The Sound And The Fury Essay Research

The Sound And The Fury Essay, Research Paper

In the short soliloquy from William Shakespeare? s calamity, Macbeth, the rubric character likens life to a? narrative told by an imbecile, full of sound and fury. ? Benjy, a 33 twelvemonth old imbecile, begins to associate William Faulkner? s unfortunate narrative of the Compson household in The Sound and the Fury. Merely as it is a narrative told by an idiot, it is one characterized by? sound? and? fury. ? Benjy? s meaningless vocalizations and trust on his auditory senses, the ageless ticking of redstem storksbills, Quentin? s cryptic bantering, the undistinguished concomitant. Jason? s lecherousness for power and control, the ineluctable Nemesis of clip, Miss Quentin? s rebellious attitude. The Compson household in its entireness is that? hapless participant that struts and frets his hr upon the stage. ? Their lives are so full of concerns, confusion, sound, and rage that life becomes short and unimportant, meaning nil. However, Faulkner? s The Sound and the Fury is non limited to any one point of position, even to that of Benjy. By presenting his novel from four wholly different positions, Faulkner is able to make an elaborately woven secret plan that centers on the lone Compson girl, Caddy, and allows one to creep inside the heads of his deeply disturbed characters. April 7th, nineteen-hundred-and-twenty-eight? or is it? Benjamin, once Maury, presents a confused history of his life between his early childhood merely around the bend of the century and up until 1910, chiefly concentrating on his relationship with his sister, Candace. His sense of clip is nonexistent: he confuses the yesteryear with the present. He is actual: he has no cognition of intension. His descriptions are that of a little kid and stand for the universe as it might look to a individual who has been cut off from all things civilized. One of Benjy? s most graphic memories is drunkenness: ? ? I ran into the box. But when I tried to mount onto it it jumped off and hit me on the dorsum of the caput and my pharynx made a sound? ( Faulkner 40 ) . His readings, in general, are simplistic and this is clearly reflected in the manner he describes his experience with intoxicant. The loss of control that is associated with alcoholism is new to Benjy, and he doesn? t understand that his opinion is impaired and the bubbly he consumed has altered his perceptual experience of the universe. Alternatively, he merely understands that the land is traveling beneath him? he believes what he sees. ? I couldn? T see it, but my custodies saw it, and I could hear it acquiring dark, and my custodies saw the slipper but I couldn? t see myself, but my custodies could see the slipper, and I squatted at that place, hearing it acquiring dark? ( Faulkner 72 ) . Benjy relies to a great extent on his senses, particularly sight, odor, and touch. He associates sight with the cognition that an object is present, which is how? sees? with his custodies, he knows the slipper is at that place, but he can? t physically see it. Because of this, Benjy appreciates beauty and colour and visible radiation, which is apparent in his captivation with fire. It is besides understood that this slipper belonged to his sister and serves as a kind of security cover. One understands that Benjy tells his narrative without adding any intelligent reading, leting one to witness the development of the Compson household through the eyes of a simpleton while puting down the model of the secret plan, nevertheless confounding it may look. If Benjy fails to analyse events around him, Quentin overanalyzes them. He concentrates on clip and invariably attempts to get away clip, which he finally discovers is inevitable. His dark, cryptic narrative is centered about the events taking up to 1910, and topographic points accent on his desire to continue his sister? s artlessness every bit good as his function as the? walking shadow? of the Compson household. ? The shadow hadn? t rather cleared the stoop. I stopped inside the door, watching the shadow move. It moved about unnoticeably, crawling back inside the door, driving the shadow back into the door? ( Faulkner 81 ) . Quentin dwells on darkness and encloses himself in shadows. These shadows have a manner of forestalling him from burying that clip is invariably looming over him, like a dark cloud that reminds him, every bit good as the reader, that clip does be, and thought that contradicts Benjy? s intervention of chronology. Despite his captivation with the continuity of clip, Quentin loved merely one thing. As noted in the epilogue, he? loved decease above all? loved merely decease, loved and lived in a deliberate and about kinky expectancy of decease? ( Faulkner 336 ) . Because of Quentin? s compulsion with darkness, morbidity, and decease itself, his point of position is about futuristic. Day by twenty-four hours, he lives in expectancy, dying for the twenty-four hours when his biological clock will discontinue

to tick away the minutes of his unfortunate existence. Quentin?s dark point of view contrasts sharply with that of Benjy, and thus weaves another strand into Faulkner?s intense lattice. Jason Compson presents the first sequential narration in this novel and, by doing so, establishes the fact that he is (or tries to be) in control of all around him. After his father?s death, he took on the role as the man of the house and, in comparison with his suicidal and idiot brothers and his promiscuous sister, seemed to be the only child with any direction or common sense. In the appendix, Faulkner characterized Jason as ?the first sane Compson since before Culloden and (a childless bachelor) hence the last? (Faulkner 342). Jason is the first character to act as though he has a grasp on life, duty, and especially time, which is extremely distorted in the minds of his two brothers. Because of this, one assumes that Jason sanity exceeds that of any other Compson, regardless of the fact that his attitude toward time is so nonchalant that he has trouble being punctual. However, Jason is far from sane. His passion for control led him so far as to manage his sister?s relationship with her own daughter: ?Then I took the raincoat off of her and held her to the window and Caddy saw her and sort of jumped forward? (Faulkner 205). Jason craves power and, especially, power over his disgraceful sister. After her marriage fell apart, Jason found himself without the job Caddy?s ex-husband promised to him, and he felt compelled to take matters into his own hands by raising her rebellious daughter. It may also be noted that Jason?s desire to exercise control over Caddy?s life stems from childhood feelings of alienation. Though Jason seems to be a logical, intelligent man, he is not fit to ?rule? the Compson family as a monarch does a country, and his narration comes off as abrasive?furious?rather than sensible. Ironically, the most stable, solid character in Faulkner?s story of the downward spiral of the Compson dynasty is their black servant, Dilsey. The final section of this novel is told from a third-person-omniscient point of view, but focuses on Dilsey and the historic placement of the fall of this tragic family. Despite Jason?s attempts to preside over the family, Dilsey succeeds as the one tie that binds them all together, the keystone of the Compsons. When ?she rang a small clear bell?Mrs. Compson and Jason [descended]? for dinner, as if she were in command of all activities in the household (Faulkner 277). Her authority in that house surpasses that of any other person, even the difficult, stubborn Jason. Though she may have only been a servant and managed to put food on the table every night and to do all other necessary household chores, she is a crucial part of their lives, as well as their tragedy. She is so important to their fall only because she is the sole individual who could foresee the Compson?s unfortunate fate: ??I?ve seed de first en de last?I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de endin?? (Faulkner 297). When Dilsey realizes that her employers are whirling violently into a downward spiral of corruption and, eventually, extinction, one is convinced that she is the only rational person in that household. Because of this, their place in history becomes finite and meaningless. Dilsey provides the only entirely sane viewpoint in this novel and she also gains respect from the reader, which is ironic in the sense that blacks are given very little historical integrity or recognition. The four contrasting viewpoints in The Sound and the Fury work to clarify any confusion that is presented in any of the preceding sections but retain their focus: Caddy. Though her involvement in each of the Compson brothers? lives is not always explicit, there is always a tacit reference to her innocence, shameful behavior, or maternal instincts. By using this character as the fulcrum of the novel, Faulkner is able to open up the minds of these three young men. The omniscient viewpoint, otherwise known as ?Dilsey?s Section,? demonstrates her function as the backbone of the otherwise spineless Compson family, while not compromising Caddy?s connection to each narrator. Aside from addressing the family?s collective ruin, The Sound and the Fury also tracks Caddy?s fateful descent from a beautiful, rebellious young woman into a desperate, selfish outcast. Faulkner purposely includes four different viewpoints in an effort not to allow Caddy to remain beautiful to the reader. Without the deterioration of her pride and charm, the fall of the Compson family would not be complete, for one survivor suggests durability. In fact, the only witness to their tragedy is Dilsey, who, as Faulkner noted, ?endured? (Faulkner 348).