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Matt Christensen

Prof. Bedard

ENGL 792: Faulkner and Experimental Fiction

3 July, 2008

The Might of “Pantaloon in Black”: Experimental Fiction that Empowers Us

All fiction must arrive at an elusive but certain equilibrium if it is to create a genuine,

empowering, and lasting effect in a reader. It is up to the author to craft a story that possesses

this equilibrium, and almost all fiction attempts—and it should—to create reading and thinking

experiences that result in significant effects. A tough task indeed, but these are the reasons

creative people are so scarce, and therefore so celebrated: they can create or call out what a

reader could not by herself. In an effort to expand the writing/reading experience, authors have

attempted new techniques in storytelling. These techniques are all respectable and honorable,

but not all successful. All experimental fiction is worth reading, because any and all fiction gives

a reader something (a connection, emotion, lesson, epiphany); but to be considered great, a

narrative and its form must create feelings, for it is feelings that make a story resonate within a

reader. Each author who experiments with narrative techniques is doing so for this distinct

purpose. Writers experiment with the narrative form to create new emotional experiences for

readers and one of the best ways to create new emotional experiences is to create fresh ways of

communicating conflict. While communicating conflict, writers also experiment to prove stories

can be told from varying points of view, with tone or time shifts, or with other fragmentations in

topic or theme. Or writers experiment to demonstrate that fiction can be mathematized. At its

best, experimental fiction can be infinitely inspiring when it combines its elements into a proper

snare that leaves the reader changed. I will examine one story that works to this end and one that
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does not. By empowering us through connections to characters and manageable yet universal

themes and conflicts, William Faulkner’s "Pantaloon in Black" enthuses and affects us, while

Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Jealousy leaves readers without connections to characters and other

essential conventions of fiction, rendering readers unaffected and powerless. Thus, while both

writers can be considered serious and ambitious experimental fiction writers, my discussion will

show that, where Faulkner succeeds as a literary innovator, Robbe-Grillet fails.

The difference between these two stories can be encapsulated first in an examination of

their titles. Both titles insinuate conflict, for sure, but Faulkner’s is more provocative. By

labeling his protagonist a fool in his title, Faulkner makes us sympathize with Rider, who has

been forced into “foolery” by the people around him and by his environment. Almost all his life,

he has been without choice and without power. He has never had the chance or direction to grow

emotionally. Once religion fails him, he has no way to cope with the loss of his entire world, his

wife Mannie. The title compels us to feel for him as soon as we understand what he has lost.

The title “Pantaloon in Black” also alludes to Commedia dell’Arte, a form of Italian

improvisational and comedic theatre—an entire world and history which can produce all sorts of

emotional and intellectual discoveries and connections for the reader. Faulkner uses them

sparingly, but his allusions are almost always poignant and enlightening. We also think of

blackface make-up, to a closed-minded time when actors would pretend to be black. We think of

—and become—an audience witnessing events and sympathizing with characters that most

authors and audiences ignored, even wanted to discard from existence (like the deputy’s wife in

“Pantaloon”). True, the title Jealousy has two meanings (the emotion and the literal translation

in French, jalousie = Venetian blinds) and is interestingly simple, but that is as attractive as it

gets. There is conflict in this title and story, but the reader is never entombed in it as we are in
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“Pantaloon”. From the beginning sequences of setting description, the reader is discouraged

from caring or feeling anything for the narrator. Moreover, a reader has to make her own

meaning of the apparent metaphor suggested by the title—that the distortions and angles and

shadows represent the narrator’s gaze and psyche, however distorted, yet somehow also

imprecise and exacting (because exactness is paramount in this story). From the start, we can see

which story empowers the reader and which one forbids the reader (admittedly, forbidding the

reader is partly what Robbe-Grillet wants to accomplish; it is in his hoarding of access, though,

that makes his novel fail to be very meaningful for the reader—it is exacting, but never

extracting).

Knowledge and understanding empower us all. Identification with someone or

something also empowers us. Comfort zones can empower us, too. When we read fiction for

purposes of analysis and/or enjoyment, we need to be empowered by something in the story,

regardless of subject matter or narrative technique. An empowering story, Faulkner’s “Pantaloon

in Black” is an ideal piece of short fiction, even more impressive because it is so brief a clip of

Rider’s life. Indeed, it fully lives up to Philip Weinstein’s classification of it as a “narrative of

immersion” (Parini 267). You cannot help but get into it. The story avoids sensationalism,

though, for like Toni Morrison’s portrayals, it is a view from the outside without didacticism. An

examination of this story elicits the true mastery of Faulkner, because it is among his lesser-

known and least written about—yet it does a marvelous job of empowering us. Simply, the story

gets us to care about it. First, its inclusion/location in a longer book is ideal. “Pantaloon” is

ingeniously embedded in Go Down, Moses and can be considered both a chapter and an

independent short story; it works intelligently as both. And though it is not among the Faulkner

buzzwords or canonized titles, it holds astonishing, memorable richness. “Pantaloon” grants us

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every wish: a chance to think like an insider; a chance to think like an outsider; a plot that moves

just right; characters that are both natural and supernatural (and whose downward spiral is

effectively realistic and repetitive, in that Rider repeatedly seeks self-destruction); and a set of

themes that are ambiguous, paradoxical, and truth-seeking and that transcend ethnicity, time,

place, age, class, gender. Faulkner proves in this lesser-known story that he is a refined artist and

brilliant mind.

Rider, the protagonist (an experiment in itself: to have a nearly-round black protagonist),

insists on burying his own wife, asserting himself physically and trying to call on his physicality

—the only thing that has ever empowered him—to mask and suppress his emotions.

Immediately, we are compelled to care for/about and relate. Rider then rejects offers of

hospitality and religion-based sympathy, showing us that God does not automatically assist each

one of us. Again, we are compelled to care for/about and relate. We then go on a self-destructive

expedition with Rider that ultimately grants him his death wish. At the end of the story, in true

experimental fashion, Faulkner thrusts us into the home and mind of a deputy who has worked

on keeping the peace during this ordeal. This radical move does not preach, but instead frames

enormous moral and social issues for us.

The possibilities for analysis throughout are many. Subtle, minor things like Rider’s

name give readers empowering opportunities for making meaning. Faulkner might have given

him this name because the big and mighty black man has been “ridden” by white people all his

life; was riding high with his home, job, and wife; or had not, ironically, ever ridden any beast

(had never owned a steed) or “ridden” anyone (had never mistreated/used a servant or chastised

anyone for anything). An entire forum could be held about the protagonist’s name. A week

could be given to the analysis of this story, which has memorable moments throughout. In
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“Pantaloon”, elements of the story like Rider’s name will not be remembered because they were

repeated often, but for their poignancy. This reason this story has a lot of impact is not merely

because it has more action—its clout is crafted in more sophisticated ways. This story’s

elements will be remembered due to form, language, technique, even if this story is mentioned in

scholarly discourse far less than The Bear, As I Lay Dying, and The Sound and the Fury. No

other conflicts are established, escalated, then resolved like those in “Pantaloon”. No reader will

soon forget the images of Rider burying his wife frantically; Rider denying his aunt, God, and

hospitality; seeing Mannie’s ghost; eating like an animal where he once ate like a gentleman;

working and tossing logs imposingly; being “snakebit” and walking around drinking; seeing the

injustice of the gambling scam; and finally cutting the throat of Birdsong not only in a

manifestation of rage, but also in controlled self-defense (the paradox of Birdsong’s death is

especially poignant and makes readers judge for themselves whether Rider is guilty of anything

at all). And no reader will forget the coarse and apathetic words of the deputy and his wife. No

reader will forget either the graphic novel-like fight scene in the prison or the hanging in the

schoolroom. “Pantaloon” is a story that sticks because we can all relate to the action and the

characters; we can easily sympathize with Rider and admit to thinking like the deputy (sadly)

and even his wife (terrifyingly)—or to even sympathize with this couple because they are so

bigoted, having been conditioned by their environment for so long. Better conflicts are almost

impossible to locate, but support for Faulkner’s fictive craft is not.

Irving Howe states Faulkner “has restored to our writing a range of feeling lost to it in

recent decades” (203). Few stories contain so much feeling as “Pantaloon”. No other story

better shows us “the devastation of our world, the estrangement of man in an inhuman milieu, the

barrenness of a commercial culture and a loveless ethos” (Howe 202). Howe agrees that when
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his experiments work best, Faulkner accomplishes many of the purposes of fiction. “Pantaloon”

is a great example of how fiction can help us create meaning, understand the world, and examine

real-life divisions and paradoxes (this study of the strong-weak Rider is brilliant). In his book

God and the American Writer, Alfred A. Kazin illuminates the nature of the division between

blacks and whites in the setting for “Pantaloon”:

Mississippi, the poorest state in the Union, remote, more haunted by race than any other

(blacks outnumbered whites), and correspondingly more violent, was known as the

‘closed society’—i.e., it closed off its blacks. Mississippi refused to ratify the Thirteenth

Amendment abolishing slavery, and was allowed back into the Union only when it

ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. In 1890, the Mississippi Constitution

renewed with new vindictiveness the power of whites over blacks they had lost only in

Reconstruction. (239)

Kazin’s information highlights the point of how much more fiction can show us, when it is

expertly crafted, about the human condition—past, present, and future—than can any

documentary or account. Faulkner is giving a voice to the other side without arrogantly

attempting to become the other side—and without being sappy about it. He simply puts the issue

on the table. Once on the table, “Pantaloon” utterly magnetizes readers’ eyes and minds with a

force that simply does not let go. Jay Parini compliments Faulkner’s ability to compel readers to

identify with Rider “who refuses to act as a black man is expected to act, deferential and willing

to bear sorrows in self-obliterating silence” (Parini 258). We cannot just walk past “Pantaloon”

in the gallery. It demands to be read and reflected upon, even though it is not written in a

accusatory manner. On the other hand, Jealousy is on the table, but does not demand more than

a perusal. In Robbe-Grillet’s novel, no portrait of the narrator and his jealousy is found—at least
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none that the reader can paint. There is a terrible difficulty in trying to pinpoint just one or two

attributes of “Pantaloon” to determine its excellence. A harmony of literary devices creates an

unforgettable connection with Faulkner’s grieving black protagonist: “As Philip Weinstein notes

[in his book Faulkner’s Subject], ‘The story is keyed to Rider’s body, the sentences moving in

mimicry of his powerful motion.’ There is a visceral lyricism in all the description of Rider’s

body in motion, as ‘moving body ran in the silver solid wall of air he breasted’” (Parini 258).

That is just right: there is no choice in the matter when reading “Pantaloon” with the rest of Go

Down, Moses. Here is a story, seemingly wedged in on a whim, that displaces so many

traditional cultural and natural mores. We must participate as “Faulkner invites the reader to

contemplate the agony of the man’s soul through the body itself, which seems more metaphysical

at times than physical, an agent of the soul itself” (259). This story focuses on a “special

intensity” that helps us examine, with awe and respect, relations between whites and blacks, a

complex connection that has evolved and/or devolved, depending upon how one looks at the

problem (Parini 259). Few authors could/would even attempt to concentrate on an entanglement

of this magnitude (and fewer still could capture the complexities so intensely). Peter Swiggart

shows how entangled Go Down, Moses makes the race problem; we see Ike McCaslin young and

old, accepting and bigoted, a man at odds with himself: “Ike McCaslin’s rhetoric in Go Down,

Moses is all the more meaningful as a revelation of the Southerner’s divided feelings concerning

the role of the Negro in the South. As narrative devices, both symbolism and rhetoric must mean

something concrete within the magic circle of fiction before suggesting anything beyond.

Otherwise they disintegrate into mere words” (192). Life is complex and Faulkner does not

make it any simpler with “Pantaloon”. All he does is exactly what produces his desired effect.

Faulkner shows us that we ought to care about other people in any and every station/status of this
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complex life. And there is no combination of paradoxes than the study of the internal and

external conflicts that Rider has faced and must manage in “Pantaloon”. The internal and

external conflicts only begin with Rider—we can find others from Rider’s aunt and uncle to the

deputy and his wife. Not a single story element gives the reader a pass. For all the might this

story possesses, we still must realize how puny we are under the monolith of fate. Faulkner

leaves us no choice but to acknowledge that situations exist in which “no single standard of right

and wrong is universally applicable, and in which men of goodwill can only do what seems to

them right and necessary and possible in any given set of circumstances” (Millgate 187).

Peerless use of paradox.

No easy resolutions are possible for us, which engages the reader even more into the

structure of Go Down, Moses. “Pantaloon” is embedded brilliantly in Go Down, Moses and

should be considered absolutely essential to Faulkner’s purpose. Readers should reject the

thinking that “Pantaloon” is a story that “must be considered the unintegrated and therefore non-

essential part of the structure” (Tick 329). “Pantaloon” is essential to the structure, because

structure affects theme; and “Pantaloon” is paramount when considering the theme(s) of Go

Down, Moses. Weldon Thornton, in his astute, thorough analysis of “Pantaloon”, discusses

freedom as a main theme in this novel: “what freedom means to man, how he achieves and

preserves it, and perhaps most important, how he loses it” (332). Thornton explains how

illuminating this story truly becomes once one considers the many elusive dimensions of

freedom. Faulkner flips the stereotype that marriage is imprisoning as he makes Mannie the

embodiment of Rider’s freedom. Rider and Mannie function expertly in comparison to the

whites in the book, because we are urged to examine these two with the “successful” white

people, those who have established and found solace in the hearth. Rider gets a whole new
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freedom when he marries her and becomes “more truly and fully himself than he ever had

before” thanks to Mannie’s intervention in his life (Thornton 347). Thornton also denounces the

way “Pantaloon” acts as a glitch for those who wish to read/see Go Down, Moses as a novel;

however, it is supposed to be a glitch in the flow of the book and in the stream of our minds. It

startles us with a thud to the chest—just as Rider does the men in his way. We are moved by

Rider’s intentionally suicidal quest to find his deceased wife (the trauma he feels is so great that

he wants to be executed, rather than locked up). We are able to juxtapose the white characters

with the black and, as a result, to see the impact environment has on people. The disjointed

structure of Go Down, Moses enhances the paradoxical, disjointed angle on theme. Essential to

the book’s structure and theme(s) and empowering the reader, “Pantaloon” is the ultimate glitch.

In contrast to the powerful punch of emotive fiction that is “Pantaloon in Black”, Robbe-

Grillet’s Jealousy lacks too much to be considered a great novel. It is an insightful effort, but its

glitches take away insight and therefore power from the reader, reducing Jealousy to experiment

for experimentation’s sake. It is too long and intentionally discouraging—and it largely leaves

the human element out. The conflict does not matter to anyone, seemingly not even the narrator.

And, while it examines a complex emotion in a different, interesting way, the story deserts the

reader, who wishes for and expects basic parts: details that develop and matter; a relatable or

redeeming narrator with a soul; a protagonist who does even as much as a sloth; a mood that is

recognizable. Jealousy’s theme that perception affects emotion is a too basic one. Most readers

are able to independently reflect on their irrationalities fairly early in life. In Jealousy, a reader

simply has to do too much of the creative process to experience anything important. The creative

process relies—and rightfully so—on the reader to do some of the work, but the burden mainly

lies on the hands and mind of the expert and crafts(wo)man, the artist. Inexplicably, Jealousy
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does not have the feeling that it was written for anyone else. Robbe-Grillet does not gift, endow,

or authorize the reader anything but a quick look at how the mind’s eye can be distorted or

blinded. Shakespeare’s Othello attempts the same overarching theme, but the play succeeds

because it enmeshes us into the deceit, lust, and other emotions.

Further, the repetition in Jealousy is tedious; it does not uncover anything about jealous

emotions that most people do not already realize. Elements of Jealousy will not be remembered

for their poignancy, but only because they were tiresomely repeated. We remember and respond

to memories and emotions that we have invested in. Readers just do not buy into the elements of

Robbe-Grillet’s story the way we do in “Pantaloon.” The centipede is just peripheral and easily

mocked. The man peering into the stream deserves a shrug of the shoulders. The woman’s black

hair piques the mind a bit, but lacks lasting effect because the text has nothing else to connect

this image with (and few readers can create their own connections, at least not in a meaningful

way). The head-nudging of Franck and A…, however, does make a male reader stir a bit at

future mention of this book’s title and author. True, this novel is original, but so was the mullet

hairstyle. Both failed. Jealousy is a story that stales because it discourages the reader from any

further investment or investigation.

Not everyone agrees, though. Roland Barthes’s assertive praises for Robbe-Grillet

include: “His writing has no alibis, no resonance, no depth, keeping to the surface of things,

examining without emphasis, favoring no one quality at the expense of another—it is as far as

possible from poetry, or from ‘poetic’ prose. It does not explode, this language, or explore” (14).

Contrary to what Barthes says, Robbe-Grillet does favor a couple qualities at the expense of

others. His emphases on the objective surface and on point of view are without parallel in most

readers’ experiences. And while readers who are experienced and skilled enough to have even
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heard of Robbe-Grillet usually expect and rely on some poetic explosion or exploration, Robbe-

Grillet relies on the reader to have had some paranoid jealous episodes or irrational

hallucinations in order to relate and find use in his novel. Throughout, Barthes is complimenting

his fellow countryman while actually exposing the faults of Robbe-Grillet’s narrative technique.

Barthes also says that Robbe-Grillet’s “descriptions are never allusive, never attempt, for all their

aggregation of outlines and substances, to concentrate the entire significance of the object into a

single metaphorical attribute” (14). Well, readers need allusiveness in meaning. This is

Faulkner’s strength in presenting conflict. Additionally, it is “single metaphorical attribute[s]”

that readers react to and remember. Barthes contends that it is effective for Robbe-Grillet to

avoid helping readers mine the mind. However, it is precisely that mining that readers must do,

and on their own without map or flashlight, if they are to force Jealousy to signify anything at

all. Fiction is terrific when it stimulates a reflective probing in the reader’s mind, but “’poetic’

prose” that explodes and explores should be provided by the writer. To be fair, Jealousy exhibits

real talent indeed, yet it is just an exercise in skill demonstration, done for the author, not the

reader. Of course, the reader should be expected to do some intellectual labor, but Robbe-Grillet

does not even provide the blueprint and measurements.

Anne Minor posits in praise of Jealousy that the masterful use narration draws readers

into an idée fixe, the obsession of the observer in the book: “he see what his gaze chooses to

include, he does more than observe—he measures distances, counts objects, specifies the

structure of the house, the shape and orientation of the veranda, the garden, the courtyard, the

green mass of the banana groves, he lists the trees and the plants and, turning to regard the

people, seems to film their movements, to record their remarks” (31). This conflict is just not

enough, thought. To relate significantly, readers need some details, true; but it is not in the
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observation of physical features that readers think critically—it is in the observation of life as it

is, beautiful and incomprehensible. The gaze of the narrator grips readers sometimes, but then

loses its power when then narrator “as though to account for an unexpressed doubt, begins all

over again, trains this invisible mechanism—his gaze—and records once again, scrutinizes,

enumerates, collects” (31). A collection of emotion and action—interweaved through a startling

conflict—would serve and empower the reader’s heart and mind much better.

Bruce Morrissette attempts to show how Robbe-Grillet’s fundamental “aversion to

allegory, symbol, and concealed meaning” serves the reader well (6). Morrissette goes on to

explain the effectiveness of allegory in Robbe-Grillet’s The Erasers. Then, Morrissette states

that “the formal structure”, “brief, dense, triangular plot”, and “repetitious, minute descriptions,

studies of gestures and movements of objects” in Jealousy make it Robbe-Grillet’s “finest novel

to date” (9). Then, Morrissette fails to realize how the absence of a story element can serve an

author to affect readers. He lauds Robbe-Grillet’s omission of any attempt at psychoanalysis or

introspection or “descriptions of states of mind” (9). Morrissette does not acknowledge,

however, that authors need not dissect inner workings of a character’s mind to evoke and

provoke. Faulkner never goes into any psychoanalysis in “Pantaloon in Black” either; we never

get any interior monologues or lengthy diatribes from Rider, yet we feel absolutely attached to

him in ways that make us think about the man, the era, and the mind and heart. In “Pantaloon”,

there is more than just a surface-level, intellectual connection. We truly wonder about the deputy

who is “fighting against his own humane and civilizing impulses, who is forced to realize that

the black man in his cell is, indeed, a man, and therefore subject to the same losses and

disillusions that beset all men, black or white” (Parini 259). We sympathize with victim and

villain. We care about every element in the story. The reader never cares enough about Robbe-
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Grillet’s characters to even begin to sympathize (an effect due in part to the reader wondering

more about the angle of the blinds or the length of the shadow).

In both stories, information is obviously left out. “Pantaloon” omits how Mannie died,

which is effective because guessing or speculation by the reader adds to the themes of misery

and confusion of the story. The absence of knowledge here empowers us: we can believe she

was raped and killed by white men and Rider does not know which, so he cannot go after them;

or we could believe she died of a simple, easily-cured illness because she was rejected or

neglected due to her blackness and poorness; or, we can believe she died in an accident that

Rider could have physically prevented had he been nearby. In these scenarios or others, we are

empowered to make our own prequel to the story. We care enough when reading “Pantaloon in

Black” to do informative, productive speculation. Jealousy omits disclosure of the true nature of

the relationship between A… and Franck. It also fails to include important context clues like

personal histories and characters’ goals. Knowing these clues would add immeasurably to the

tension. Jealousy leaves too much out, making it hard for the reader to take a side—or be

ambivalent—and care. And if readers cannot care, they cannot be lastingly affected. Without

more to the plot or dramatic situation, it is too difficult for readers to care about Christiane, the

daughter, Franck, A…, or the unnamed husband. Readers can relate to being jealous and having

their minds churn and gurgle, but the ambiguity and absence of a created, legitimate world leaves

the readers unaffected, unmoved. The intellectual, surface-level connection Robbe-Grillet

establishes is not enough.

All experimental fiction is fascinating, but not all of it works—not all of it creates the

desired effects within readers. Not all experimental fiction is created to empower the reader. If

an author plays with point of view, the results can be plausible and poignant (especially when a
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lens follows a character, Rider, and the action he creates, then shifts to the ongoing commentary

of narrow and bigoted mindsets, the deputy and his wife). If an author tinkers with tone shifts or

time sequencing, the results can be terrific (especially when the author avoids sentimentality and

sensationalism and omits action before and during the story to empower us). If an author fiddles

with fragmentation, the results can be fantastic (especially when it adds immeasurably to our

understanding of characters, themes, settings, symbols, and so on). But when an author

experiments for experimentation’s sake or solely to demonstrate invented skills, the equilibrium

that makes fiction great is usually not achieved. When the equilibrium is not achieved and the

conflict not established and developed, the reader is neither empowered nor invested. But

William Faulkner proves that fiction can be empowering and transcendent of time and space. His

“Pantaloon in Black” inspires us to care, change, question, evaluate, wonder, speculate—to do all

the things we should want to do.

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Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. “Objective Literature: Alain Robbe-Grillet”. In Jealousy. Alain Robbe-Grillet.

New York: Grove Press, 1978. 13-27.

Faulkner, William. Go Down, Moses. New York: Random House, 1942.

Howe, Irving. William Faulkner: A Critical Study. New York: Random House, 1952.

Kazin, Alfred. God and the American Writer. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Millgate, Michael. “The Problem of Point of View.” Wagner, Linda Welshimer, ed. William

Faulkner: Four Decades of Criticism. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1973.

Minor, Anne. “A Note on Jealousy”. In Jealousy. Alain Robbe-Grillet. New York: Grove Press,

1978. 29-33.

Morrisette, Bruce. “Surfaces and Structures in Robbe-Grillet’s Novels”. In Jealousy. Alain

Robbe-Grillet. New York: Grove Press, 1978. 3-12.

Parini, Jay. One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Jealousy. New York: Grove Press, 1959.

Swiggart, Peter. The Art of Faulkner’s Novels. Austin: U of Texas P, 1962.

Thornton, Weldon. “Structure and Theme in Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses”. Cox, Leland H. ed.

William Faulkner: A Critical Collection. Detroit: Gale, 1982.

Tick, Stanley. “The Unity of Go Down, Moses”. Wagner, Linda Welshimer, ed. William

Faulkner: Four Decades of Criticism. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1973.