Dilsey's Section

Dilsey's Section : April 8, 1928

 In the final section of William Faulkner's the sound and fury , we see a clear and more focused view coming from the Compson's servant Dilsey. Dilsey is the one character that brings a proper balance of the past and the present. I believe this is due to the fact that she has been with the Compson family for so long. She also different from the Compson's for she fully embraces the qualities of love and familial duties. Dilsey doesn't judge others for their actions and she doesn't hold the old "southern views " the Compson family has.
 Faulkner sets up his novel so that it ends in this way because he wants to finally set the main message of his novel : "Old Southern Views are not okay, and even at the smallest unit of society, the family, we can see the wrongness in this society." Different from all the characters, Dilsey has a more optimistic view on society, she is the only true sign of hope for the Compson family. Her section is told on Easter Sunday and the house is chaotic on this particular day, and she is the only one who brings order to the house, and unlike characters like Jason. She believes in positive ideas and she even has a strong believe in God.
 Macbeth's  quotation—"[life] is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing," represents a view that there is no purpose to life. Most religious people in that southern society believed that their was a higher purpose to life, and this quotation dismisses that notation. This relates to Faulkner's novel that is told four times in the fact that  people in that Southern wouldn't really take what Benjy, an idiot says , to signify anything and by the time we get to Dilsey's section we see, contrary to this Macbeth quote. The book symbolizes how societal views affect the family as a unit and can even cause families to become dysfunctional, such as the Compson family is.

Jason's Section

Jason’s Section: April 6, 1928

    Jason Compson is a character that really pushes the boundary between being selfish and completely not giving a care in the world.  Since childhood , Jason was not trusted by any of his family member even his own siblings, Quentin and Caddy; he was always alone and excluded from many things going on. In his section, we see his bitterness and his rude and aggressive disposition. His strong dislike for everyone even his own  mother, who loves him the most out of all of his sibling, shows us how much Jason lacks respect for anybody and he only cares about himself. Throughout his section, Jason doesn’t say anything kind or nice to anybody, and he only cares about how other people’s actions, such as Caddy getting pregnant, affect him.
    In his section, Jason accounts for the conversations with his mother where she is expressing how great Jason is. For example,  when Jason’s drinking problems become a major issue, his mother tells him “‘ You [Jason] are my only hope,’ hope she says. ‘Every night I thank God for you " (173). Jason  treats his mother very poorly and doesn't even bother to reciprocate the love she gives him. Jason is upset with his sister Caddy being the reason why he didn't get the job at the bank. He also he treats his niece Quentin very rudely. This may have resulted from the fact that Jason hates her mother . For example, Jason tells Quentin " Everybody in this town knows what you are... 'But I've got a position in this town, and I'm not going to have any member of my my family going on like a nigger wench. You hear me?'" (163)
   Jason character represents the old South and its values; he believes that everyone, specifically his sister Caddy should behave in a certain way. He judges everyone for their actions. He is disrespectful to everyone, even his own employer; he even compares people to "niggers" whom were thought to have the lowest societal status.

Quentin's Section

 

Quentin's Section : June 2, 1910

In Quentin’s section, Faulkner focuses on the societal views the influence the Compson family and their effect on the Compson children. Quentin’s section, much like Benjy’s section in the fact that that he focuses on his family especially his father , Caddy, and his "mother." With the opening of the section Quintin focuses on time and his father's view on time. When Quentin's father gave him his grandfather's watch he said to him:

         give you the mausoleum of all hope and            
         desire; it's rather ... apt that you will use it     
         the reduction absurdum of all human                 
         experience... I give it to you not that you
         remember time , but that you might
         forget it now and then for a moment and
        not spend all your breath trying to conquer
        it (65).

Quentin relates time and the ticking of the time on a clock to many situations such as the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
    As the section progresses it becomes clear that Quentin is upset about the lost of Caddy's and his family's neglect to be "truly concerned" about the situation. It seems that Quentin who is a student at Harvard University should have better things to think about than the lost of his younger sister's virginity is almost obsessed or wholly consumed with the lost of Caddy's virginity. Quentin is particularly horrified by and cannot understand his father's cynical view on women and virginity. Quentin's father says " In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boy, Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women ... men invented virginity not women " (67) Quentin cannot accept this view and he looks for another reason to attribute his sister's sin and lack of self respect.
   Quentin believes that the absence of his mother's presence in her children's lives is why Caddy lost her virginity.  When Quentin is discussing with Gerald, he comments on the fact he didn't have a mother like his to teach and his siblings , specifically Candace the "finer points" of life (93). Quentin's perspective shows one of a concerned older brother wanting to protect his younger sister , but it can also be one of jealousy because he is single and a virgin.
  Finally throughout the section , Quentin doesn't maintain a clear sense of the "I." There are points in the section where Quentin's account for what he is father is says turns into what he is saying . For example, Quentin would say " father said" and then he would then say " I said " making it confusing who is actually speaking . Also, as the section progresses and nears Quentin's suicide, the story is told from a narrator outside Quentin. Here readers may be confused as to whether Quentin is telling the story from a third -person perspective of not . His poor maintenance of the sense of the "I " reveals his unstable mental state. Quentin's incestuous passion towards his family and , his sister in particular is deterring to his mental health and this is why he by the end of the section commits suicide.

Benji section

William Faulkner begins his novel The Sound and the Fury with a disorienting and confusing way to the readers. The first section of the book titled “April Seventh 1928” is told through the perspective of the youngest Compson son “Benjy” who is retarded. Benjy speech jumps from the past to present quickly and some readers may find it difficult to track where Benjy’s speech shifts in time. When Benjy hears things in the present, he relates them to the past. In his section there are many recollections  of things in the past such as Caddy's wedding and Damuddy's death. Faulkner intention in starting his book in this way is to draw readers into his story and want to decipher and set the ideas and events in some kind of order. A lot of what Benjy experiences highlights how southern families made no true effort to try and include people they considered of low status such as Benjy.

  The date of April Seventh, 1928 is the date of Benjy's thirty-third birthday, and the greater significance of the date is to show that even as a grown man Benjy is living with his parents. At age 33, Christ was crucified. This date shows that Benjy's role in the Compson family is very important; although they may not know it , Benjy is the rock of the family, as Jesus Christ is to the world. Benjy's condition is a grief and shame for his family , but he was born with his condition. Caddy is the only Compson who truly shows compassion and love for Benjy. Even his own mother is ashamed of him. His name change from Maury to "Benjy " accounts for that. Benjy unique perspective shows us that the Compsons are shallow people who don't just accept people despite their flaws.

 Benjy's nostalgia for the past shows that the southern society were still stuck of things of the past such as believing retardation was a flaw.  Benjy is a symbol of what the Compson family and the broader Southern "Hated" and that is "flaw" they believed everyone should be perfect.

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Lula Deng

Public

Mar 23, 10:44 PM

William Faulkner and the South He lived In

William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Missippi. Faulkner knew the South well and understood the norms of the "past" that still influenced the society in which he lived in. As a novelist , Faulkner "...wrote with compassion about family, community, and the people he knew" ( http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/progress/jb_progress_faulkner_1.html). In his novel novel " Sartoris," Faulkner established his legendary county of Yoknapatawpha that is based on Layfette County, Mississippi and it is here that he sets all of his novels in except three ( "Pylon," The Wild Palms," and "A Fable") Faulkner wrote about the fictious people in his surroundings and this included white aristocrats, merchants, farmers , poor whites , and persecuted blacks.
Faulkner also won two Pulitzer Prizes and the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature. He spent some time in Lousiana and there, fellow writer " Sherwood Anderson encouraged him to write about the people and places he knew, and that is why he created his fictional country, Yoknapatawpha, which is the setting for most of his works." The publication of his fourth novel " The Sound and the Fury ," Faulkner's resulted in the take off of Faulkner's career . The novel is told through the viewpoint of a retarded boy. Faulkner creates many characters who confronted racial injustices while struggling to live with dignity.

In all, Faulkner was a successful writer. He also dared to challenge the racism that existed at his time by giving dignity to all of his characters in his novels, even the black characters. He spent much of his time in Mississippi and Virgina and died in 1913.

Novelist William Faulkner Was Born

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