Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1991. British and American Philologycal Studies (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 20)

László Dányi: Universal implications of William Styton's Southern Heritage

19 that the wrinkles vanish and thinks of an invisible and imaginary lover. Her lover is but a creation of her imagination. The man who could be a real saviour, Milton Loftis, the archetype and the stereotype of the quester, enters and says: "God knows we've lost something."^ Stingo in SC wanted to be a writer but after reading Farrell's story future seemed to him "misty" and "obscure". He hopelessly says, "... I was aware of the large hollowness I carried with me." 1 ^ Stingo lost touch with himself as a writer, an artist, while Sophie lost the "chain of being" as a human being. The world of the living dead in the concentration camps haunts her. Her loss of faith in God and human beings evoked her feeling of emptiness. "I felt a complete emptiness. I never finished the paternoster ... . I think maybe it was that moment that I begun to lose my faith." ^ Sophie's emptiness was generated by the loss of the possibility of rebirth and the impossibility of the appearance of a savior, a redeemer. "I felt this emptiness. It was like finding something precious in a dream where it is all so real - something or someone, 1 mean, unbelievably precious - only to wake up and realize the precious person is gone. Forever?"

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5 These familiar motifs are in a set order in Styron's works. The South is the basis, the one-time land of order and clearcut values, where Styron's heroes start their quest for a better understanding of the world, and, at last, they have to face nihilistic spaces evoking the feeling of hollowness. This is how Styron's Southern background is related to the universal motifs of quest and hollowness. II. In the second part of my essay I want to compare two of Styron's Southern characters. The aim of this comparison is to prove that Styron could incorporate the myths and artistic motifs discussed in the first part, and after establishing a firm starting point in his first novel, LDD, he could create his own myths in his encyclopedic novel, SC. That is why I want to compare Peyton Loftis in LDD and Stingo in SC. The social and psychological implications of the difference between the two characters show how Styron could find a new approach to his Southern heroes after the Second World War. 1 / Social implications of the difference By social implications I mean the family backgrounds of the protagonists and their ties to the South as a geographical unity.