Reflection of the works of F.M. Dostoevsky in W. Faulkner’s novel “Absalom, Absalom!”

As part of comparative studies of the works of F.M. Dostoevsky and W. Faulkner, the implementation of the archetypal pattern of “underground” thinking and behaving (most completely embodied in the narrator of Dostoevsky’s novella “Notes from Underground”) in the character of Thomas Sutpen, the main character of Faulkner’s novel “Absalom, Absalom!”, is considered. The mere appearance of a stable association of Faulkner’s works with Dostoevsky’s novels by the early 1940s which subsequently gave impetus to a number of comparative studies not only in Western literary criticism but also (later on) in national literary studies is noted. The traits of the Underground Man (non-acceptance of God-created world, Man-god consciousness, awareness of inconsistency with Man-god ideal, cruel self-punishment and aesthetization of it, moral alienation, and spiritual decay) are realized in many characters of Dostoevsky and Faulkner (Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, Ippolit Terentyev, Stavrogin, Arkady Dolgoruky, Ivan Karamazov; young Bayard Sartoris, Quentin Compson, Joe Christmas). As for Thomas Sutpen, the opinion has long been established in criticism that considering such characters of Dostoevsky as Raskolnikov and Arkady Dolgoruky, one can discover a portrait, which prefigures his character in almost every detail. In this study, given that Thomas Sutpen is the bearer of the “underground” of the “Stavrogin” type (without self-punishment for inconsistency with the ideal), a comparison between Stavrogin and Sutpen is made. Nikolai Stavrogin committed monstrous crimes for the sake of anesthetization of his immoral existence. Thomas Sutpen who sought to establish his dynasty at any cost went to any crime to achieve his goal. But both of them, trampling on the feelings of people, fell out of the human race and suffered a crushing defeat.