The Sound and the Fury – Questions
Discuss Writing Technique and Style for this Classic
A set of three questions reading groups to use when discussing William Faulkner's masterpiece of high modernism and stream of consciousness.
1.) The title of William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury comes from one of Shakespeare’s speeches given by Macbeth. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,/ To the last syllable of recorded time/ And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/ The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!/ Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing."
Some critics argue that the last line of the speech ‘signifying nothing’ is Faulkner’s commentary on the novel. They suggest that Faulkner didn’t mean for the novel to be understood. Do you agree? Or do you think that Faulkner use the idiot (Benjy) to reveal things that we couldn’t understand or see otherwise?
2.) Stream of consciousness is a technique used by writer’s who want to mimic the way we really experience life. Life is a blend of sensation, memory, emotion and thought all rolled into an indivisible experience. Writer’s use stream of consciousness to convey that reality to the reader. Faulkner wrote the first three sections of The Sound and the Fury using stream of consciousness.
Do you like the stream of consciousness style or do you find it confusing? Would you read another novel written in stream of consciousness style? Do you feel that stream of consciousness was an effective way of presenting Benjy? Quentin? Jason? Why do you think Faulkner did not use stream of consciousness for Dilsey’s section?
3.) Faulkner wrote at a time when high modernism was popular. High modernists felt that the traditional method of presenting space and time in the arts didn’t mesh with how we experience life. In the novel, Faulkner tries to present time in a variety of fashions. With Benjy he presents all of time as being a single moment. With Quentin he presents us with someone trapped in the past, unwilling to accept the present and who ultimately refuses the future by committing suicide. Jason represents the traditional linear view of time. Dilsey holds both the beginning and the end in her hands and by the end of the novel she realizes it when she says “I seed the beginnin, en now I sees de endin.”
What view of time makes the most sense to you? Do you think Benjy’s ability to live with everything in the moment as comforting ability or a distressing ability. Do you know people like Quentin who want to step out of time? What do you think gives Dilsey the ability to see the beginning and the end?
More About William Faulkner's Masterpiece The Sound and the Fury.
- A review of the novel.
- A summary of the novel.
- Major characters in the novel.
- Minor characters in the novel.
- Different aspects of love as portrayed in the novel.
- Discussion questions regarding themes in the novel.
