Dilsey and the End of The Sound and the Fury

What a book.... Despite being one of the hardest books I have ever read, I really enjoyed William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.  I just finished reading the last chapter, which is a third-person narrator that mostly focuses on Dilsey, one of the Compson family's servants.  The chapter, which occurs on Easter Sunday, highlights the final downfall of the Compson family—the future of the family, Miss Quentin, escapes from her psychologically and emotionally traumatizing family.  The only remaining members are Caroline, the hypochondriac aristocrat; Jason, the self-loathing and bigoted store clerk; and Benjy, the mentally disabled "disgrace" of the family.  Of course, Dilsey remains—the African American servant represents all that was good in the now-extinct Compson family.  Now that's a humorously ironic ending.

The book started with Benjy's chapter, which was pretty much unreadable, and it ended with a clear third-person narrator.  This gradual focusing of the writing perhaps symbolizes the shift from the chaotic old South into the bright new South.  Over the reading of the book (and as time passes), the book emerges from a confusing period into a much more normal period.
Or, perhaps, Faulkner writes in the style he did to illuminate what the book is about...

The title of the book is "The Sound and the Fury," which comes from the Shakespearean quote in Macbeth, "[Life] is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  Faulkner presumably chose this title because he agrees that the story of life doesn't mean anything—it's just "sound and fury."  And so, by extrapolation, I personally believe that Faulkner wrote in a gradually clarifying way to show that, even when the world seems to make perfect sense, everything from households to empires will still fall because life is random and it doesn't mean anything.  Maybe the Compson family's story has two purposes—it both represents the fall of the Old South, and, perhaps more importantly, that greatness will, if corrupted and selfish, decay into nothingness.        

April 6, 1928—The Jason Chapter

Oh Jason. . . .  The chapter narrated by Jason Compson in The Sound and the Fury was hard to read.  Not because it used complex words or structure, not because it didn't make sense, but because Jason is one of the most bigoted, sexist, racist, and anti-Semitic narrators that I've ever come across.  While I understand that Jason narrated a long time ago (a time in which civil rights had not been passed, where women had only recently gotten the vote, and where much of the nation was anti-Semitic).  But still.  For those of us who grew up in the 21st century, Jason's chapter is hard to read.  Jason is a jerk, a bully, a manipulator, a power-monger, and an all-around bad person.  I suppose, though, I can't make those accusations without evidence.  I'll discuss a few of the grossest examples of Jason's bad character.

On the second page of Jason's chapter, he says to his mother about his niece Quentin, "When people act like n----s, no matter who they are the only thing to do is treat them like a n----r" (Faulkner pg. 114). Right off the bat, Jason proves he is both racist and in favor of beating his niece—I'd say that that alone makes a person a jerk.  I will, however, provide more examples.

Only a few pages later, Quentin tells Jason, "I'd rather be in hell than anywhere where you are" (pg. 119).  This quote is very telling about Jason's character—Quentin believes he is worse than the devil.  While Quentin is biased against Jason, I would still argue that a statement that power has to be based somewhat in truth.

Much later in the chapter, there is a scene in which Jason burns tickets to a show in the oven.  Luster, Jason's African American servant, begged for one of them, but he couldn't produce the five cents that Jason demanded (this scene occurs on page 159).  Jason would rather destroy something than give it to someone who desperately wants it for free.  If that behavior doesn't classify someone as a jerk, then I don't know what does.

It'll be incredibly interesting to see what Dilsey says in the next chapter—after all, while she lives on the same estate as the Compson family, she is somewhat of an outside observer.  Hopefully she will clarify the mysteries of the novel.

June 2, 1910 (Quentin's Chapter)

William Faulkner really tricked me with this chapter.  After I read Benjy's chapter, I truly didn't think that the book could get any more confusing.  I was excited going into the Quentin chapter—the first few pages were relatively easy to read.  And then I realized Quentin suffered from some kind of stress-induced thought-degenerative disease.  Short sequences of lucidity are interspersed throughout long, punctuation/grammar devoid, run-on paragraphs (and sometimes pages).  Because of this, I actually found Quentin's chapter harder to read than Benjy's—after all, at least Benjy's chapter employed basic English grammar.

Quentin's chapter was confusing for several reasons.  First, when Quentin enters into his narrative state of rambling, he frequently switches "in and out" of narrating.  For example, Quentin can be narrating a story and then, BAM!  Quentin begins repeating what other characters, such as Caroline, have said to him in the past.  Unfortunately, Quentin doesn't say, "And then my mother said, '...'."  He goes right into it, and he used the first person voice, too.  So one minute, Quentin is the speaker, and the next, Caroline is speaking through Quentin.  It's awfully confusing.

Apart from the speaker switching, Quentin's chapter is confusing because, throughout much of the text, it doesn't use proper punctuation or grammar—it seems like a run-on gathering of nonsensical ramblings.  And to be honest, I didn't understand most of these sequences.  But then again, I don't know if I was supposed to understand...

Quentin's mental state says a lot about his character.  Many of his ramblings relate to Caddy and his endearing (yet also creepy) worry for her.  I believe that Quentin's breakdowns are stress-induced, and just about all the stress in his life relates to Caddy.  So, the reader knows from Quentin's narration that he cares deeply for (or even too much for) Caddy.  He would prefer death over seeing Caddy get hurt.

Again, I'm excited to read the next chapter to make sense of this one.  Hopefully my wish to understand comes true this time....

APRIL 7, 1928 (THE CONFUSING ONE)

William Faulkner sure did know how to win friends and influence people through his writing.  I can promise with hardly any doubt that the first chapter of The Sound and the Fury is one of the most disorienting and question-provoking opening chapter in all of literature.  I've read a lot of books, including some of the classics that are on the same level as the trials of Hercules, such as A Tale of Two Cities, so I think I can make a kind of statement like that.  Anyway...

Why would Faulkner think that it was okay to do that to innocent readers?

Faulkner deliberately tried to confuse his readers because, however much we may want to disagree, the confusion did create a hook—I'm excited to read more of the book because I want to figure out what just flew way over my head.  Because I know the book has multiple narrators, I want to learn about the story from a more stable point of view—then I can make sense of Benjy's chapter.  To be honest, I'm fascinated by the book so far.

Another question—why is the first chapter set on Holy Saturday (the day before Easter) when the narrator is 33 years old?  I think Faulkner did this to paint Benjy in a "holy" light—while Faulkner wasn't trying to say that Benjy actually is Jesus, he was trying to say that the two are similar.  Basically, Faulkner wanted the reader to sympathize with, admire, and love Benjy (much like his Southern audience would have sympathized with, admired, and loved Jesus).

Finally, what's the point of Benjy as a character?  Why did Faulkner make him mentally disabled, for example?  Personally, I believe that Benjy's severely diminished mental capacities allow Benjy to truthfully portray what the Compson family is actually like.  While high-functioning narrators could distort the truth about the family, Benjy is unable to do so.  Benjy describes the Caddy as a loving, free spirit who gradually was forced to submit to societal pressures, for example.  Another narrator, such as Jason, may have described Caddy as a rule-breaking, bossy big sister—that's far from the truth.  Benjy isn't capable of having any ulterior motives against anyone else in the story, so he is able to speak the truth about the family rather than about a sugar-coated version.

Research about William Faulkner

Hello world, my name is Connor, and this is my blog about The Sound and the Fury.  Well.  This morning in math lab I started to read William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and I almost had a panic attack.  Not only does it take a long time to read each page, but it also doesn't make any sense—at least, not for a while.  After a laborious 20 minutes and 16 pages of the book (about a third of the way though Chapter 1), I finally started to realize that I wasn't actually supposed to understand what on earth was happening in the book—instead, I just decided to remember the main facts so I can put them together when the book actually starts to make sense.  And, when I realized that, I decided that the book was actually kind of enjoyable.

I just realized I have not addressed Faulkner's life whatsoever.

William Faulkner was a Southern author (but we already knew that).  He was not a World War I aviator, but he pretended he was.  But yes, Faulkner did badly burn himself on a radiator when he passed out from drinking too much alcohol.  He never actually graduated from high school, and he cheated on his wife.   Considering he was a well-liked guy by his peers, the times sure must have been different.  By hey—the only think that matters is that Faulkner could write well.