Important Quotations and Analysis of "The Sound and the
Important Quotations and Analysis of "The Sound and the Fury"
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.
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...