Fury Essay, Research Paper

A Study of Structure in The Sound and the Fury

In his novel, The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner employs a alone

structural assembly to relay a compelling and complex secret plan to his readers. As he looked

upon this work as a failure in its ain right, Faulkner revealed, ? & # 8230 ; I wrote that same narrative

four times. None of them were right & # 8230 ; so I printed it in four subdivisions? ( Millgate 89 ) . His

purpose upon composing this novel was non for the exclusive intent of making such a peculiar

organisation, but merely to associate a short narrative of, as he put it, ? ..a small miss with muddy

shortss? ( Hoffman 73 ) . As his work progressed, this divided narrative grew into an

about puzzling structural chef-d’oeuvre. M.Coindreau speaks of the divisions as? & # 8230 ; four

motions of a symphonic music? ( Millgate 91 ) . These? motions, ? may non go

apparent to the reader during his first effort, but as he begins to listen more carefully to

the pitch of Faulkner? s vocal, he becomes progressively witting of The Sound and the

Fury? s harmonious aura.

Critics of The Sound and the Fury are speedy to observe the scrambled blunder of thoughts

and statements that the reader is faced with in the first subdivision of the novel. The 2nd

narrative is somewhat more consistent but once more contains obscure constructs. However, one time the

reader has become familiar with Faulkner? s technique, a more in depth expression can be taken

into the similarities and differences between the two characters, Benjy. and Quentin. The

correspondence of the complex construction and other literary properties within the first two

subdivisions of The Sound and the Fury are further developed by looking at the relationships

between the contrasting points of position and varying degrees of consciousness of Benjy and

Quentin.

The gap subdivision of the novel is narrated from the position of the character

Benjy, a 30 three twelvemonth old adult male whose head is developed no further than one of a

kid. The single sentence construction is really simple. This does non intend that the

subdivision is simple, but there are no hard words because the vocabulary of an imbecile

would of course be simple. The first words of Faulkner? s creative activity are said by Edel

to? & # 8230 ; take us into a bewildering universe, as if we were tracking without pause the ages of

man-and in the incorrect order? ( 100 ) . This? perplexing universe? can be understood with

significantly more lucidity when Faulkner? s? stream-of -consciousness? technique is

identified and studied. In this method one thought or case flows into another by the

relation of a individual, topographic point, or event. For illustration, in pages 1-3 of the novel, Benjy is

walking near a golf class. The images of the country and the voices of the golf players naming

for their caddies, remind him of a clip about twenty old ages prior, when he was taking a

walk in the same milieus with his sister Caddy. The deficiency of a passage or any

other type of explication between these two cases cause the unprepared reader to

become baffled and defeated. Falkner does, nevertheless, leave one hint that some signifier

of discrepancy is happening, as the type manner alterations to italics. Therefore, the reader must

be invariably cognizant of the type set and allow it be an assistance in understanding the novel. With

the understanding of the obscure? watercourse? technique and the acknowledgment of Faulkner? s

elusive intimations, one begins to use, as Edel calls it, ? & # 8230 ; a new manner of reading fiction?

( 100 ) . Besides, stream-of-conciseness can be identified as a technique whereby the writer

writes as though he is in the heads of the characters. Likewise, Benjy? s thought can be

interrupted midway through a idea ; sometimes he can return to it and sometimes it is

lost everlastingly. The complexness of the construction of this initial subdivision of the novel is

comparative to the one which ensues it. Therefore, in the Benjy subdivision everything is

presented through an seemingly unorganised sequence of images.

Quentin, the character who narrates the 2nd subdivision, as Benjy was the storyteller

of the first, besides produces a? watercourse of consciousness? in stating his narrative. However, in

contrast to Benjy, Quentin? s watercourse reveals voluntary and nonvoluntary ideas and

moves between these ideas much more rapidly. As this subdivision progresses he

becomes more and more immersed in his voluntary ideas, as Benjy was merely

witting of what came to him of course. Faulkner builds upon the basic method and

combines it with other techniques. He reveals his character? s head? & # 8230 ; interacting with

the outside universe by utilizing external incidents to either aspire or cut off an drawn-out

memory? ( Geismar 200 ) . Faulkner besides adopts techniques such as an episode of

hallucination, in which no existent action occurs at all, for the presentation of a character,

? & # 8230 ; whose tormented ideas are in world driving him to suicide? ( Geismar 200 ) . In the

decision of his subdivision Quentin does perpetrate suicide. Therein lies a tone of conclusiveness

which sheds negative visible radiation onto the stream-of-consciousness technique and its

suicidal nature. Whereas Faulkner? s manner is comparatively incomplex in showing

Benjy? s simple head, when he turns to the intricate head of Quentin his manner alterations

drastically. In Quentin? s subdivision the reader finds long, complex, and hard thoughts.

Quentin is seeking to work out complicated moral issues, therefore his subdivision is more

complicated. Besides, like Benjy? s, in the Quentin subdivision everything is presented through

random thoughts connected by association.

In both subdivisions of The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner combines the usage of first-

individual narrative with a decisively extra betterment provided by stream-of-

consciousness techniques. The first individual technique forces each character to uncover

himself to the reader, thereby extinguishing the possibility of inarticulateness. As an

illustration of this the fresh provinces, ? ? Your name is Benjy. ? Caddy said. ? Do you hear & # 8230 ; ?

Caddy lifted me under the arms. ? ? ( 75 ) . This episode is relaying Caddy? s efforts at

communicating with Benjy, who can merely groan in answer. We are maneuvered by the

novelist into taking over all of Benjy? s senses? & # 8230 ; his eyes go our eyes, his sense of

odor is ours, his alone experience of the universe around him is ours & # 8230 ; though we retain, at

the same clip, our ain consciousness? ( Millgate 90 ) . What F

aulkner has achieved in the

Benjy subdivision is a usage of linguistic communication to arouse more perceptual experiences and feelings than the reader

has of all time experienced in any other unpoetic prose.

In Quentin? s subdivision of The Sound and the Fury the technique dominates, even

though Faulkner employs first individual narrative. Quentin? s past-tense coverage of the

external facts, maps like all-knowing third-person narrative, whom he himself

replaces. ? He took one expression at her and knew that she was the 1 who loved him the

most in the world. ? ( Faulkner 124 ) . Since a first-person storyteller is non cognizant of others

ideas and feelings unless they are straight revealed to that character, it can be

surmised that Quentin was at some times more representative of a all-knowing storyteller.

To describe his character? s ideas, Faulkner shifts to a direct coverage technique based

on the present tense. For illustration Quentin says, ? I don? t retrieve burying them. I

Don? t retrieve how many mentums Mrs. Bland has either? ( Faulkner 175 ) . Since he has

taken the topographic point of all-knowing storyteller, all of the observations are therefore limited to his

perceptual experiences.

As storyteller, Quentin attempts to depict objectively the environment and the

events around him. He does this even though his objectiveness is nullified from the start by

his head? s deformations. The evident objectiveness with which he begins each of the

opening paragraphs disintegrates about instantly into a memory of a conversation

with his male parent. The first five paragraphs work this manner, but the 5th becomes more

complicated as, Quentin unwittingly begins to uncover the? watercourse? of his head.

? Quentin? s forms of association become nonvoluntary, as several ideas haste into his

head at one time, we the readers begin to associate our ain consciousness to his, and come

upon the realisation that we have more ideas than we care to acknowledge? ( Geismar

199 ) . As Quentin, in consequence, attempts to enforce a colored reading upon the reader, Benjy

does non construe any state of affairss or events.

Benjy? s observations do non go through through an intelligence which is capable of

telling. Benjy? s simplistic and easy baffled nature is apparent in the statement, ? They

came on. I opened the gate and they stopped, turning. I was seeking to state, and I caught

her & # 8230 ; she screamed & # 8230 ; and the bright forms began to halt & # 8230 ; ? ( 64 ) . Since this occurs before

the reader can understand the events, the subdivision takes on a funny nature that leaves the

reader sometimes holding to do what he can out of the fragments he was given. ? He

studies the events of which he is a witness, and even those in which he himself is a

participator, with a camera-like fidelity? ( Millgate 91 ) . His position of Caddy is extremely

personal, but the reader infers this position from the scenes that his camera-mind records.

He does non judge people himself, although he becomes the instrument by which the

other characters are judged. Benjy is the moral reflector of the novel because he can

sense things that no 1 else can. He knows when Quentin committed self-destruction, when

Caddy has been promiscuous, and he knows when his order, or form of being is

violated. Benjy? s ability to feel things gives him a somewhat wider position of the universe that

is unaccessible to him through address.

The clip component in Faulkner? s work is as indispensable for the reader to understand

as his stream-of-consciousness technique. In Benjy? s subdivision clock clip is about

wholly disregarded, because Benjy himself is wholly unmindful of clip. He

makes no differentiation between an event that happened merely hours ago and one that

occurred old ages ago. Benjy? s memory of the subdivision scene when he was 10 old ages old is as

vivid in his head as something that merely happened that forenoon twenty-two old ages subsequently.

Sartre explains that? In Faulkner? s work there is ne’er any patterned advance, ne’er anything

which comes from the hereafter? ( Sartre 88 ) . This is explained by that, if Benjy goes on a

walk with Caddy through his field in 1929, it is because he has done so since 1902. He is

as enthusiastic about this walk in 1929 as he was old ages before. The many old ages that

Caddy was non at that place to walk with him are non-existent to him because he remembers

merely those events which made him happy. Faulkner displaces conventional clip

histories in order to stress Benjy? s rejection of the difference between assorted

times and, more significantly, to demo how actions of the yesteryear are of import to Benjy

because they gave him pleasance. As Benjy is wholly unmindful of clip, Quentin

expends all his energy seeking to understand clip.

Quentin? s subdivision can be merely see a clip bomb clicking to its inevitable

blast. This fleeting and impossible stationariness, can nevertheless, be arrested and

pondered. Quentin can state? I broke my ticker, ? but when he says it his gesture is past.

The past takes on a kind of super-reality, with margins that are definite and

unchangeable. These margins are disposed to mask the present, and reappears merely when

they themselves is past. Sartre concludes with the undermentioned extract:

The coming self-destruction which casts a shadow over Quentin? s

last twenty-four hours is non a human possibility ; non for a 2nd does

Quentin envisage non killing himself. This self-destruction is an

immobile wall, a thing which he approached rearward,

and which he neither wants to nor can conceive. ? ( 91 )

Quentin is so concerned with this constellation of past events fixed in his head

that the present to him has become submerged in the yesteryear. Besides, that which is lived in the

nowadays is besides lived in the yesteryear because what was antecedently the present now is the yesteryear.

As these complex thoughts are somewhat confounding, the thought to maintain in head here is that

Quentin tries to halt clip from go throughing, and the lone manner that he can carry through this is

by perpetrating self-destruction, which he carries out at the terminal of the subdivision.

The Sound and the Fury, a narrative narrated by four diverse characters, presents a

disputing undertaking to a courageous reader with the usage of a complex construction and many different

literary motives. With its extraordinary message of head over affair it persuades one no to

give into the small things in life, like Quentin, but to confront all obstructions, like Benjy, and to

look frontward to each twenty-four hours as if it were one? s birthday.