The Sound and the Fury: Review
An American Classic: William Faulkner’s First Great Novel
The Sound and the Fury was William Faulkner's first masterpiece and is an excellent example of high modernism and regional literature in America.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner is a showpiece for those interested in stream of consciousness writing in America. It is also considered Faulkner’s first masterpiece and an American classic. Credentials aside, it is a difficult book to read and enjoy. However, if the reader perseveres, there are compensations for reading the book.
Helpful Hints for the Potential Reader
It is helpful for the reader to understand some of the stylistic techniques used in the novel.
Faulkner’s novelistic style is considered high modernism, which is to say that he, like many of his contemporaries, tried to change or challenge or understanding of space and time. Modernists felt that the traditional method of presenting space and time in the arts didn’t mesh with how we experience life. Life is a blend of sensation, memory, emotion and thought all rolled into an indivisible experience. One technique modernist novelists used to present the indivisible experience of life was stream of consciousness.
Stream of consciousness was a technique where the writer tried to present the story in the way that the narrator’s experiences, including the random sensations, memories, and emotions they have during a particular event, are presented in the illogical jumble that the character would have experienced them. The presentation of these pieces are woven together the way they are in real life.
For example, the baseball game that the narrator is watching is interrupted by a memory that it triggers and perhaps the sensation of being cold. Then the car down the street backfires, triggering a new set of sensations and memories that disrupt the flow of the baseball game. The result is that the reader may not be able to follow the activity of the event clearly because they are interrupted in their understanding.
Non-Linear Timeline
In addition to the writing style, there is also the organizational style of the book. Faulkner addresses our understanding of time through his organizational methods. The book is not presented in a coherent timeline where the events occur at one point in time and proceed in an orderly manner to another point in time. In order to plunge us directly and deeply into the realization that time doesn’t always work in a linear fashion, Faulkner starts the story using Benjy, a thirty-three-year-old, mute and retarded man, as the narrator.
For Benjy, everything is now. As a result, one moment we can be in the present and without warning, we are experiencing the past. The scenes and times shift quickly and without explanation. The other three sections of the book all present time differently and they all present it in the context of the narrator’s experience, understanding, and belief.
Review
The Sound and the Fury is an extremely frustrating book to read and easily confuses the reader. However, those who persevere will come away with respect for Faulkner’s ability to put the reader inside the character’s mind. The first three sections of the book are written from the perspective of three very different siblings. In each case, you find yourself thinking the way they do. It can be quite disconcerting to find yourself involved in the bitterness and rage of Jason Compson in section three.
If one takes time to think about the story and perhaps discuss it with others who have read it (in order to get different perspectives). It is possible to appreciate the complex interweaving of points of view to create a comprehensive story.
The greatest satisfaction found in The Sound and the Fury is the ability to say “I read it.”
More About William Faulkner's Masterpiece The Sound and the Fury.
- 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 William Faulkner's style in the novel.
- Discussion questions regarding themes in the novel.
