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For my emblem I created a drill that emerges from a three piece braid. The two pieces create a contrast between organic and mechanical but are resolved in the similarity of the weaving component of both. The drill bit was lifted directly from the tool belt of Cash, who is clearly defined by his own tools. The braid is referential to women’s hairstyles which can also ‘define’ who they are. There exists in these same images a conflict between masculinity and femininity which is resolved in the future generations which begin their own conflict.
The broken triangle represents superstition and then ending of the cycle of conflict then resolution. Addie speaks of how she poses the hatred of her father which she will inevitably pass on to her children. The broken drill bit shows how the children are able to escape that cycle but also have to break convention to do so.
The triangle I created points sideways so as to differentiate itself from the upwards (male) and downwards (female) facing triangles. It is also typographically a D which can stand for Dewey-Dell. Dewey-Dell is the most likely candidate for following her mother (she is the only girl, and she is pregnant) but she chooses to reject her mother’s decision to have children by attempting an abortion. She truly breaks the cycle.
The Firefox extension called “Weave” has an emblem that at first glance is three braided strands. Upon further inspection the three strands turn out to be one continuous segment. Just as with the images that authors bring to the reader, the image can be thought of as three distinct phases (the idea, the words, the visual they create in the reader’s head) but is really just one idea in multiple forms. Although Faulkner may disagree and say that indeed the three realities are separate, this logo is closer to the meaning that Macnab gives to three, that is of a counterpoint between contrasts.
The purpose of “Weave” is to allow multiple html readers to sync preferences such as bookmarks, history, passwords, etc. The service then solves a conflict between multiple browsers and truly works as three should. All web browsers aim to accomplish the same thing (render html as understandable images/texts) but have different architectures which causes unnecessary conflict between fundamental functions such as tracking bookmarks and passwords. Weave would not exist without the conflict and is a product of that strife.
Faulkner’s ideas are distinct from the readers’ ideas and this creates a conflict that begs for amelioration. The multiple sensory images (smell, kinesthetic, etc.) that Faulkner employs spring up to fill that tension and create a connection between author and reader. Again, this process works in design, literature, and as we see through Weave, technology.
Three describes the process that Faulkner, Calvino, and Macnab undergo to bring their images to the reader. Faulkner starts with an idea and then develops it into a message which he then translates through his characters in the form of analogies or metaphor. Calvino begins with an image and lets the words describe the image until completion. Macnab extensively reworks her designs to fit her clients needs. Each of these artists employs the balancing nature of three to come to a resolution.
The Egyptian warning to not break a triangle lends itself to superstition. Faulkner’s novel is likewise filled with unlucky circumstances where the ‘triangle’ is broken. Metaphorically breaking the triangle is breaking from tradition, something the Bundren’s are good at. Rather than explicitly tell the reader that the Bundren’s are doing something taboo, Faulkner allows the images to speak for themselves. A dead body is generally buried to avoid the smell of the body rotting from causing nausea. In a complete breach of this practice the Bundren’s tote Addie’s body around until it begins to reek to high heavens.
The dead are also supposed to be given respect, but at one point in the novel Anse actually drills through Addie’s coffin to ‘give her a breeze’ and accidently drills through her flesh. Faulkner’s idea of taboo breaking manifests in the image of Tull describing the similar ‘bored clean’ holes in the coffin and Addie’s face.
ANALOGY
I chose to design an encyclopedia that contains Faulkner’s world. The bible is drawn from the beliefs of the majority of the characters within the novel and is by nature a rectangle with depth. I wanted the ‘encyclopedia’ to be open to show its contents which in this case is a cross section of the world torn in two. Each flip of the page then would show a different cross section of the world. I thought this was accurate to the way that Faulkner’s world is experienced, each turn of the page reveals more about the inner workings of his world.
The ‘cube’ in which the world is suspended is the three dimensional representation of a square and suggests that the world cannot expand beyond its boundaries. The cube also suggests that the book has a very solid ‘center’ structurally (as indeed the book is built on solid stylistic elements). The insides of the worlds, however, are just as empty as the space they inhabit. They are open to interpretation and if juxtaposed would present the symbol of infinity (8 sideways) to express the infinite number of interpretation available.
Faulkner creates a space within his novel to be explored. The space itself is solidly formed, as are the characters, but the ‘world’ or ‘message’ that he is sending is variable. This particular emblem focuses on the emptiness of the world analyzed through the religious scope (literally the world within the bible). This same world could also have been within an actual encyclopedia to name just one other domain that Faulkner dabbles in.
My Favorite Emblem
This was my favorite Emblem.
“Perception increases by the number of viewpoints we can hold simultaneously” (171). Faulkner satiates each of the senses individually. He uses pastoral, religious, and lexical analogies to flesh out his novel.
Addie Bundren says “… people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just word’s too” (176) and that a word is “just a shape to fill a lack” (172). She speaks of words that are formed out of people’s inability to truly communicate, but ultimately end up betraying them. An arbitrary word is created by someone who doesn’t understand what it is to experience some other thing. How then can communication mean anything. We each pick and choose what we think a word means, and each word builds off of other words. In this way people go from what is real to what is universally false. Addie, and Faulkner by proxy, would argue, words are a subjective representation of that which is objective.
Addie employs the arbitrary words, built on tradition, but also creates a neologism (not-Anse; Anse’s abssence). Her ability to create a novum, a thing which is new and shocking to the point of demanding movement, is present in her son Darl who in dealing with death discuss her own death as no longer being is and now being was. Addie even discusses how she takes a word in her mind and thinks it until it is a shape. She thinks ‘Anse’ until his name is a shape, a vessel that ‘Anse’ occupies. This is much the same as Calvino moving from an idea to an image, and also mirrors Macnab’s process of allowing the client’s essence to guide her designs.
On a sensory level Faulkner uses kinesthetic tropes that relate the feeling of death to various mediums. Vardman feels the death of his mother as an analogy to the fish he kills. Both leave him with the feeling of loss. Again, Darl can only understand his mother’s death through the use of basic lexical twists (mother was not is). The smell of Cash’s rotting leg is analogous to his own mother’s decay.
The number four is the first number that can be visualized in three dimensional space. The tetrahedron (a four sided pyramid) is the essential 3D shape of the tetrahedron. Tetrahedron SAS employs an ‘empty’ tetrahedron with no bottom as their logo. According to the mission statement the company is focussed on “[d]eveloping and designing natural and synthetic antioxidants for applications in Therapeutics, Nutrition or Cosmetics.” They work with the building blocks of nature for their business.
As an investment the business uses the tetrahedron to not so much represent growth (a spiral would be better suited) as to represent the multidimensional use of the product they offer. Also as matter is made of only four particles, the use of the four sided tetrahedron speaks to the creation of ‘natural compounds.’ Furthermore, as a fledgling company the four planed figure relates to a safe investment.
The nature of the logo allows for a possible misreading of the company however. The fact that the bottom of the tetrahedron is missing could represent transparency in the organization. An attempt at visualizing a phrase such as ‘you can see our inner workings.’ However, there is no element within the logo to suggest such a reading. The logo is in fact empty which bodes poorly for the company as a sign of possible faux façade. Also the logo is outlined in green. On the one hand green is the color of organic material, on the other green is the color of greed and money. Both readings may be accurate though. A company exists not for the benefit of others, but for the health of itself.
The logo then is multifaceted and can be read in a myriad of ways. Along the same vein, Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is multifaceted and affords similarly expansive interpretations.
The multiplicity of As I Lay Dying is best understood through the juxtaposition of the number four. Four is the first number to represent depth. As an encyclopedic piece Faulkner creates a work that has extreme depth. Each element adds a new dimension to the work and even the conventional levels such as narration are multiplied.
The number four represents the world we live in and also describes the main directions of the novel. Anse constantly considers the world he lives in as movement to either the left or the right, horizontally across the surface of the earth. Addie (his wife) dwells on ideas of transcendence; she imagines a column of smoke which rises away from the earth in a vertical movement. These cardinal directions represent the structure of reality.
Four may stand for stagnation, and on a trivial level that is true (the novel is not changing, it just is) but it is also the soundest in terms of structure. Faulkner’s deep novel is solid, it never feels lacking, and as a result it can be digested an innumerable number of times and still satiate. A beautiful novel is multidimensional, it entertains and enlightens the reader on more than just one level. Soap operas have intricate plots, but they aren’t going to be garnered any beauty contest awards.
Faulkner plays with the structure and form of this novel masterfully. The novel is encyclopedic in of itself which Calvino attributes to the multiple nature of novels. The novel could be told from any of the narrators perspectives individually but cumulatively each of the narrators adds depth to the novel. Faulkner creates a multiple 1st person omniscient point of view which jumps from one character to another without ever employing an unbiased narrator. Although the reader is privy to every thought of the narrators (indeed even partially constructed thoughts are exposed) they must take each thought with a grain of salt. Just as people are able to lie to themselves, so too are the characters able to have thoughts that hide their true intentions (Anse’s object for the funeral).
Faulkner immerses the reader in his network of connections. The town that he invents (Yoknapatawpha) is the backdrop to some of his other novels and gives the town more dimension than just the view of one novel. The novel approaches each scene from a different view, but never reexamines the same one providing a linear yet broken narrative. At time the narration delves into intricacies (such as many of Darl’s earlier chapters, and later Cash’s) while other times the prose is shallow (Cash’s initially).
There is a balance between the interior monologue (and inner dialogue between oneself in Darl’s case after he goes ‘crazy’) and the spoken dialogues which shows a depth of forms. Faulkner also utilizes multiple tenses. Certain sections of the work are italicized in order to indicate past events.Finally, at times the work deals with matters of deep importance (Addie’s philosophical debate on the meaning of words, Darl and Vardman’s conversation about what death means symbolically and lexically, Cash’s analysis of what it means to be ‘crazy’) while other times the novel remains blithe concerning itself with the price of cakes (Cora).
A crystal Coffin containing Fire is the emblem which I chose to create. I was contemplating the fact that the coffin with its ties to six was so exact when I realized that Faulkner uses exactness on a literary level to build characters and plot rather than to serve as a theme for his story. Thematically As I Lay Dying is closer to fire, creating something beautiful as with ‘order out of noise’
The coffin visually contains the flame just as the order that Faulkner bequeaths to the novel contains the beautiful break down. The emblem is repeated in a pattern to visually remind the reader of the ability of six to work cohesively in combination with itself to form airtight spaces. A flame should not be able to live within the confines of a coffin, but just as Addie’s energy is still the driving force behind the novel even when confined within a coffin, so too does the flame burn with purpose despite its wretched state.
Fire is present in the novel literally when Darl burns down a barn. The coffin is within the barn at the time and is in peril of burning down with it until Jewel extracts it. In a reversal of roles, the flame now surrenders to the coffin.
A spiral within a drop
This was the hardest emblem to create. The five armed spiral accomplishes the complexity of varying speeds while also representing the five family members of the Bundren family who are the main story tellers. As was already alluded, all five begin from a central point, in this case Addie’s death. Each of the spirals expands away from the other spirals to show that while all of the narration is catalyzed by one point they manifest differently.
The water droplet is the microcosmic representation of the story arc which depicts the Bundren’s coming to a felled bridge, attempting to find an alternate route, but ultimately returning to the first path to attempt to ford the river. The droplet literally gives visual clues to water, but the tear shape also lends itself to the idea that a single event may contain multiple perspectives all moving at different paces. The droplet nature also lends itself to the idea that this is simply one event in a pond of multiple others, and when it finally incorporates into the whole it will loose its form.
Whirlpool, the maker of fridges and other home appliances, uses a spiral that floats about the ‘W’ of its name in its logo. On the surface this whirlpool is representative of the ‘whirlpool’ of water created in such devices as washing machines so as to remind the customer what the company produces. This particular spiral is actually two clockwise spirals that meet in the center.
Appliances have not seen a whole lot of innovation over the past years. In particular, major household appliances that are seen as necessary seem to have hit a threshold. The spiral and its implicit ties to five and regeneration invite the viewer to imagine the company growing with the times and regenerating its past success. To avoid the cold negative connotations of a technology company the spiral also brings an organic feel to the company.
As a technology company the spiral can represent quick growth during technological advancement and also a more sober, conservative growth during tough economic times (such as these). While technology is firmly based in science, to many the function of these technologies is ‘magical’ and the whirlpool with its five guided spiral is representative of that mysticism.
Whirlpool's Logo
There is no set number for quickness. The number four with its geometric square is the best at visualizing the stagnant nature of certain parts of the book, while the number five and the spiral with geometrically larger arms could represent the rapid pace of other parts. The number one could also work to represent those sections which are disjointed and yet related. A line is the quickest path between two points, and so the number one also represents the quick pace of certain sections.
Five wins out over the other numbers for a few reasons though. Since a spiral (the visual of five) starts at a point it effectively encompasses the number one. Depending on which direction a person ‘reads’ the spiral also determines the speed. Reading outwards shows ‘looser’ slower spirals while reading in shows ‘tighter’ faster spirals. The spiral emanates from the center just as the story emanates from Addie.
While five represents regeneration Faulkner’s story is seemingly about degeneration. The body of Addie degenerates, Darl descends into madness, and even Cash’s leg disintegrates. However there is growth and regeneration within the novel. Dewey-Dell is carrying on the biological regeneration of human kind in her womb. Vardman and Cash’s minds become more sharply honed and mature to fill the gap of maturity left after Darl is declared crazy and is carted off. Anse even takes on another wife to fill the void left by Addie.
Nekromantix is a “Danish-American psychobily” band whose logo is a six sided coffin with their name inscribed inside. Faulkner’s most meticulous character Cash focuses his obsessively precise nature on the construction of his mother’s coffin, which is shown in a small picture to be six sided. There is an entire chapter dedicated to the painstaking thought process Cash undergoes to decide how to best create the coffin.
Coffin Logo for the band Nekromantics
The Nekromantix coffin becomes three dimensional through the use of six rectangular (four sided) panels. Four’s ability to create depth is obvious in this role. The name of the band is contained within the six sided top of the coffin which works to complement sixes ability to bring pieces together to work seamlessly. The name of the band is a portmanteau of two words “necromancy” (communicating with the dead) and “romantics.” These seemingly disparate words are graphically forced onto one another with the effect of creating a neologism, nekromantix.
A coffin then is both numerically symbolic of the number six, but as it is a skewed hexagon, the meaning behind six becomes slightly skewed. While still numerically the most ordered number, the coffin is symbolic of death and decomposition and contrasts with sixes connected nature. The coffin then is close to Faulkner’s own use of six. He employs the values of six to create a tightly knit experience that is actually an experience of decomposition (both of the family, and literally of the body of Addie).
When talking about Faulkner’s efficient use of language the number six springs to mind immediately. With its extreme efficiency and ability to have many parts working together as a seamless whole, six is able to represent Faulkner’s use of multithreaded narratives that intertwine to form one cohesive novel. Six is a structurally flexible number just as the narrative is extremely flexible. Faulkner can pick and choose who relates each experience and in doing so adds layers of information to the plot. Sections where Faulkner wants to create a detached feeling are told either by townsfolk or the catatonic Cash, but he has the ability to use highly emotional characters such as Jewel to emphasize a point.
Six is a precise number and Faulkner’s style is equally precise. His characters are meticulously shaped from their actions, to their words, down to their basic thought processes. From a connectivity level, six is seen as the magic number that connects all humans to one another in just as many steps. Although the townsfolk are usually only one degree away from the Bundrens, it is interesting to see how Faulkner brings his other stories into play in As I Lay Dying. Specifically, Tull mentions a neighbor who may have the provisions that Anse needs. That person is Flem Snopes who is the protagonist in a trilogy that Faulkner later released. He managed to not only create Snopes in passing, but transform him from a passing remark into an entire trilogy. Like a hexagon within a circle, Faulkner creates complicated yet purposeful connections within a space that is highly efficient at filling that space.
No other number represents so strict a discipline as the number six which is in turn exactly how Faulkner constructs his novel. There are no vagaries, or rather there are no meaningless loose ends, in As I Lay Dying, there are snug tight relations. The irony of the meticulous nature of the novel is the apparent downward spiral towards chaos that the entire family is bent on. It is as though Faulkner realized that a loosely created story that begets a loosely tied family that falls apart is apropos and boring, but degeneration within a solid foundation is beautiful enough to grasp the reader.
Faulkner invents a new lexicon to great effect in As I Lay Dying. Specifically he uses rural dialects and close phonetic transcriptions to give true-to-life written forms of character’s speech. Faulkner creates a facsimile of his home state of Mississippi in Yoknapatawpha and copies the speech he hears there in his story. His characters, while not always mature beings, are fully fleshed out as characters. Each narrator/character has a unique style of recounting events as well as a distinct diction.
Interestingly, even the text of the more mature characters is encoded with the same dialectical grammar that they use to converse. That is to say that Faulkner’s statement about the mind speech connection is directly proportional. A person may only speak so well as their mind is able to fathom. This is true of all of his characters from the brilliantly philosophical Addie to the singleminded Dewey Dell.
The texture of the word choices and sentence structures are what Calvino describes as ‘exact’ use of language. Faulkner is able to systematically and exactly correlate language and style to form his characters. Even without the lexical clues such as mispronounced dialogue a reader would get a precise view of each character through his or her narration.
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