The destabilization of the uncanny in the narrative of Evelyn Scott and William Faulkner

Abstract

This article comparatively analyzes the use of the uncanny in the works of Southern modernists Evelyn Scott, in Escapade (1923), and William Faulkner, in The Sound and the Fury (1929), with the objective of reassessing Scott's pioneering role. The analysis adopts a critical and feminist perspective, broaching the uncanny as an instrument of political and subjective resistance, grounded in the concept of the uncanny by theorists such as Nicholas Royle and Sigmund Freud. The research concludes that, although both authors destabilize the narrative, Scott does so in a pioneering way, linking the uncanny to corporeality and gender critique. Thus, the work shows that Scott's historical erasure reflects the need for a revision of the hegemony of the male discourse in the literary canon and the just return of the writer as one of the most important voices of the North-American modernism.