The Sound and the Fury, by Southern novelist William Faulkner, is perhaps his most famous and most discussed work. Faulkner's prose is so entangled with the characters and the situation that reading this novel can be a challenge. However, a close reading of the book is rewarding even to the most casual of readers. Faulkner brings the Deep South to life in the most vivid detail, and gives us four precise and brilliant views of humanity.
The novel is separated into four parts--each of which is narrated by a different person. The first is by Benjy, a mentally disabled thirty-three year old man who has the intelligence (and is treated) like a small child. The narrative is dominated by sensations – and the narrator does not, or cannot make any sense of the events that play out before him. Causal connections are difficult for Benjy to decipher. At one point his shirt catches fire, but he cannot make the link between his closeness to the great and the red flames that burst out from his clothing.
We can make out certain parts of the narrative. Caddy is a sister of Benjy who has left, but whom he remembers looked after him when he was younger, Quentin and Jason are his brothers. Benjy's story also wheels wildly in time, sometimes he talks about the past, sometimes the present.
The second part is written from the point of view of Quentin, who is the eldest and brightest of the Compson children, when he is at university. He spends the day walking through Cambridge, and everything he see seems to bring back the pat to him. He is tormented of feelings of incest (a crime he admitted to his father, without ever committing), and guilt at the way his family treated Caddy (who became pregnant with an illegitimate child and was sent away). At the end of the day Quentin jumps off a bridge, killing himself.
We can make out certain parts of the narrative. Caddy is a sister of Benjy who has left, but whom he remembers looked after him when he was younger, Quentin and Jason are his brothers. Benjy's story also wheels wildly in time, sometimes he talks about the past, sometimes the present.
The second part is written from the point of view of Quentin, who is the eldest and brightest of the Compson children, when he is at university. He spends the day walking through Cambridge, and everything he see seems to bring back the pat to him. He is tormented of feelings of incest (a crime he admitted to his father, without ever committing), and guilt at the way his family treated Caddy (who became pregnant with an illegitimate child and was sent away). At the end of the day Quentin jumps off a bridge, killing himself.
The third part is narrated by Jason, the third brother. He has grown up to be a mean and resentful man, looking after the family following their father's death, and treating Miss Quentin (Caddy's child) with cruelty and unfairness.
The fourth part is written in the third person, but mainly tells the story of Dilsey, the black servant who spent her life serving the Compsons.
The other three central characters have been shown to be flawed in their own way--Benjy by his inability to grasp the world like other people, Quentin by his sentimentality and fear of his own sexuality, and Jason by his cynicism and greed, Dilsy is seen as a noble creature who, despite mistreatment, continues to care for the family to whom she gave her life in service.
What Happens: The Sound and The Fury
The key to the novel (in which nothing really happens, life just passes on with all its complexity and difficulty) is the way that the story is told. The title, The Sound and The Fury, refers to a quotation from Macbeth that describes "a story, told by an idiot, signifying nothing." In a way this is a reference to the first part of the novel--which is, indeed, told by an idiot, but also to the way that the stories of all the Compson's lives are told. The literary pyrotechnics that Faulkner employs, far from being mere adornment, are attempts in order to get to the truth of a person's lives through their own way of telling, their own psychological make-up.
The fourth part is written in the third person, but mainly tells the story of Dilsey, the black servant who spent her life serving the Compsons.
The other three central characters have been shown to be flawed in their own way--Benjy by his inability to grasp the world like other people, Quentin by his sentimentality and fear of his own sexuality, and Jason by his cynicism and greed, Dilsy is seen as a noble creature who, despite mistreatment, continues to care for the family to whom she gave her life in service.
What Happens: The Sound and The Fury
The key to the novel (in which nothing really happens, life just passes on with all its complexity and difficulty) is the way that the story is told. The title, The Sound and The Fury, refers to a quotation from Macbeth that describes "a story, told by an idiot, signifying nothing." In a way this is a reference to the first part of the novel--which is, indeed, told by an idiot, but also to the way that the stories of all the Compson's lives are told. The literary pyrotechnics that Faulkner employs, far from being mere adornment, are attempts in order to get to the truth of a person's lives through their own way of telling, their own psychological make-up.
Benjy's story is disconnected, like his own train of thought, Quentin’s is over-elaborate and leaps from idea to idea, making connections that aren't really there, and Jason's is single-minded and mean like his personality. And yet, despite the different methods of telling the story of their lives, each different method of telling shows the insufficiency of each character. All of them have something missing--in many ways this abstract thing is made flesh in the form of Candy, whom they all pine for in their own way. Each of the stories is full of sound and fury, yet there is no moral to be taken from them, and no greater understanding to be found.
Brilliant, sad, poignant and full of the atmosphere that Faulkner is so well known for evoking, The Sound and the Fury is difficult to read and hard to process. And yet its brilliance is that, far from being purposefully obscure, it is in fact enormously insightful. More than any other piece of literature, it is able to delve into the minds of its characters and portray events from their point of view. It tells a sad story, but it does so with so much panache and verve, that it is undoubtedly a modern classic and deserves that attention which it requires from its reader.
Brilliant, sad, poignant and full of the atmosphere that Faulkner is so well known for evoking, The Sound and the Fury is difficult to read and hard to process. And yet its brilliance is that, far from being purposefully obscure, it is in fact enormously insightful. More than any other piece of literature, it is able to delve into the minds of its characters and portray events from their point of view. It tells a sad story, but it does so with so much panache and verve, that it is undoubtedly a modern classic and deserves that attention which it requires from its reader.
