本文檢視威廉‧福克納的《聲音與憤怒》與《押沙龍，押沙龍！》中，美國南方白人男性的不笑與其追求個人與家族完美的關係。我的論旨為，南方白人男性的不笑揭露出這些角色對於追求完美的情感依附。情感即身性導致他們對內戰後美國南方社會變遷的反認識。第一部分引用亨利‧柏格森的笑聲理論，探討笑聲作為人類理性思考能力，使人得以遠觀並反思美國南方白人父權家族體制存有的失足沒落，以及對於追求完美的機械式僵硬執著。第二部分檢視湯瑪斯‧薩德本與傑森‧康普生對於追求個人與家族完美抱負的偏執。第三部分聚焦昆丁‧康普生於《聲音與憤怒》中的罕見笑聲，以及其在《押沙龍，押沙龍！》中追求南方家族歷史真相的關係。他的笑既是對於家族無常的頓悟，亦是對於此一荒謬事實的反認識。他藉由結束生命嘗試還原家族與個人的完美。第四部分分析班吉‧康普生。他的不笑並非作為敘事工具，戲仿智能障礙者無法以理性建構連貫邏輯，而是呈現與他者連結的機器式慾望。兩本小說中美國南方白人男性的不笑，揭露了不同白人男性角色對於遙不可及的完美理念的情感依附，形成複雜且多樣的情動意涵。
This paper examines American southern white male characters’ incapacity to laugh vis-à-vis their pursuit of personal and family perfection in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!. The thesis is that the southern American white male characters’ incapacity to harness laughter suggests their emotional attachment to solipsistic pursuit of personal and family perfection. The emotional immediacy leads to their unknowing of social changes in the post-bellum American South. Based on Henri Bergson’s theory, Section I discusses laughter as a human, rational capacity. It serves as intellectual activity to distance from the mechanical inelasticity of pursuing perfection, and from the stumbling ontology of southern American white patriarchal families. Section II examines Thomas Sutpen’s and Jason Compson’s inelastic pursuits of perfection in their individual and familial designs. Section III centers on Quentin Compson’s rare laughter in The Sound and the Fury, in relation to his pursuit of southern family historical truth in Absalom, Absalom!.. The laughter is an epiphany of family impermanence, as well as a suicidal attempt to unknow its absurdities and restore his ontological perfection at the present moment. Section IV offers an interpretation of Benjy Compson’s incapacity to laugh, not as literary mechanic to parody intellectual disabilities in constructing rational coherence, but as machinic desire for interconnectedness. The southern white men’s incapacity to laugh in the two novels forges an affective palimpsest, laying bare differential southern white men’s complex attachment to unattainable perfection.