The Sound And The Fury essay was written by a professional writer. The work “The Sound and The Fury” did not bring its creator Faulkner success and popularity among readers in the first years after publication. You can find a few explanations to this. In the first place, this novel was more highly rated by critics than ordinary readers, perhaps for the reason that the text was extremely difficult to comprehend, so many simply refused to bother to delve into what was written. When publishing his novel Faulkner addressed the publisher with a desire to differentiate the corresponding time strata in the text, but from a technical point of view it was a difficult task, therefore only in our time they published such a publication.
The difficulty of perception lies in the fact that in the first two chapters (there are only four of them) the author sets forth a stream of thoughts in which the time frame has no boundaries at all, and for the first time it is extremely difficult for the reader to classify a particular event. In addition, you can read through the following The Sound And The Fury essay to know how the author uses a particular characters voice in the novel.
Analyze how Faulkner uses a particular character’s voice (e.g., that character’s style of language) or a particular literary technique, such as the use of separate narrators with dramatically different styles or the use of fragmented chronological order, to communicate with the reader.
William Faulkner was one of the most prominent novelists of the twentieth century. His novel “The Sound and the Fury” is the masterpiece which is still not understood till the end as there are many angles and positions which can be viewed and interpreted in different ways by literary critics. There are many techniques in the book which Faulkner utilized to communicate with readers. The author had exploited the stream of consciousness style in the first two parts of the book to depict the inner state of two brothers in order to involve readers. The brilliance of Faulkner is in the usage of the technique which contemplates separate narrators with their dramatical destinies and thoughts.
Before analyzing the technique of Faulkner, one must read the novel and embrace the life of each character. “The Sound and the Fury” is the book about the Compson family who used to be aristocrats in the city of Jefferson, Mississippi, at the beginning of the twentieth century. The novel has four parts and appendix (epilogue) which was written sixteen years after the publication and served to clarify ambiguities. The first part of the book is about Benjamin Compson who is mentally challenged and castrated after the attack on the unknown girl. The second part is about Quentin Compson who is the smartest kid, and the family invested last savings in his education at Harvard. The third part is about Jason Compson who inherited the father’s business and was the last hope of the family to stay afloat. In the last part, Faulkner talks about Dilsey, the black servant who witnessed all troubles of the demolishing family and yet survived (Faulkner). First two parts differ from the last ones as the author used the stream of consciousness technique to express the feelings of two brothers (“The Sound and the Fury”).
Nevertheless, in each part of the book, Faulkner uses separate narrators to tell the story and make readers form their own opinion about every character and the family overall. Thus, in the first part, Benjamin is a narrator. The plot is nonlinear and makes it difficult for readers to follow the story. All events of Benjy’s life are not chronically coherent and spontaneously mixed. Servants who took care of disabled and mentally ill Benjamin were different during the period between 1898 and 1928, and this fact helps to put in order some events. T.P was Benjy’s caretaker in his childhood, Versh during his infancy, and Luster took care of him at the time when the story was told by the author, on April 7, 1928. Through all his life Benjamin was the shame to the family, and only people who sympathized with him were his sister Caddy and matriarchal black servant Dilsey (Faulkner). In the stream of consciousness style used by the author, Benjamin deepens in memories and pulls out bad and good moments from which the reader may understand the reason for such a destiny.
In the second part of the novel, Quentin is telling the story of the family from his point of view. Like the first part, this section is also nonlinear, and there is no chronology of events. Moreover, like Benjy Quentin is obsessed with his sister Caddy and most of his flashbacks are regarding her. He is a brilliant child, and parents hope that he can graduate from a prestigious university like Harvard. Quentin is a naive puritan who still believes in dignity and equality between men and women. He struggles to prove to his father that his principles are vital for the future of Caddy and must be followed. However, everything crushes in the head of Quentin when Caddy stepped on the road of lust and got pregnant from a random lover. Things started to become weird. Quentin was so in love with his sister that he was even seriously thinking about incest and adoption of Caddy’s newborn baby (Johnson). The story of the character finished with the suicide as Quentin believed that it was the only way to wash away sins he had made during the life.
In the third section of “The Sound and the Fury,” Jason is the narrator. He is the last hope of the family to stay wealthy and be still recognized among other families of Jefferson. Like his other brothers, Jason is obsessed with Caddy as well but in a completely different way. His cynicism and irony make him feel hatred towards the sister and the rest of the women. All the rage is going onto Caddy’s daughter Miss Quentin (Johnson). Jason is the representative of a typical man of those times who does not dare to admit his failures, face the problems, and stand his ground. Instead, he uses Caddy to have access to the money which she provided for her daughter and steal them for their own benefit. One day Miss Quentin get enough of that and runs away with a carnival worker taking uncle’s savings (stolen money) from the wardrobe (Faulkner). Jason is desperate and mad. He tried to achieve success in his life but ended up being a selfish coward who cannot resolve any issue.
The fourth part of the novel differs from the previous ones as there is no first-person narrator, but is still about one character. The section is about a black woman Dilsey who suffered from inequality along with problems which emerged as the result of the dissolution of the Compson family. The only person she cares about is Benjamin. She sympathizes with him due to his mental disabilities and mistreatment from the side of the family members. Dilsey is a servant who had spent all her life learning habits of Compson’s and trying to guess their wishes. She has strong beliefs and faith which help her to overcome difficulties and survive in the society which despises and humiliates her every day at every convenient occasion (Faulkner). The depiction of Dilsey in the novel is not incidental. The black woman symbolizes the end of aristocracy and the beginning of a new era where women are respected, and inequality does not exist.
William Faulkner had managed to invest in “The Sound and the Fury” all his pride and dignity. The brilliance of the novel is recognized by literary critics and well appreciated by readers due to depicted issues which emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century. The author uses a technique of separate narrators to tell the story of the Compson family, at the same time, raising the personal problems of each character with their obsessions. The main character of the book appeared to be Caddy as all events are around her, but there is no section where she is a narrator. However, at the end of the book, none of the issues are solved, and the family is doomed to vanish into oblivion.
Works Cited
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. Vintage Classics, 1995.
Johnson, Brandon. “”The Sound and the Fury” Literary Criticism.” Study Guides and Book Summaries, 16 Feb. 2017, freebooksummary.com/the-sound-and-the-fury-literary-criticism-42339.
“The Sound and the Fury.” Faulkner’s Style and Stream-of-Consciousness, 2016, www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/the-sound-and-the-fury/critical-essays/faulkners-style-and-streamofconsciousness.