The Sound and the Fury is the story of disintegration of a Southern family, the Compsons, due to the lost of real love, concerns, and understanding for the others. Compson family had a good start; Quentin Compson II governed the state, and Jason II was a general. But Jason III is drinking his life away and his children are even worse; one commits suicide, another disgraced herself, the third child Jason is a thief, and the fourth is an idiot. In order to present a good overview of the Compson family, Faulkner makes Benjy to start telling the story, succeeded by Quentin, focuses on Jason’s behavior, and finished by Dilsey. The way he uses the strategy of flash back in memory to describe the disintegration of Compson family makes the novel stands out from the others.
The title “The Sound and the Fury” is taken from William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth as Macbeth realizes that the witches’ prophecies are coming true and he is about to be defeated. Hearing that his wife is dead, Macbeth responds:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
…
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And than is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
The story focuses on Caddy’s fall. She is a loving sister to Benjy and Quentin. She is the symbol of the ideal of the family. Her loss of virginity and pregnancy forces her to merry Herbert Head. When her husband found Quentin was not his blood, Caddy was deserted. She chooses to leave, leaving her baby at home.
The Essay on A Family of One Sound
As we move forward through our lives we begin to see, new bonds created that makes this group a family. We speak together as one mind, one heart, one sound, so that love and support can be found. Our mistakes are learned from and we begin to look back, on the way things used to be before our music was intact. We cannot be a selfish a selfish generation only looking for fame, what we should realize ...
Each family member has their way of facing the problems.
Jason is a realistic thinker who thinks money means everything.
“There was a man scared the hell out of him so that when he was up again he joined the church and bought himself a Chinese missionary, five thousand dollars a year. I often think how mad he’ll be is he was to die and find out there’s not any heaven, when he thinks about that five thousand a year. Like I say, he’d better go on and die now and save money.”
Jason has no respect through out the story. Ever since his early childhood, he doesn’t care how other people think about him, he just do what he thinks is best for him.
“ Caddy and Quentin threw water on each other.” He told his parents on the night Damuddy died when Caddy was seven.
He makes fun of his famous ancestors. His bitter words always make the mother cry. He sells the family home as soon as his mother dies. He cheats on her mother for the money Caddy sends back to support her daughter Quentin and the family. He exchanged the checks and let his mom burn the fake one every month.
“Come on,” I say. (Jason) “Finish it. Get the fun over.”
“Fun?” she says. (Mother) “When I think—“
“I thought you were burning this two hundred dollars a month for fun,” I say. “Come on, now. Want me to strike the match?”
Jason also convinces his mother to lend him $1,000 to invest his business, but he buys a car instead of starting a new business.
“…and I know she still believes that thousand dollars is in this business…”
Jason was cruel to Caddy and her daughter. He and Caddy had a deal that Caddy can see her daughter by paying Jason $100, but Jason only let Caddy see Quentin at the moment when she was in the moving carriage. He gave Quentin a very poor living condition; “It was not a girl’s room. It was not anybody’s room, and the smell of cheep cosmetics and the few feminine objects and other evidence of crude and hopeless efforts to feminize it but added to its anonymity, giving it that dead and stereotyped transience of rooms in assignation houses…”
The second part of the story is about the things Quentin did just before he decides to commit suicide on June 2nd, 1910. Contrasted to Jason’s realistic, Quentin is a romanticist plus an idealist. Quentin and Benjy both can’t take the fact that time is passing by and things are different. Benjy could avoid facing this fact by mixing the present and pass together; the past could be the present for him. He lost the pass, lost Caddy, but he was still waiting for them to come back.
The Essay on Family Matters Families Children Years
Family Matters The definitions of a family today and a family in the past are far from similar. The definitions may have some similarities but they have changed dramatically in many more ways. 50 years ago, families had rules that were stricter and families were closer in the sense of a relationship. Although some families today are more distant from each other and have fewer rules to maintain ...
In one way, Quentin, who is clear of what is happening, tried to escape form the changing and the hand of time by breaking the watch his father gave him as a gift. But he still can hear the clock ticking. He tried to kill Caddy so everything will stop
“I Held the point of the knife at her throat
It wont take but a second just a second then I can do
Mine I can do mine then
All right can you do yours by yourself…” But Quentin didn’t kill Caddy. He was the one who cares about their family’s reputation the most, and the lost of Caddy also means the faultiness of Compson family.
“ I heard her feet then my hand touched her not warm not cool just still her clothes a little damp still
do you love him now
not breathing except slow like face away breathing
Caddy do you love him now
I don’t know…”
For Caddy, Quentin got into a fight with Caddy’s boyfriend Dalton Ames. Caddy was forced to merry Herbert Head after she got pregnant. Again, Quentin tried to stop and tried to isolate her out of the loud world.
“Jesus and Saint Francis talking about her sister. Because if it were just to hell; if that were all of it. Finished. IF things just finished themselves. Nobody else there but her and me. If we could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us. I have committed incest I said Father it was I it was not Dalton Ames.”
How does Quentin think about his suicide for Jason?
“If you attend Harvard one year, but dont see the boat-race, there should be a refund. Let Jason have it. Give Jason a year at Harvard.”
Caddy falls, and their family is in disgrace. He leaves Harvard, his mother’s dream by putting an end to his own life…
Mrs. Compson is the weakest chain in their family. She always thinks that she is weak dying and a useless victim. She can forget neither the honorable past nor the deteriorating present of the family.
The Essay on Head Of The House Jason Quentin Family
... this occurs. At this point in time, the Compson family consists of Jason, his mother, Quentin and Benj y, and Dilsey and Luster. The ... is the way she is because Jason drives her to be, the Jason makes her do the things she does and be bad ... else but a small replica of Caddy. After being silent for the entire meal, Quentin cannot stand Jason s mind games anymore and ...
“Because one of our forefathers was a governor and three were generals and Mother’s weren’t…” (Quentin’s Thought)
Jason is her favorite child,
“Mother kept on saying thank God you are not a Compson except in name, because you are all I have left now…” (Jason’s thought)
“She was crying.” Quentin Said. She couldn’t take responsibilities and kept on acting like a sick man just to avoid working.
“I know I’m nothing but a burden to you. “ Mother said.
“But I’ll be gone soon. Then you will be rid of my bothering.”
Caddy was even acting stronger than her mother.
‘Bring him here.” Mother said. “ He’s too big for you to carry. You must stop trying. You’ll injure your back. All of our women have prided themselves on their carriage. Do you want to look like a washerwoman.”
“He’s not too heavy.” Caddy said. “ I can carry him.”
“You humor him too much.” Mother said. “You and your father both. You don’t realize that I am the one who has to pay for it. Damuddy spoiled Jason that was and it took him two years to outgrow it, and I am not strong enough to go through the same thing with Benjamin.”
“To leave Harvard your mother’s dream for sold Benjy’s pasture for “
“What have I done to have been given children like these. Benjamin was punishment enough and now for her to have no more regard for me her own mother I’ve suffered for her dreamed and planned and sacrificed…Jason you must let me go away, I can’t stand it. Let me keep Jason and you keep the others. They are not my flash and blood…”
The Sound and the Fury is a story centered at Caddy, and expend like ripples when a rock strike the serene water. When things went on, each family member with their own distinctive character has their way of facing the problems; some are good and others only made things worse. Things start to get complicated and finally cause the Compson family, which was honored and prosperous, to fall.
