A Fable is a 1954 novel written by William Faulkner.
It is one of only a small handful of Faulkner works not set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. Instead, it is set on the Western Front of World War I, in May of 1918. As the story opens, a French division has simply refused to attack. Even more strangely, the Germans in the lines opposite also failed to attack after no French soldiers followed their barrage. Charles Gragnon, the divisional commander who knew that the scheduled attack would be a useless slaughter but nevertheless is horrified at the prospect of his career going up in smoke, investigates.
He discovers that his division, 3,000 men, was encouraged not to attack by one Corporal Stefan. Cpl. Stefan managed to convince the men of the division not to attack, and then the Germans in turn decided not to attack, and the war pretty much ground to a halt when both armies decided not to fight. Cpl. Stefan has a strange, otherworldly manner, and he doesn't seem to be bothered that much when he's arrested for mutiny. Him, and his twelve disciples.
Tropes:
- Allegory: The ministry of Jesus Christ, as represented by a French corporal and his twelve disciples, with their message of peace—that is, their message to ignore orders to attack.
- The events of the novel take place over a week, which is meant to symbolize Passion Week (Jesus's entry into Jerusalem, followed by his crucifixion).
- Ambiguously Gay: Gen. Gragnon picks up a book that once belonged to one of his staffers, a "delicately and even languidly-made man regarding whose sexual proclivities the division commander had his doubts."
- Away in a Manger: Corporal Stefan's sister relates how after their mother was knocked up by the generalissimo, their father kicked them out of the house. Naturally, they made it to an inn, but had to settle for the barn, where the future Cpl. Stefan was born. This is all part of the Messianic Archetype.
- Body Surf: It seems that Christ, or the entity that is the spirit of Christ, is doing this. When Cpl. Stefan is brought before senior officers, Col. Beale calls him "Boggan" and says that four years ago he saw Boggan killed at the battle of Mons. Right after this an American, Captain Middleton, recognizes the corporal as one Brzewski, a man that the captain buried at sea on the voyage to France when Brzewski died of influenza. At the end, after Cpl. Stefan is executed, his spirit takes possession of the Runner.
- Distant Finale: The ending of the novel skips forward six years to the funeral of the Marshal, Cpl. Stefan's father. The Runner, now horribly maimed after being caught in an artillery barrage, bursts out of the crowd to make a disruptive protest.
- The Final Temptation: The generalissimo, assuming the role of Satan in this allegorical story, comes to Cpl. Stefan the night before his execution. He offers to either 1) let the corporal escape, complete with money and passage abroad on a ship, or 2) acknowledge the corporal as his son and raise him to the heights of power. Cpl. Stefan refuses and is executed.
- Flashback: The main plot comes to a halt for quite a long while when the Runner meets an old black preacher, now part of a charitable aid society, who tells a long story about his pre-war days and how he was involved with stealing a horse.
- Flash Forward: The story introduces an American soldier named Buchwald, one of the three sent to execute General Gragnon. The narrative then says that after Prohibition comes in, Private Buchwald will become a bootlegger kingpin who will be buried in a $10,000 coffin in 1928.
- High-Class Glass:
- David the RAF pilot flies right past a German plane carrying a Prussian general. He makes eye contact and is astonished when the German takes off his goggles and puts in a monocle to look at him.
- This trope is both subverted and mixed with Eye Scream later, when the German's monocle pops out and he's revealed to have no eye behind it, only an empty socket.
- "Last Supper" Steal: As part of the whole Messianic Archetype package. The night before the corporal is supposed to be shot, a long mess-table is brought in and he and his twelve disciples have a nice dinner.
- Messianic Archetype: Corporal Stefan, the man of peace who convinces an entire division to refuse to attack, is the reincarnation of Jesus.
- Miniature Senior Citizens: The army group commander is confronted by his batman, who is described as "hardly larger than a child."
- The Mutiny: An entire French division refuses to attack, a mutiny which spreads to both sides all along the Western Front. It turns out that they were persuaded not to attack by one of their own, a French corporal who is the reincarnation of Jesus.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: Gen. Gragnon flatly refuses to believe that the entire division refused to attack, saying to a junior officer "'And you try to tell me this' (using again the succinct soldierly noun)."
- No Name Given: For most of the characters, like the Runner (a former officer now in the ranks, who follows Cpl. Stefan), and the generalissimo, the army group commander who turns out to be Cpl. Stefan's father.
- Numerological Motif: Besides the rather otherworldly mien of the corporal seen in the opening pages, the first hint of what is going on is when thirteen soldiers, the corporal and his twelve followers, are hauled away in a truck.
- Old-School Dogfight: Subverted. David Levine, the British pilot, attempts to engage in one, and attacks a German plane—and nothing happens. His machine gun was loaded with blanks, because the German plane was carrying a German general, crossing to Allied lines as part of a mission to re-start the war.
- Purple Prose: Faulkner was notorious for this and A Fable is filled with typically dense, knotty, very long sentences.'Bah', the corps commander said again. 'It is man who is our enemy; the vast seething moiling spiritless mass of him. Once to each period of his inglorious history, one of us appears with the statue of a giant, suddenly and without warning in the middle of a nation as a dairymaid enters a buttery, and with his sword for paddle he heaps and pounds and stiffens the malleable mass and even holds it cohered and purposeful for a time. But never for always; nor even for very long, sometimes before he can even turn his back, it has relinquished, dis-cohered, faster and faster flowing and seeking back to its own base anonymity.
- The passage where Gen. Gragnon meets his group commander, an old comrade from when they were junior officer in Africa 25 years ago, is a single sentence that runs for a page and a half and manages to use the archaic word "contumely".
- Quieter Than Silence: Gen. Gragnon is approaching the front when he is "startled, shocked" by what he does not hear, namely, any guns or artillery anywhere. He gets panicky when he realizes that he can hear cicadas chirping and larks singing and beyond that, "the unbearable golden silence."
- Shot at Dawn: The corporal who is the reincarnation of Christ is shot at dawn by a firing squad in the usual manner, along with two common criminals, just as Jesus was executed along with two common criminals.
- Spell My Name with a Blank: Apparently Faulkner did not want to give the impression that he was referring to specific units, so he does this with a division numbers. When a former officer who got himself court-martialed on purpose, because he didn't want to be an officer anymore, is sent back to the front as an enlisted man, he's told "You're going out to the —th."
- We Can Rule Together: The generalissimo offers this to Cpl. Stefan, proposing to acknowledge the corporal as his son and raise him to the heights of power. ("Power, matchless and immeasurable.") The corporal refuses.
