El Fin

The fourth and final chapter of the book is told from the third person perspective following Dilsey on Easter Sunday in the present (1928). Its story is told more clearly than all the other chapters. To summarize it quickly, Quentin escapes that train wreck of a family in the night and Quentin fails to find her. As for the book as a whole it is basically the same story of the Compson family's ruin as the Old South legacy collides with New South greed and other forms of sin. It is told through four narratives, in a way that the story is essentially repeated four times, and each progressive perspective provides a more clear account (from a mentally handicapped Benjy to a mentally insane Quentin to a heavily biased account from Jason to Dilsey's straightforward conclusion). It seems obvious that this should be representative of some larger concept, but for the life of me I don't know what that is. My first thought is that maybe it just reinforces the idea that the family is falling apart up to the point where there is simply nothing left in the Compson name (by the end of Dilsey's chapter), but I feel like it is likely something deeper than that. Referring to the Macbeth quote, "[life] is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing," maybe the increasing clarity is just telling us that there is something more to this tale. I don't know; I'm just spitballing here. The only thing I can say for certain is that for me, the progressive clarity of the story only makes the story more powerful each time (and a little more boring too). And maybe that's all there is to it. But that does not explain why Benjy seems to be such a clear-cut Christ figure. The family has fully collapsed in the three days before Easter that are covered in the book, and Benjy (at age 33) has suffered the most. My idea is that Benjy is somehow redeeming the legacy of the family, and through it the Old South, after it has been torn apart by Caddy's promiscuity, Jason's greed and rudeness, and Mrs. Compson's complaining and generally poor attitude. Or maybe he is redeeming Caddy, whose actions unintentionally began the process of ruin, but who actually may be one of the only pure-hearted members of the family. Again, I have no idea if this is remotely near the truth. I feel completely out of my league analyzing this book. Thank ye gods it's over.

Jason

I don't like him. That right there basically sums up how I felt during this chapter. Jason is a racist, manipulative, sexist, self-centered, greedy, lying mega-douche (to put it nicely). The best example of this starts on page 160 in my book. First of all, Luster is trying to calm down "Ben" by making a fire. From Benjy's chapter, we know that Luster is rude and spiteful towards Benjy just like most other people. In fact, that act of building a fire is almost undoubtedly done just to save his own ears from Benjamin's wailing. But even that is too much kindness for Jason, and he stops Luster, leaving Benjy to cry and the rest of the household to have to listen to it. Following that, Dilsey comes around asking why Jason hasn't eaten. She mentions that they aren't coming to dinner. And how does Jason respond? Like the jerk that he is, he first sarcastically asks if they're sick and then decides that since it's his money buying the food, everybody else can just suck it up and come to dinner. And then to add insult to injury, he talks to Quentin condescendingly all dinner long until she has another one of her emotional outbreaks and runs upstairs. Some of the other lovely things that Jason does include, but are not limited to: stealing the money his sister sends to her daughter, constantly tormenting Miss Quentin, following Miss Quentin and her current lover around town just to mess with them (although admittedly the girl is a bit...promiscuous), burns two tickets for a show rather than give them to Luster, and so on. Most of the time it seems like does all this for the simple reason that he enjoys making others suffer. The only good thing I can say about this chapter is it was much easier to read.

Approaching Insanity

I considered lying on the blog and saying that I'm all done with the Quentin chapter (which would probably not be a bad idea since my teacher is grading us on these). But I figure I've probably read more than a lot of other kids, and I'm planning on finishing this chapter tonight if possible. I just don't want to try to write anything at three in the morning. I can imagine how that could turn out... Anyways, I'm far enough into the chapter that I'm beginning to see some trends that I can write on. For starters, I am fairly positive that Quentin's mental health is rapidly deteriorating. As the chapter goes on, he lapses into scenes in the past much more frequently. These lapses seem to be triggered by certain events or symbols, such as the watches and time that Quentin is apparently obsessed with. These "induced" links between the present and past are similar to those from the previous chapter, but are less influenced by related events as they are by these seemingly random triggers. It is almost as confusing by Benjy's chapter too, but thankfully Faulkner decided to throw us a bone, albeit an incredibly tiny bone (think hummingbird), by making this chapter slightly less confusing with a more rational narrator. And although I've already heard that Quentin will commit suicide, it seems pretty clear to me that the thought is growing stronger in his mind. As the narrator, he views the river as something sublime and perhaps a source of rebirth. When I heard he had taken two weights to the bridge, I was convinced for a moment that he was going to jump off and drown himself right there. Another aspect of that decreasing mental state I mentioned above is seen in how Quentin narrates. As the story progresses, he actually seems to be losing his grip on who he really is. There are passages here and there that are clearly from the perspective of his mother, but there is nothing that distinguishes those passages from his own words. He seems to be lapsing in and out of both time and space. What I'm trying to say is he is losing track of both "who" he is and "when" he is (I just really wanted to say "time and space").

Chapter One

I just finished reading the first chapter of The Sound and the Fury and it was just as difficult as my teacher had predicted. In fact, without my teacher's help I'm wouldn't have understood half of it. For those of you who haven't read this book, the reason this chapter is confusing is because it is told from the viewpoint of a seriously mentally ill character whose narrative is a mosh pit of different scenes from different points in time. There is no straightforward plot unless you put a lot of effort into piecing together the story. As for why Faulkner does this, I have no idea. He could be using this chapter to define the character Benjy; he could be using the confusion of the narrative to symbolize the confusion of the Compson family, with a hypochondriac mother, a mentally handicapped son, a rebellious daughter who becomes pregnant out of marriage, and many other odd and challenging characters; or perhaps Faulkner was just showing off his skill as an author. Regardless, I kinda hate that guy for making me struggle so much with 50 pages. Another aspect of this first chapter that my teacher brought attention to was the fact that Benjy is 33 years old during the main setting of the chapter, which is set on the day before Easter. This immediately turn Benjy into some sort of Christ figure, a concept supported by how much Benjy suffers at the hands of his "family". In my opinion, an opinion which has been heavily influenced by my teacher's prompt questions, Benjy is meant to be a symbol of that nostalgia for the past that characterizes his narrative. He is used by Faulkner as a critique on the immoral contemporary society. His suffering is meant to emphasize the need to return to fundamental values (chastity being the very notable example here). It is very likely that I'm entirely wrong in this speculation, but I hope you can see where I'm coming from at least. That'll be all for now children.

Background to The Sound and the Fury

This is Christopher here and welcome to my blog. Hope whoever's reading this enjoys what I have to say as much as I love wasting your time. This blog will document my epic battle with William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. As of now I am still sizing up my opponent. Faulkner apparently sets most of his works in a county called Yoknaptawpha, including the novel I'm about to read. That is the coolest fictional name I've ever seen. It's the type of name you can scream as you charge into battle and only look slightly insane. But on the more serious side, that word comes from two Chickasaw words that together mean "split land". Faulkner himself spent most of his life in the South, in Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. These southern landscapes are reflected in his fictitious county with a lot of class and racial conflict. Faulkner, according to my slightly enamored teacher, did not follow the racial prejudices of many Southerners and actually defended the rights of African Americans. Other more interesting facts about Faulkner:

• His middle name is Cuthbert.
• He based many of his stories off of real encounters.
• He smoked a pipe with utmost swagger.
• He tried to maintain his privacy. Sadly, he was too famous for that.
• He drank like a fish. An Irish fish.