Review of ​The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner

​The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner is a novel that follows the Compson family in 1910 and 1928 as problems begin to wreck them from the inside out in the fictional Yoknapatawpha county. The novel opens with the youngest son, Benjy, who is mentally handicapped and is taken care of by one of the Black servants and kids, Luster. In the narrative, we’re inside Benjy’s head as he goes looking for quarters, follows his siblings and servants around. Though the narrative itself is disjointed, jumping from one moment to the next quickly, has partial thoughts in italics, and creates this atmosphere of a family in turmoil. The narrative then shifts back to 1910 and follows Quentin, a man and Benjy’s uncle, on one of his last days before he commits suicide. He goes to get a watch he purposely broke repaired, tries to help a girl who is lost out, but then gets detained for doing so, and has sex with his sister Caddy (who he killed himself over after she gets married to someone else). Afterward, the narrative shifts back to 1928 and follows Jason, the eldest brother and the head of the household (since their father had died). He runs a business betting on cotton stocks, while manning a supply store, though he is nefarious in his other dealings. Not only does he think the traders are conspiring against him, but he is also keeping his sister’s daughter, also named Quentin, from seeing her mom. And throughout this time, he forced Caddy, Quentin’s mother, to pay for Quentin’s life. Though Jason has been storing all that money in a drawer for himself. It’s hinted that he knows that Quentin, the daughter, is a product of Caddy and Quentin, the uncle, and uses that to keep Caddy away. And in fact, one day she tries to see her daughter and Jason cheats her by keeping her daughter in the car as they drive next to her. Finally, the last part of the novel pulls away and is told in 3rd person, mainly narrating Dilsey, the Black servant, as she takes care of the house, the mother, her son Luster, and Benjy. In the morning she gets water ready and then takes Benjy and Luster to church where they listen to a preacher from St. Louis. Later on, the narrative follows Jason as he realizes that Quentin hasn’t shown up to breakfast. So he barges into his locked room where he keeps his money, and realizes it’s all gone. Turns out Quentin stole the cash (most of it truly belonging to her) and ran away with a man from a traveling show. Jason becomes furious and tries to track them down, but ends up getting knocked over and gets a splitting headache, so ends his search. The novel ends with Luster trying to calm Benjy by taking him to the cemetery where Quentin is buried, but Jason finds them out. There’s an additional appendix to the novel which, in part, is a listing of the Compson family from 1699-1945, but really applies an additional narrative to the family. First, it tracks a librarian who sees Caddy’s photo in a magazine and takes it to Jason first, thinking he’d want to talk to her, but knows that he was the one who sent her away. And then to Dilsey who is too old to see the photo. It also provides a broader picture of how the robbery changed the family, or rather, how Jason’s blackmailing bit him back.
 
Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury is astounding in its voice, narrative, and boldness. The first two sections on their own provide impressions of a family. One through the eyes of (what the narrative calls) an “invalid”, while the second follows the uncle who will commit suicide. It’s only when Jason’s narrative comes in where clarity begins to arrive. Though this clarity is sharply nihilistic. He thinks conspiracies are abound by the Jews out east trying to take advantage of his cotton stocks. He basically keeps his niece, Quentin, under lock and key and forces her mother, Caddy, to pay him if she wants to see her. He is deeply racist, though also terrified of Dilsey. All of it prepares the reader for the most narrative heavy section in the last part. In fact, it’s possible that the first 3 sections are there to really paint these characters in detail, while the last section then throws these characters into chaos. It is in how the POV shifts that creates an air of weight that hinges on us being inside the character’s heads first.
 
Though, regardless of being “of its time”, the narrative’s weak points exist in its racism—not of the characters themselves because if you’re inside a character’s heads, racism surely can exist. But it’s in the last section where it describes the preacher from St. Louis who had, “a wizened black face like a small, aged monkey.” It is in this narrative, the 3rd person POV, where the reader is pulled back from what they suppose as “subjective” to “objective”. But this description does indicate a bias of Faulker’s that shouldn’t go unstated. Of course, the other sections may be more overtly racist with their use of the N-word, but those are confined to 1st person, effectively subjective interpretations of reality. It “gives the game away” when what’s supposed to be objective describes a Black man with racial stereotypes. However, that being said, The Sound and The Fury is an intensely innovative novel and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.
 
Final Rating: 5/5