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<title> Juxtaposition and Multiple Point of View </title>
The aim of this essay is to answer exam question number two which means that I am going to "discuss the use of juxtaposition and multiple point of view in the texts on the course". For this purpose I have chosen three works, namely; Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway, and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. In addition to the primary texts I will consider critical material in the form of four different articles: The Feminine in Winesburg, Ohio by Sally Adair Rigsbee, Hemingway's In Our Time: A Cubist Anatomy by Jaqueline Vaught Brogan, "Only Let the Story End As Soon As Possible": Time-and History in Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time by E.R Hagermann, and The Making of a Modernist by Daniel J. Singal.

In the society of Winesburg, Ohio there is a huge incongruity between men and women. It almost seems like the two sexes are two different spieces, which do not speak the same language. Men and women in Winesburg, Ohio do not understand each other; they do not communicate. "In Winesburg, Ohio communication is blocked because of the devaluation of the feminine qualities of vulnerability and tenderness...(Adair Rigsbee p.178). As a result nobody is happy and people suffer. The women in Winesburg, Ohio are looked upon as sexual objects by the men but this is not at all what they want. They feel that they need to be seen for what they are; human beings with a mind, a heart, and a soul. 

	The women are 'invisible' because their real identities are eclipsed by their 
	social roles. The relationships between the men and women of Winesburg
	are corrupted and uncreative, for their acceptance of conventional sexual roles
	prevents them from experiencing the genuine communication that comes when
	relationships are equal and reciprocal. The neediness, frustration, and failure
	that encompass the lives of Louise Bently, Alice Hindman, Elizabeth Willard,
	and Kate Swift are the result of the discrepancy between their own capacity for
	intimacy, affection, and creativity and the inability of others, especially the men 
	in their lives, to 'see' or to relate to who they really are. (Adair Rigsbee p.179)

Louise Bently, Alice Hindman, Elizabeth Willard, and Kate Swift are all searching for something, but the women in Winesburg are not only in striking contrast to the men but also to themselves. An example of this is Louise Bently who grew up on a farm outside Winesburg. She was a very lonely girl and all that she wanted was love. In her teens she believed that life was different in town. There people would live happy lives in contrast to the unhappiness that she felt living outside town. 
	Always when she had thought of the matter, it had seemed to her that in town 
	all must live happily and freely, giving and taking friendship and affection as
	one takes the feel of a wind on the cheek. (p.46)

Louise Bently met John Hardy and she wanted to make friends with him. A friend was all that she wanted. "she wanted him to come close to her, to hold her in his arms, to tell her of his thoughts and dreams and to listen while she told him her thoughts and dreams." (p.49)
John Hardy and Louise Bently are a typical example of the contrast that exists between men and women of Winesburg. John Hardy did not know or understand what Louise Bently wanted. "Louise Bently took John Hardy to be her lover. That was not what she wanted but it was so the young man had interpreted her approach to him, and so anxious was she to receive something else that she made no resistence." (p.51) 

The way this book is written we know for certain that Louise Bently is not the only unhappy person in Winesburg. Each chapter in the book concerns one or more of the inhabitants of Winesburg and this gives the reader a multiple point of view of what life is like there. There are the hotel owners Tom and Elizabeth Willard, the newspaper reporter George Willard, the banker John Hardy, the telegraph operator Wash Williams, the teacher Kate Swift, the art student Enoch Robinson, the reverend Curtis Hartman, et cetera. The book also deals with people in different generations, which add multiple point of view as well as contrast. Take for example Elizabeth Willard and her son Geroge. Geroge is young and he plans to leave Winesburg. So did his mother when she was young but her dreams died and she is still in Winesburg.

In Winesburg Ohio, we are given a multiple point of view of a place, which is not the case in the next text: In Our Time. Here, as the title suggests, the characters give us a multiple point of view of the time. "the total text of In Our Time does not move chronologically at all, but rather evokes different senses of time /. . . /-to convey the complicated nature of 'our time' or of modern reality." (Vaught Brogan p.6) However, it is not only through the lives of the different characters that we receive a multiple point of view but also through Hemingway's special use of language. 
	At the level of style, however, cubism helps to explain Hemingway's rather
	astonishing use of repetition to achieve, ironically, not similar but differing
	perspectives. (Vaught Brogan p.6-7)

"He could never remember just when it was decided that they were to be married. But they were married." (Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, p.86) In the interchapters it is more obvious exactly what time it is that Hemingway wants to describe. "for what Hemingway has done is to reconstruct a decade, 1914-1923." (Hagemann p.192) All these interchapters take place in different parts of the world, Belgium, France, Italy, Greece, et cetera, which also adds to a broader picture.

These interchapters could also be considered as a contrast to the longer chapters. In length the interchapters are usually half a page whereas the length of the other stories varies from seven to eighteen pages. There is also a contrast in meaning and content between the interchapters and the longer stories. The interchapters mostly deal with war and violence whereas the stories depict things that make life meaningful, such as friendship, relationship, and love. When it comes to the characters, Nick Adams, is the person who occurs most frequently and in his personality we find some incongruity, especially when it comes to his girlfriend Marjorie. Nick breaks up with her but he really does not know why; there is just something going on inside him. "I feel as though everything was gone to hell inside of me." (p.34) 

	All he knew was that he had once had Marjorie and that he had lost her.
	She was gone and he had sent her away. That was all that mattered. He
	might never see her again. Probably he never would. It was all gone, finished.
	(p.47)

Nick seems to be fighting a battle inside himself. His feelings are in contrast. He wants to break up with Marjorie but he also wants to have her. Nick's friend Bill mentions that perhaps they can get back together some day and that makes Nick feel better. "He felt happy now. There was not anything that was irrevocable / . . . / He felt happy. Nothing was finished. Nothing was ever lost." (p.48) Another aspect of juxtaposition, or contrast, deals with the structure of In Our Time. 
	Should we regard In Our Time as a mere collection of short stories?...Should we 
	regard it as a short story cycle?...Or should we regard it as something more 
	integrated, perhaps even a "fragmentary novel," as D.H Lawrence called it and 
	as Hemingway himself. (Vaught Brogan p.1)

Both Winesburg, Ohio and In Our Time consists of several different stories dealing with a great number of people in society but there are no regular main characters (unless George Willard and Nick Adams are looked upon as main characters) as there are in the novel The Sound and the Fury. This text is not about a society but a family where the members are in striking contrast to each other. Caroline and Jason Compson are the parents of four children and their relationship is filled with incongruity. This is Caroline, the mother, speaking:
	How can I control any of them when you have always taught them to have no 
	respect for me and my wishes I know you look down on my people but is that
	any reason for teaching my children my own children I suffered for to have no
	respect (p.61)

Mr. and Mrs. Compson obviously do not agree on how their children should be treated. This is the mother speaking again: "I will not have my daughter spied on by you or Quentin or anybody no matter what you think she has done" (p.61) Caroline also had this idea that her husband thought that he came from a better family than she and the difference between their families is a big issue in their relationship:
	Jason I must go away you keep the others I'll take Jason and go where nobody
	knows us so he'll have a chance to grow up and forget all this the others dont 
	love me they have never loved anything with that streak of Compson selfish-
	ness and false pride Jason was the only one my heart went out to without dread
	(p.65)

Anyhow, not only the characters but also the author of The Sound and the Fury had this feeling of discrepancy. In Faulkner's case the contrast within himself had to do with the two different eras that he belonged to. He could not decide if he was a Victorian writer or a Modernist so he considered himself as a member of both eras. William Faulkner himself made the statement: "I think that a writer is a perfect case of split personality" (Singal p.15)
	All his life Faulkner would struggle to reconcile these two divergent approaches
	to selfhood-the Victorian urge toward unity and stability he had inherited as a
	child of the southern rural gentry, and the Modernist drive for multiplicity and 
	change that he absorbed very early in his career as a self-identifying member of
	the international artistic avant-garde. (Singal p.15)

In the novel The Sound and the Fury multiple point of view is expressed in the structure of the text. The novel consists of four different sections and all of them have different narrators. The first three sections are narrated as follows: Benjy, Quentin, and Jason (the three sons of Mr. and Mrs Compson). All these characters tell us things about their family. They let us enter their minds and we get to know how they experience their family situation. Time is another very important part when it comes to multiple point of view in this novel. Sometimes we are in the narrative present and then all of a sudden we have moved to the past. The italics in the text denote a change in time:
	But why did she The chimes began as I stepped on my shadow, but it was
	quarter hour. The Deacon wasn't in sight anywhere. think I would have
	could have (p.61)

This change in time occurs frequently and it adds a multiple point of view of the characters and their lives. Also Faulkner's way of using the language gives us a multiple point of view. His sentences are often incomplete as in the quote above and that makes us see things differently. The fourth and last section of the novel is told by a third person narrator and it does not contain a change of time.

As we have seen these three texts contain a large amount of juxtaposition and multiple point of view. In Winesburg, Ohio the men are in contrast to the women and all the different stories give us a multiple point of view of life in Winesburg. In In Our Time I chose to take up the discrepancy that Nick feels inside him and the contrast that the interchapters are in relation to the longer stories. Al the different stories give us a multiple point of view of a specific time period rather than a place, as the case is in Winesburg, Ohio. Hemingway also uses language to give different perspectives as does Faulkner. In The Sound and the Fury multiple point of view is shown through the different narrators, the change in time, and the use of incomplete sentences. The contrasts in this novel exist inside people and between them.
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