The Sound and the Fury
| File:S&f87.jpg | |
| Author | William Faulkner |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Southern Gothic Novel |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith |
Publication date | 1929 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | 0679732241 |
The Sound and the Fury is a Southern Gothic novel written by American author William Faulkner, which makes use of the stream of conciousness narrative technique popularized by European authors such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf Published in 1929, it was his fourth novel. The novel first received commercial success in 1931 when Faulkner's novel Sanctuary, a sensationalist story which Faulkner later admitted was written only for money, drew widespread attention to the author. Critical praise soon followed. The book continues to sell well as of 2006, and it has become standard high-school curriculum around the United States
Plot introduction
The novel takes place in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. It is written in a stream of consciousness style and is split into four sections: the first from the viewpoint of Benjy Compson, a mentally retarded man; the second from the point of view of Quentin Compson, a depressed college student; the third from the point of view of their sardonic brother, Jason Compson; and the fourth section from a third person limited omniscient narrative point-of-view, centering on Dilsey, the Compson family's black servant, and expounding on religious faith.
Explanation of the novel's title
The title of the novel is taken from Macbeth's soliloquy in act 5, scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth:
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
''Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing..."
The first section of the novel is told by an 'idiot', (i.e., a mentally-retarded person), Benjamin.
Plot summary
Template:Spoiler The four parts of the novel relate many of the same episodes, each from a different point of view and therefore with emphasis on different themes and events. This interweaving and nonlinear structure makes any true synopsis of the novel difficult, especially since the narrators are all unreliable in their own way, making their accounts not necessarily trustworthy at all times.
The general outline of the story is the decline of the Compson family, a once noble southern family descended from civil war hero General Compson. The family falls victim to those vices which Faulkner believed were responsible for the problems in the reconstructed South: racism, greed, selfishness and, ultimately, psychological impotence. Especially in regard to the latter, the novel has been often described as having the thematic structure of a Greek tragedy. Over the course of the thirty years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically.
Part 1: April 7, 1928
The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjamin Compson, the youngest of the Compson boys and a source of shame to the family because of his mental retardation; the only characters who seem to show any genuine caring for him are his sister Caddy, and Dilsey, a matriarchal servant. His narrative voice is characterized predominantly by an inability to understand chronology or the laws of cause and effect. His section jumps freely between the years 1898 and 1928 with few temporal markers to indicate a change. This makes the style of this section particularly challenging, but Benjy's style develops a cadence that, while not linearly coherent, provides unbiased insight on many characters' true motivations, thus he may be compared to a camera, for he provides an objective view of all actions giving no reaction. His section may be followed more easily by establishing a sense of time. Benjy's narration and age can be determined by which of Dilsey's children is watching over him - Luster in the present, T.P during Benjy's teenage years, Versh during Benjy's infancy and childhood.
In this section we see Benjy's three passions: candlelight, a certain portions of meadow on the family's estate, and his sister Caddy. But by 1928 Caddy has run away after bearing an illegitimate child of uncertain parentage, and the family has sold his favorite pasture to a local golf club. In the opening scene, Benjy, accompanied by Luster, a servant boy, watches golfers through the fence blocking him from what used to be his favorite place. When one of them calls for his golf caddie, Benjy's mind embarks on a whirlwind course of memories of his sister, Caddy, focusing on one critical scene. In 1898 when their grandmother died, the four Compson children were forced to play outside during the funeral. In order to see what was going on inside, Caddy climbed a tree in the yard, and while looking inside, her brothers—Quentin, Jason and Benjy—looked up and noticed that her drawers were muddy. How each of them reacts to this is the first insight the reader has into the trends that will shape the lives of these boys: Jason is disgusted, Quentin is enthralled, and Benjy seems to have an "sixth-sense" in that he moans (he is unable to speak using words), as if sensing the symbolic nature of Caddy's dirtyness, which hints at her later sexual promiscuity. At the time the children were aged 7 (Quentin), 6 (Caddy), 4 (Jason) and 3 (Benjy). Other crucial memories in this section are Benjy's change of name (from Maury, after his uncle) in 1900 upon the discovery of his disability; the marriage and escape of Caddy (1910), and Benjy's castration, resulting from his familiy's false belief that he might rape or attack young women.
Readers often report trouble understanding this portion of the novel due to its impressionistic language--necessitated by Benjamin's retardation--and its frequents shifts in time and setting.
Part 2: June 2, 1910
Narrated by Quentin, the most intelligent and most tortured of the Compson children, the second part is probably the novel's finest example of Faulkner's narrative technique. In this section we see Quentin, a freshman at Harvard University, wander the streets of Cambridge, contemplating death and remembering the loss of his sister Caddy. Like the first section, the plot is not strictly linear, although the two interweaving storylines of Quentin at Harvard on the one hand and his memories on the other are clearly discernible.
Quentin's main focus is on Caddy, whom he loved immeasurably, for which love he felt tremendously guilty. Quentin tells his father that they have committed incest, but his father knows that he is lying. ("and he did you try to make her do it and i i was afraid to i was afraid she might and then it wouldn't do any good"(112)) Quentin's idea of incest is wrapped around the idea that if they "could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us"(51) that he could protect his sister by sending them both to hell. Shortly before Quentin left for Harvard in the fall of 1909, Caddy became pregnant with the child of Dalton Ames who is confronted by Quentin. The two fight, with Quentin losing horribly and Caddy vowing to never speak to Dalton again for Quentin's sake. Pregnant and alone, Caddy then marries Herbert Head, whom Quentin finds repulsive but Caddy is resolute: she must marry before the birth of her child. Herbert however finds out that the child is not his and sends mother and daughter away in shame. Quentin's wanderings through Cambridge, as he cuts class, follow the pattern of his heartbreak over losing Caddy. For instance, he meets a small Italian immigrant girl who speaks no English. He significantly calls her "sister" and spends much of the day trying to communicate with her, to no avail. Ultimately, Quentin kills himself by jumping off a bridge into the Charles River after loading his jacket with flat-irons.
Part 3: April 6, 1928
The third portion is narrated by Jason, the least sympathetic of the Compson brothers. By 1928, Jason is the economic foundation of the family after his father's death. He supports his mother, Benjy, and Quentin, Caddy's daughter, as well as the family of servants. This role has made him bitter and cynical, with little sign of the passionate sensitivity that defined his older brother or sister.
This is the first portion that is narrated in a linear fashion. It follows the course of a day in which Jason decides to leave work to search for Quentin, who has run away again, seemingly in pursuit of mischief. Here we see most immediately the conflict between the two predominant traits of the Compson family (which Jason's mother Caroline attributes to the difference between her and her husband's blood): on the one hand, Quentin's recklessness and passion, inherited from her mother and, ultimately, the Compson side; on the other, Jason's ruthless cynicism, drawn from his mother, Caroline Bascomb. This section also gives us the clearest image of domestic life in the Compson household, which for Jason and the servants means the care of Caroline the hypochondriac and of Benjy.
Part 4: April 8, 1928
April 8, 1928, not coincidentally, was Easter Sunday. This section, the only without a single first person narrator, focuses on Dilsey, the powerful matriarch of the black servant family. She, in contrast to the declining Compsons, draws a tremendous amount of strength from herself and her faith, and thus stands as a proud figure amidst a dying family.
On Easter, she takes her family and Benjy to the colored church for the Easter service. Through her we see, in a sense, the consequences of the decadence and depravity in which the Compson's have lived for decades. Dilsey is mistreated and abused, but nevertheless remains loyal. She is the only one who cares for Benjy, as she takes him to church and tries to bring him salvation. The novel ends with a very powerful and unsettling image. On the way back from church, Dilsey allows her son Luster to drive the car for a while. He, not knowing that Benjy is so entrenched in the routine of his life that even the slightest change in route will enrage him, drives the wrong way around a monument. Benjy's hysterical sobbing and violent outburst can only be quieted by Jason, of all people, who understands best how to placate his brother. He rights the car and Benjy is happy once again.
Characters in "The Sound and the Fury"
- Jason Compson III (? -1912) – Father of the Compson family, a rational thinker with strong opinions that heavily influence (and torment) his son Quentin.
- Caroline Bascomb Compson (?-1933) – Wife of Jason III, self-absorbed hypochondriac who terrorizes her children while feigning love for them.
- Quentin Compson (1891-1910) – Oldest Compson son, passionate and neurotic. He commits suicide as the culmination of the influence of his father's nihilistic philosophy and his sister's sexual promiscuity. He is also the narrator of much of Absalom, Absalom!
- Candace (Caddy) Compson (1892-) – According to Faulkner, the true hero of the novel, Caddy never develops a voice, but rather allows her brothers' love for her to paint the reader a picture.
- Jason Compson IV (1894-) – The bitter third child who is troubled by feelings of inadequacy compared to his remarkable older siblings. He inherits his father's business and becomes head of the household in 1912.
- Benjamin (Benjy, born Maury) Compson (1895-) – The mentally retarded youngest brother, who is a constant source of shame and grief for his family, except for Caddy, who genuinely loves him. He is eventually put in an asylum.
- Dilsey Gibson (?) – The matriarch of the servant family, which included her two children, Versh, T. P., and her grandchild Luster; they serve as Maury/Benjamin's caretakers throughout his life. A wise observer of the Compson family's destruction.
Literary significance & criticism
The novel has achieved a great deal of critical success and has secured a prominent place among the greatest of American novels. Recently, it was selected by the Modern Library as the sixth greatest English-language novel of the twentieth century. It also played a role in William Faulkner's receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature.
The novel's appreciation has in large part been due to the technique of its construction: Faulkner's uncanny ability to recreate the thought patterns of the human mind, even the disabled one. In this sense, it was an essential development in the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique.
The Sound and the Fury has also, like much of Faulkner's work, been read as a microcosm for the South as a whole. Faulkner was very much preoccupied with the question of how the ideals of the old South could be maintained or preserved in the post-Civil War era. Seen in this light, the decline of the Compson family might be interpreted as an examination of the corrosion of traditional morality only to be replaced by a modern helplessness. The most compelling characters are also the most tragic, as Caddy and Quentin both cannot survive within the context of the traditional society whose values they reject as best they can, and it is left to Jason, unappealing but competently pragmatic, to maintain the status quo, as evidenced by the novel's ending.
There are also echoes of existential themes in the novel, as Sartre argued in his famous essay on Faulkner. Many of the characters also draw upon classical, Biblical and literary sources: Some believe Quentin (like Darl from As I Lay Dying) to have been inspired by Hamlet and Caddy by Ophelia; and Benjamin received his name after the brother of Joseph in the book of Genesis.
Easter and other Christian themes
Many items in the narrative point to interpetation that Benjamin is a modern representation of Christ. The following points support this symbolism:
- Benjamin, as a mentally disabled person, is purportedly incapable of committing sin.
- Benjamin is celebrating his thirty-third birthday in the novel's opening scene; this is the age of Christ as the time of crucifixion.
- Benjamin's birthday is on Easter.
- Benjamin moans or crys whenever he senses sin or forebodings of it, as when Caddy muddys herself in the branch.
Bibliography
- Anderson, Deland. "Through Days of Easter: Time and Narrative in The Sound and the Fury." Literature and Theology 4 (1990): 311-24.
- Bleikasten, André. The Ink of Melancholy: Faulkner's Novels from "The Sound and the Fury" to "Light in August." Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990.
- Bleikasten, André. The Most Splendid Failure: Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury." Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1976.
- Brooks, Cleanth. William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country. New Haven: Yale UP, 1963.
- Castille, Philip D. "Dilsey's Easter Conversion in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury." Studies in the Novel 24 (1992): 423-33.
- Dahill-Baue, William. "Insignificant Monkeys: Preaching Black English in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Beloved." Mississippi Quarterly 49 (1996): 457-73.
- Davis, Thadious M. Faulkner's "Negro": Art and the Southern Context. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1983.
- Fleming, Robert E. "James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones as a Source for Faulkner's Rev'un Shegog." CLA Journal 36 (1992): 24-30.
- Gunn, Giles. "Faulkner's Heterodoxy: Faith and Family in The Sound and the Fury." Faulkner and Religion: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 1989. Ed. Doreen Fowler and Ann J. Abadie. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1991. 44-64.
- Hagopian, John V. "Nihilism in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury." Modern Fiction Studies 13 (1967): 45-55.
- Howe, Irving. William Faulkner: A Critical Study. 3d ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1975.
- Kartiganer, Donald M. The Fragile Thread: The Meaning of Form in Faulkner's Novels. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1979.
- Marshall, Alexander J., III. "The Dream Deferred: William Faulkner's Metaphysics of Absence." Faulkner and Religion: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 1989. Ed. Doreen Fowler and Ann J. Abadie. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1991. 177-92.
- Matthews, John T. The Play of Faulkner's Language. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1982.
- Matthews, John T. "The Sound and the Fury": Faulkner and the Lost Cause. Boston: Twayne, 1991.
- Palumbo, Donald. "The Concept of God in Faulkner's Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom!." South Central Bulletin 34 (1979): 142-46.
- Polk, Noel. "Trying Not to Say: A Primer on the Language of The Sound and the Fury." New Essays on "The Sound and the Fury." Ed. Noel Polk. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. 139-75.
- Radloff, Bernhard. "The Unity of Time in The Sound and the Fury." The Faulkner Journal 1 (1986): 56-68.
- Rosenberg, Bruce A. "The Oral Quality of Rev. Shegog's Sermon in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury." Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 2 (1969): 73-88.
- Ross, Stephen M. Fiction's Inexhaustible Voice: Speech and Writing in Faulkner. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1989.
- Ross, Stephen M., and Noel Polk. Reading Faulkner: "The Sound and the Fury." Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1996.
- Sundquist, Eric J. Faulkner: The House Divided. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1983.
- Urgo, Joseph R. "A Note on Reverend Shegog's Sermon in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury." NMAL: Notes on Modern American Literature 8.1 (1984): item 4.
- Vickery, Olga W. The Novels of William Faulkner: A Critical Interpretation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1964.
Sources
The full text of the book can be found here
A comprehensive guide to Faulkner, including chronologically organized breakdowns of Benjy and Quentin's sections.
| Novels |
|
|---|---|
| Short story collections |
|
| Short stories |
|
| Screenplays |
|
| Children's books |
|
| Related | |