The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner - Book Report/Review Example

The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner’s fourth novel, The Sound and the Fury, is undeniably a productof the postmodern school of thought. Although it covers a span of only three days and has very little action happening within those three days, Faulkner is able to reveal much about how the Compson family has declined to a very low state, illustrating his concept of what a low state means as well as telling the tale of the absent Caddy. The book itself is broken into four different parts, each part being told by a different character. It opens in the voice of Benjamin, Caddy’s youngest brother who is also mentally handicapped. Because of this, Benjy’s method of telling a story jumps confusingly from present to past as he reveals his feelings regarding his sister. The second section is narrated by Quentin, another one of Caddy’s brothers, as he prepares himself to commit suicide. As he moves through his remaining time on earth, his actions and thoughts are also filled with the idea of Caddy, illustrating how her actions and life have affected the outcome of his. The third section speaks of Caddy from the point of view of her bitter, jealous brother Jason, who has been left behind at the family homestead to care for the children’s mother, his retarded brother Benjy and Caddy’s illegitimate daughter Quentin. The fourth section is told in an almost omniscient tone of voice, but defies absolute definition. Although the story focuses mostly around this woman Caddy, she is never allowed to actually speak for herself regarding her actions. Faulkner uses the concept of voice, as the story is told (or not told) through various perspectives, to illustrate the character of Caddy. For Benjy, Caddy has always represented home, hearth and comfort. He describes her in childhood as smelling like trees, something he associates with closely and which provides him with a comforting sense of permanence and strength. However, when she begins wearing perfume at age 14, when she first starts having sex, Benjy realizes she doesn’t smell like trees anymore and cries for the loss. “Caddy put her arms around me, and her shining veil, and I couldn’t smell trees anymore and I began to cry” (Faulkner, 1991). As soon as she washed off the perfume, though, Caddy realized what it was that was upsetting her brother and gave the perfume away, at least that first time. “’Did you find Caddy again,’ she said. ‘Did you think Caddy had run away.’ Caddy smelled like trees” (Faulkner, 1991). However, just because Benjy’s imagery seems to be a little on the simple side, he nevertheless provides the foundation upon which the rest of the book is based and invokes the necessary understanding of the reader. “On the surface, Benjy’s narrative may appear fragmented, idiosyncratic, and removed from history. Yet it operates with a local coherence that readers rely upon, shows the dialogic formation of his identity, demonstrates how his preoccupation with the past affects his present perceptions and reveals Benjy’s significance for other members of the household – and for Faulkner’s readers – as they too attempt to comprehend the history of the Compson family” (Burton, 1995, p. 208). Benjy’s eventual complete loss of his sister proves to be a constant ache for him as time meshes together in his head, representing one immense solid present rather than a series of past events. This endless present allows him, perhaps more than any of the other characters, to view Caddy in a sympathetic, more realistic light because of his lack of bias in remembering her as she once was. Quentin, the eldest of the brothers and heir to the family’s fortune, or misfortune as the case may be, provides the moral judgments regarding his sister and her actions as well as the actions of the other members of his family. Seeing the family’s inevitable decline as it is established willingly and consciously by the other members of his family, Quentin finds it impossible to continue living as if his family still had the respect and prestige it once had. “While technically Quentin controls only a little more than a fourth of The Sound and the Fury (still the longest of the segments), he remains the novel’s center of consciousness. … Quentin is the mirror by which the events which occur are given moral focus and perspective” (Benson, 1971, p. 143). The actions of his sister affect him profoundly because of his own attachment to her and because of her blatant disregard for the family’s honor as demonstrated through her actions. “Caddy’s a woman too, remember. She must do things for women’s reasons too. Why won’t you bring him to the house, Caddy? Why must you do like nigger women do in the pasture the ditches the dark woods hot hidden furious in the dark woods” (Faulkner, 1991). His condemning thoughts regarding his sister portray her as something almost angelic in childhood, sweet and helpful and understanding, yet monstrous and vile in the form of a woman, destroying herself in the act of marrying Dalton Ames. To Quentin, women “have an affinity for evil supplying whatever the evil lacks in itself for drawing it about them instinctively as you do bed-clothing in slumber fertilizing the mind for it until the evil has served its purpose whether it ever existed or no” (Faulkner, 1991). Jason’s personality and position within the book gives him a more logical, cohesive presentation of his sister than those of his brothers. He is the realist of the group as compared to his retarded brother Benjy and his dreamy, artistic brother Quentin. His thoughts, like his actions, convey a certain logical pattern. “The reason for this is that Jason operates in terms of a logic which forms the basis of social communication. We may not approve the direction in which his logic takes him, but that his actions are the result of clear, orderly thinking in terms of cause and effect cannot be disputed” (Vickery, 1954, p. 1020). Because it was Caddy who caused him to lose his inheritance and the chance at the job he wanted, he does not feel any qualms in taking money from her for himself. Because of the hassles that his niece Quentin gives him, he also feels justified in obtaining his wealth and revenge by keeping the money her mother sends her for himself. “It is part of the general satiric intent of this section that Jason’s obvious distortion of Caddy should be associated with logic and reason, for it throws a new perspective not only on the actions of the Compsons, but on Jason, the representative of the ‘rational’ man” (Vickery, 1954, p. 1020). Finally, the speaker in the fourth book remains as much a mystery to us as Caddy herself. Remaining indefinable, the speaker is neither omniscient nor is he identified, although some critics have claimed it to be the voice of Dilsey herself. However, at no point does the narrative itself give this indication. As one critic claims, there is nothing in the patterns of speech of this narrator that indicates they have any additional knowledge that would not be perceptible to another observant spectator. “At no point do we know how Dilsey really feels or what is going to happen to her” (Blanchard, 1970, p. 556). Rather than actually providing additional insight and illumination into the character of Caddy, this fourth speaker seems instead to synthesize the information that has been given so far, taking into account the mental limitations of Benjamin, the disillusionment of Quentin and the bitterness of Jason to arrive at a central truth that remains, because of the lacking fifth voice of Caddy herself, ambiguous and ill-defined. “The reader’s acquaintance with the first three sections of the novel explains the limits of his knowledge” (Blanchard, 1970, p. 562) in attempting to decode the essential element that is Caddy by the end of the book. Thus, the tale of Caddy and the fall of her family remains essentially a mystery even while the reader is given tremendous information regarding this girl’s character. As she is portrayed by her brothers, she is alternately nurturing and caring, deceitful and seductively evil or conniving and controlling. Her actions serve to both refute and support these views. She cares deeply for her brother Benjy, and is perceptive enough in his distress to often deduce what is bothering him long before the other members of the family. Although she is prevented from seeing her daughter, she continues to send $200 every month to provide for her well-being and repeatedly tells Jason to let her know of anything Quentin needs so she can provide it. Quentin comes to terms with her willingness to commit any kind of sin that directly refuses the social order of their parents and Jason sees her as a conniving woman who tricked one man into marrying her leading directly to the destruction of Jason’s life. Through the eyes of her brothers, she emerges as the true realist of the bunch, finding a way to survive on her own terms, rejecting the superficial social orders of her ancestors while remaining a nurturing, caring human being. Despite this insight, the reader is never able to gain a complete picture of Caddy as she really is. Her absent voice reveals how much we don’t know and the shifting perspectives remind us that even those who think they know her really don’t have a full concept of this enigmatic woman. Works Cited Benson, Jackson J. “Quentin Compson: Self-Portrait of a Young Artist’s Emotions.” Twentieth Century Literature. Vol. 17, N. 3, (July 1971), pp. 143-159. Blanchard, Margaret. “The Rhetoric of Communion: Voice in The Sound and the Fury.” American Literature. Vol. 41, N. 4, (January 1970), pp. 555-565. Burton, Stacy. “Benjy, Narrativity, and the Coherence of Compson History.” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature. Vol. 7, No. 2, (Autumn-Winter 1995), pp. 207-228. Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Vantage Press, 1991. Vickery, Olga W. “The Sound and the Fury: A Study in Perspective.” PMLA. Vol. 69, N. 5, (December 1954), pp. 1017-1037. Read More