Benjy’s Section: The Chaos of Memory Benjy is the novel’s first narrator. He cannot speak. He can only moan. He remembers smells: Caddy smells like trees. His sister, Caddy, is the center of his world. She leaves. He mourns. His section is not chronological. It moves between 1898, 1905, 1912, and 1928. The reader knows time has shifted because the narration changes. When Benjy’s attendant, Luster, says “Caddy” in 1928, Benjy remembers Caddy in 1898. The reader must pay attention. The difficulty is intentional. Faulkner wanted to force the reader to experience time as Benjy experiences it: not as a line, but as a circle. The past is not past. It is present. It is always present.
Quentin’s Section: The Obsession with Honor Quentin is the intellectual brother. He goes to Harvard. He is obsessed with his sister’s virginity. He believes that Caddy’s sexual experience has dishonored the family. He tells his father that he committed incest with her. He is lying. He wants to be punished. He cannot bear the shame. He commits suicide by drowning himself. His section is a single long paragraph. It is filled with italics, parentheses, and repetition. The reader feels his mind breaking. Faulkner said that Quentin’s section was the most difficult to write. He had to keep the sentence going for 50 pages. He did it.
Jason’s Section: The Bitterness of the Survivor Jason is the villain. He is racist, misogynist, and cruel. He has no redeeming qualities. He works in a hardware store. He steals money that was meant for his niece, Quentin (named after her uncle). He is angry at everyone. His section is linear. It is easy to read. That is the trap. Jason thinks he is sane. He is not. He is consumed by hate. He has no inner life. His section is all external action. Faulkner is showing that the worst character is the most “normal.” That is the novel’s deepest pessimism.
Dilsey’s Section: The Faithful Servant The fourth section is narrated by an omniscient voice. It focuses on Dilsey, the family’s Black servant. She has raised the Compson children. She has been faithful. She is not paid. She is not respected. She goes to church on Easter Sunday. She hears the sermon. She cries. She says, “I’ve seed de first en de last.” She has seen the family rise and fall. She endures. Faulkner gives Dilsey the last word. She is the novel’s moral center. She is the only one who understands.
The Title: From Shakespeare The title comes from Macbeth’s soliloquy: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The idiot is Benjy. The tale is the Compson family. The sound and fury are their struggles. The nothing is their legacy. Faulkner was not an optimist. He believed that the South was cursed. He believed that slavery could not be forgotten. The Compsons are not just a family. They are the South. Their decline is the South’s decline.
Conclusion: “The Sound and the Fury” is not a book for beginners. It is a book for readers who are willing to struggle. Faulkner said that he wrote it four times. He wanted to get it right. He did. The novel is a masterpiece because it is difficult. It forces the reader to work. The work is rewarded. The reader who finishes “The Sound and the Fury” will never read another novel the same way.
