that there is an underlying order and unity in the world beneath the perpetual flux (p. 34). Indeed, many of Heraclitus’ arguments are consistent with this idea of clashing opposites. These opposites include perpetual flux/hidden stability, war/peace, strife/harmony and sleepers/enlightened rationalists (p. 37).

 The Sound and the Fury is similar to this, as it includes three sections which are narrated by very different characters. Quentin, Benjy and Jason have very different temperaments and writing styles. They have clashed with each other because they are family, but they are interdependent despite this conflict. Indeed, Stancey Burton writes the following: ‘All three authors in the novel complement each other in various ways’ (2001, p. 610). In Benjy’s case, his sense of time is skewed due to his mental condition, but his use of language is also highly idiosyncratic and defamiliarizing. Idiosyncratic means that there is a habit that is peculiar to that person whilst defamiliarization involves presenting normal things in a strange way. Benjy cannot even speak let alone write, but Faulkner deliberately writes in this idiosyncratic way so as to capture his way of thinking. He speaks about his sister smelling like trees and he later describes smelling the cold: ‘I could smell the cold flapping’ (p. 10). Benjy’s use of language is peculiar, as he does not know how to even differentiate between smells, particular objects or climates. It is peculiar to claim to ‘smell the cold’ or for his sister Caddy ‘to smell like trees.’ It is defamiliarizing, as it takes things we already know and presents them in an unusual way. Additionally, the reader might not be entirely familiar with Benjy’s condition when he starts reading this section of the book. Indeed, the reader is immediately confronted with very unusual language in the first chapter: ‘I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the fence’ (p. 1). Benjy is describing golfing, but he does not know what golfing is, or its terminology, due to his mental condition. Once more, the language is idiosyncratic and defamiliarizing. The writing style is quite episodic, detached and fragmented, which once more emphasises his limited cognitive abilities.

            This essay will examine Quentin’s use of language and his temperament and consider how he is the opposite of Benjy. Quentin, by contrast, is quite philosophical: ‘The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools’ (p. 63). He also writes about ‘constant speculation’ (p. 64). Benjy recounts surface level emotion and he uses peculiar language. Benjy has not even been socialised and does not have the cognitive ability so as to speak, learn, read or think. Quentin, meanwhile, offers philosophical ruminations on ontology and the nature of time. Benjy’s writing is episodic; he writes in a fragmented way. He writes in the following way: ‘and then… and then…’ However, Quentin’s style is more fluid, but his style becomes more fragmented and detached once his mental health deteriorates. His lexical choices are much more sophisticated and he uses complicated metaphors: ‘reducto absurdum’ (p. 63), ‘impervious shadow’ (p. 80), ‘affinity for evil’ (p. 80), ‘ubiquitous and garrulous’ (p. 81). However, his style becomes increasingly idiosyncratic as his mental health deteriorates: ‘Watching pennies more stars than Jews’ (p. 151). The later sections of this chapter have no punctuation, have run-on sentences and different ideas are enmeshed within the same sentence. Quentin is introspective and he is a Harvard student whilst Benjy is ‘an idiot full of sound and fury.’ Both chapters use stream of consciousness and interior monologues and reveal the interiority of the characters, but they portray different people. They are brothers and they are obsessed with their sister Caddy. As Heraclitus noted, opposites clash with each other, but they complement each other and develop each other. Both characters grew up together and had a formative influence on their character.

            The third chapter in the book is devoted to the character Jason. He is unpleasant and vitriolic by temperament and his use of language is colloquial and steeped in the vernacular of southern USA. Benjy and Quentin often use idiosyncratic language, such as ‘I saw them hitting’ and ‘Caddy smelled like trees.’ By contrast, Quentin uses more refined language, but it becomes more idiosyncratic. However, Jason has clearly been more socialised and his use of language reflects his local culture. Benjy has not been socialised at all due to his cognitive impairment whilst Quentin is more literary, bookish, lexically richer and detached from his local culture. Jason uses colloquialisms and he uses racist and sexist language which reflects prevalent social attitudes. He speaks in a sexist way about his daughter Quentin [no relation to his brother]: ‘Once a bitch, always a bitch’ (p. 153). He speaks thusly about blacks: ‘Six niggers that can’t even stand.’ (p. 153). He speaks in the vernacular of his local culture: ‘Well, I says’ (p. 153). He is aggressive by temperament, he chases his daughter throughout this chapter and he is prone to losing his temper: ‘You’ll lose your temper with her’ (p. 153). Heraclitus said that opposites are ‘like the lyre and the bow’ and that they depend on each other to make them function. Benjy, Quentin and Jason are all brothers, but they have all shaped each other in varying ways due to their upbringing.  

            Meanwhile, Parmenides is often seen as being the polar opposite of Heraclitus, since he claimed that things did not change at all. His philosophy started with the premise that anything that we can think about either ‘is or is not’ (Waterfield, p. 50). Indeed, it is often claimed that Parmenides’ philosophy is the first attempt at ontology (Sedley 1998), the study of being and existence. Parmenides makes a distinction between ‘what is’ and ‘what-is-not.’ ‘What is’ is something that exists and something that we can predicate things onto (p. 50). Thinking and being are interchangeable and co-extensive; we only think about things that exist, we do not think of things that do not exist (p. 51). However, we can clearly think of things that do not exist and Waterfield offers the examples of unicorns and the king of Australia (p. 51). Indeed, Parmenides says the following in the eponymous Platonic dialogue Parmenides: ‘For that which is said “not to be” is known to be something all the same, and is distinguished from other things’ (Plato 2015, p. 80). This means that connotations only emerge out of things that we recognise and that we cannot think of an ‘attributeless entity’ (p. 51). We can either say that ‘X is…’ or ‘X is not…’ and the ellipses are filled with different predicates. We cannot identify ‘being’ and ‘not-being’ precisely because the predicates are often different; a thing either ‘is’ or ‘is not.’ (p. 52). Parmenides emphasises that something cannot come to existence out of nothing (p. 52). ‘What-is-not’ has no properties, so we cannot explain how it can generate the properties of ‘what-is’ (p. 52). ‘What-is-must be’ appears to be deduced from ‘what-is can be’ (p. 52). These two propositions are identical, since there can never be anything other than ‘what can be’ (p. 52). Hence, ‘what-is’ is an unchanging entity, as ‘what-is’ cannot come out of nothing.

            It is possible to find similarities between Parmenides’ philosophy and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. The characters in the play really do exist. For instance, Vladimir says the following about Estragon: ‘I’m glad to see you back. I thought you had gone forever’ (p. 9). Estragon clearly is something and he clearly does exist. Anything that exists, according to Parmenides, either is or is not and we can predicate things onto it. Thinking and being might be identical and we can clearly think about something that does exist. In the context of the play, Estragon is clearly there: ‘I’m glad to see you’ (p. 9). The surroundings, however, are artificial and it is unclear if they are really there: ‘“A ditch? Where?” (Without gesture) “Over there.”’ We can speak about something if it has certain attributes and we cannot speak about an attributeless entity. Estragon speaks about sleeping in a ditch without specifying where the ditch is. According to Waterfield, we can think of a unicorn or a king of Australia in our minds, but they have no basis in reality. A ditch does have a basis in reality, but Estragon does not show us where this ditch is. Parmenides says that something must come out of something and that something cannot come into being out of something that does not exist. ‘What-is-not’ has no properties, so it cannot generate ‘what-is.’ The ditch cannot exist if we cannot find the point in space where it belongs. Otherwise, like a unicorn, it is just a product of the imagination. The surroundings seem to be artificial and Godot himself seems to be artificial: ‘“You took me for Godot. […] “Who is he?” “Oh, he’s a… kind of acquaintance.” “Nothing of the kind, we hardly know him. […] Personally, I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him’ (p. 23). Vladimir hesitates when he speaks about Godot and his language is evasive, which suggests that he is making it up. He is ‘a kind of acquaintance’ and this is preceded by ellipses, which suggests that he is unsure as to what he is talking about. Later on, they attempt to predicate attributes onto Godot: ‘“What does he do, Mr. Godot?” “He does nothing, sir.” “Has a beard, Mr. Godot.” “I think it’s white, sir’ (p. 92). According to Parmenides, X either is… or is… not and the ellipses are filled with different predicates. They attempt to impute different characteristics onto Godot, but they attempt to do so with an entity that does not exist, so it is therefore talking about a product of the mind.

            Additionally, the play also deals with religion, which raises further ontological questions: ‘“Did you ever read the bible?” “Do you remember the gospels?” “I remember the maps of the Holy Land’ (p. 21). The character that they wait for, Godot, never arrives. Hence, it is not clear whether he even exists and whether he has any properties. Godot is like much religion; he is not of this world. Many critics have recognised that the play has religious resonances (Amin 2019). We cannot speak about the properties of something if we do not know what generated these properties. Similarly, the ‘Holy Land’ is something supernatural and it is not of this world. It is something that we talk about and it is something that we can attribute things to, but it is not something that we can empirically verify; it is something supernatural. Similarly, Godot never appears and he is only talked about, so, like much religion, it is unclear whether he exists.

            Parmenides line of reasoning led him to claim that ‘what-is’ – everything that we see – is unborn, imperishable, entire, unique and unchanging, which he calls ‘an unchanging singularity’ (p. 52). Thus, Parmenides repudiated all of his predecessors who tried to explain phenomena with claims about creation and change and he posed a challenge to philosophers who came after him (p. 53). Creation must take place either from ‘what-is’ or from ‘what-is-not.’ According to Parmenides, ‘what-is’ exists in an unbroken continuum, starting from the infinite past and into the infinite future. Additionally, all parts of reality are part of a greater whole. Parmenides states the following in one of Plato’s dialogues: ‘Every part is part of a whole’ (Plato 2015, p. 40). He also says the following: ‘Parts, as we affirm, have a relation to the whole’ (p. 75). As such, he claimed that there can be no creation in the past or future (p. 53). However, ‘what-is’ is not imperishable, as the same arguments eliminate perishing (p. 53). ‘What-is’ is an unchanging singularity and it is continuous in space and time and all kinds of change are not possible (p. 53). ‘What-is’ is also complete, perfect and spherical, which would lead certain people to wonder what lies beyond the sphere (p. 54). He uses the metaphor of the sphere because a sphere is the same in every direction that you look at it, both from the inside and the outside (p. 54). Finally, Parmenides also has more of a theological bent than Heraclitus. A goddess claims that the unchanging singularity is an epistemological truth (p. 54). Mortals make the mistake of following the world of the senses, but there is only the world of the unchanging singularity, which is the world of reason rather than the senses (p. 55). This is similar to Heraclitus, as he claimed that the Logos was the world of reason and that it required the use of reason rather than the senses to understand it.

            The characters in Waiting for Godot seem to be stuck in a state of stasis. Time does not seem to pass; there is no past, present or future. At one point, the characters interact thusly: “That passed the time.” “It would have passed in any case.” “Yes, but not so rapidly” (p. 94). The characters joke as to how they are stuck in the same predicament – they are always together, waiting for Godot. Indeed, they mention that they never change: ‘“Very likely. They all change. Only we can’t’ (p. 48). They often emphasise how immobile they are and how they cannot move: ‘“Let’s go.” “We can’t.” “Why not?” “We’re waiting for Godot” (p. 48). Their purpose, and the purpose of the play, is to wait for Godot. So much so that they cannot move and they are always stuck in the same point in space. The characters themselves seem to become interchangeable and it is difficult to differentiate them: ‘“We know them. […] Unless they’re not the same’ (p. 48). The sphere in Parmenides philosophy is always the same every way that you look at it. In the play, they are always talking about the same thing and they are always talking about waiting for Godot. If Godot exists, he exists outside the sphere. All change in Parmenides is eliminated and, indeed, very little change occurs throughout the play. Indeed, the play ends with the same shtick: ‘“Come back tomorrow?” “Yes.” (p. 93)’ They always carry on. Godot seems to be their salvation, even if they carry on with the same repetitive routine: ‘“We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow. Unless Godot comes.” “And if he comes.” “We’ll be saved” (p. 93). Indeed, the description of Act II reifies this: ‘Next day. Same time. Same place’ (p. 55). Nothing changes; all of the characters meet in the same place and time with the same purpose.

            Heraclitus claimed that most people are in a state of sleep and cannot use their reason to see the underlying nature of things, which he called ‘the Logos,’ which is divine. The final chapter takes place in a church, the closest contemporaneous equivalent of ‘the Logos,’ as the characters attempt to reach a divine understanding. The character Benjy relies on his senses and he cognitively impaired whilst his brother Quentin, a Harvard graduate, uses his reason so as to understand the nature of things. Everything constantly changes in Faulkner’s novel. In the first chapter, time constantly shifts back and forth in time and this is due to Benjy’s condition. It is a mental, not physical, flux. The shifts in time are usually triggered due to certain feelings. Meanwhile, Quentin’s chapter also jumps about in time and his mental health deteriorates. He also has philosophical ruminations on the nature of time and as to how individuals perceive time differently from a ‘universal clock.’ This essay also examined Heraclitus’ ideas on the nature of opposites and how they complement each other. The three principal characters in the novel – Benjy, Quentin and Jason – are opposites who complement each other. Benjy writes in a peculiar way due to his condition whilst Quentin writes in a more sophisticated and literary way. Jason, meanwhile, writes in a way that reflects the local vernacular. Their personalities are all drastically different as well, but they have all developed each other in varying ways, which is in line with Heraclitus’ views on opposites. Waiting for Godot is similar to Parmenides thought, as the play does not change very much. The surroundings seem artificial and the characters ponder whether they exist or not. They talk about things which have no basis in reality, which is similar to Parmenides’ thought on ‘what-is’ and ‘what-is-not.’ The play has some ideas on religion and the supernatural, which is not of this world and outside ‘the sphere.’ Parmenides wrote as to how things need to come out of something, they cannot come out of nothing. The characters speak about things that do not seem to be real, such as Godot. Finally, the play is like ‘the unchanging singularity’ which Parmenides wrote about, as they always meet in the same place and they always wait for Godot. These are the aspects of Heraclitus’ and Parmenides thought which this essay has identified in The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

Works Cited

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Burton, Stacey. (2001) ‘Rereading Faulkner: Authority, Criticism and The Sound and the Fury.’ In Modern Philology. 48: 4.

Ebileen, Maurice. (2014) ‘Benjy’s Howl: Farom Symptom to Sinthome in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.’ In Figures in the Lacanian Field. 12:1.

Faulkner, William. (1995) The Sound and the Fury. Originally published in 1929. London: Vintage.

            Heraclitus. (2003) Fragments. Translated by Brooks Haxton. London: Penguin.

            Janiak, Andrew. (2020) ‘Kant’s Views on Space and Time.’ In The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/kant-spacetime/>

Kim, Yung. (2017) New Genesis: Hyperspace Revelations.

Plato. (2008) Parmenides. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Mississippi: Gutenberg E-book.

            Sedley, David. (1990) ‘Parmenides’ in Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward Craig. New York: Routledge.

Waterfield, Robin. (2000). The First Philosophers: The Pre-Socratics and the Sophists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

            Yamin, Momen Yaseen M. (2019) Symbolic Analysis of Waiting for Godot: A Critical Comparison Between the Bible and Quran Symbols in Waiting for Godot. In Studies in Literature and Language. 19: 3.