Interchangeable Parts

After discussing Faulkner in class today, it got me thinking...

What concept could be applied to the Bundren family? Specifically, what concept could be applied to Anse Bundren? After mulling this over for a little while, I have decided that Anse Bundren is inaccurately applying Eli Whitney's idea of interchangeable parts.

If you are not familiar with the man, Eli Whitney is most famous for two inventions. The first being the cotton gin. This machine helped to produce cotton at a much faster rate than before. This also has absolutely nothing to do with what I am trying to point out. The second idea that Whitney came up with, or is given credit for, is the concept of interchangeable parts. This idea was meant to increase the productivity within a factory. Prior to this "invention," each product was essentially unique, and was built by one worker, or perhaps a team of workers. The interchangeable parts concept could be applied to any sort of manufacturing and is the very basic idea that not all finished products are unique. You can take the same part of a product and use it to build other products. An example of this would be a product like cell phones. Each finished cell phone requires a battery, keys, an antenna (could be built into the phone), and other parts to make the phone complete. Whitney realized that you could use the same parts (battery, keys, antenna) to build another finished product. The same parts used in the making of the last cell phone, could be applied to the making of the new one.

In a fucked up sort of way, this can be applied to Anse Bundren. Bundren is applying the concept of interchangeable parts within his family. He loses one wife, and decides that you can insert another female in that role in order to take her place. Since all females are the same in the eyes of Anse, and simply serve the function of producing babies, Eli's theory works perfectly. He can still produce babies, and in the eyes of the production equation, nothing has changed.

Take this for what you will. It is coming from a Business major who somehow wound up in an English class. They teach us to apply business concepts to just about everything...

Let's hear your thoughts...

A Man Behind the Madness?

Recently, a connection between a plantation diary and William Faulkner has been discovered. The diary was written by Francis Terry Leak, a plantation owner, and discusses his relationship with Faulkner.

Not sure if this gives us a ton of insight into As I Lay Dying, but some scholars are calling it a tremendous discovery.

One scholar from the NY Times article felt that:

“I think it’s one of the most sensational literary discoveries of recent decades,” said John Lowe, an English professor at Louisiana State University who is writing a book on Faulkner.

A couple questions that this article brought to mind...well maybe not directly from the article, but questions that I was pondering nonetheless.

-Would you ever consider devoting most of your time and life to researching a particular author? If so, which one?

-Both F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner had issues with alcohol. They also seemed to have run out of money at some point in their lives. After getting low on funds, both authors decided to venture into Hollywood and write screenplays (because these paid well). Would you consider this selling out, like an Indie artist who goes mainstream (say Kings of Leon)? Or, is this completely acceptable?