I warn you, there are no passive readers of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. The novel elicits a potent response from beginning to end. It toys with your emotions in chameleon-like fashion. Your tears of frustration, in the "Benjy" section, give way to confusion and gloom in "Quentin." Fury, barely suppressed, overshadows "Jason." This sadistic, satiric character provokes both your ire and laughter. Then, the joy of the Dilsey character rises, like the phoenix, at the novel's conclusion. Her spirit -- set against the ruins of the Compson family -- prevails in this dramatic final act. Faulkner, with his provocative cast of characters, transcends the moment in which he has written. His Sound and Fury cuts across new dimensions which you, as readers, must assimilate.
The bulk of the novel is set in the time at which it was written, 1928. However, in the course of his narratives, Faulkner frequently departs his moment in time. He revisits the childhoods -- circa 1900 -- of Benjy, Quentin, Jason, and Caddy. Later, he shifts the focus of the novel to Quentin's death in 1910. Through his "time travels," Faulkner broadens the scope of his characterizations. To what extent is his novel thereby enriched? To answer this question, you must consider the characters solely in their present moments. Jason appears unmotivated and, therefore, sub-human in his cruelty towards Miss Quentin. It is only when you incorporate the bank job, lost years before at the hands of Caddy, that Jason's vengefulness and hypocrisy -- his all-consuming hatred for women -- become fused with a malignant logic. Similarly, Quentin's plight -- his crucifixion by "the minute ticking of little wheels" (p. 77) -- seems illogical without flashbacks to Sydney Herbert Head, to Caddy and Dalton Ames, and to the antebellum South.
Faulkner is not an omniscient narrator -- at least, not until the end of the novel -- and he abstains from explicitly telling the reader when flashbacks occur. Often, his transitions are perplexing to an external audience like you and me. They fall too deeply within the stream of human consciousness. The "human" refers, in different sections, to Benjy, Quentin, and Jason. In each section, Faulkner tailors his narrative voice to fit the consciousness of his main character. Frustrated readers should consider how much sense it would make for Benjy, "the idiot," to acknowledge when his thoughts leave his present moment.
Another distinguished author might lead you to ask what method there is in Faulkner's madness. By telling his story from the point of view of his characters, Faulkner is better able to manipulate his readers. Suppose, instead, that he was to tell you, in his own voice, that Benjy is a gigantic thirty-three-year-old man with childlike capabilities. In so doing, Faulkner would provide you with an outsider's impression of what Benjy is. You would have no indication of Benjy's character. Suppose, then, that Faulkner were to add that Benjy bellowed because he missed his sister, Caddy. This observation is only illuminating in a superficial sense. It encourages you, moreover, to process Benjy from a removed vantage point. While you may pity him, you are prevented from truly relating to him in his situation. The gap between character and reader has not been bridged. By contrast, in his chosen method, Faulkner forces you to enter Benjy's mind. You have to follow his line of thinking, however obscure, because you have no other way of knowing what's going on. In "Quentin" and "Jason," this is true to a lesser extent. Many developments in the story -- the death of Quentin and Father, Caddy's disgrace, the birth of Miss Quentin -- have already been broached. Here, your job as readers is to get at meaning through the piecemeal of accounts. However, the strong narrative voices of both Quentin and Jason ensure that their souls become embedded in your minds. Who of you can read "Father, I have committed incest" and "Once a bitch, always a bitch" without coming away with a distinct impression of the workings of their characters?
Go To Page: 1 2
