432 Faulkner, William
Faulkner, who won the 1949 Nobel Prize for his
literary achievements, considered his masterpiece
a “splendid failure” because he felt he never got
the story right. Readers, however, know otherwise.
Although The Sound and the Fury can be challeng-
ing, especially to first-time readers, its themes and
style are quintessentially American and modern.
The book’s influence on writers has been far-reach-
ing since it was first published in 1929.
Elizabeth Cornell
GrieF in The Sound and the Fury
After Caddy Compson is exiled from the Compson
household, the doomed family of William Faulkner’s
The Sound and the Fury must cope with the loss of
their only daughter. The mentally handicapped
Benjy has essentially lost the one family member
(besides their servant, Dilsey) who expresses love
for him. Although his vivid memories of his sister
Caddy give him the impression that her loving
presence still exists, whenever he is thrust back into
the present his grief over her absence is painfully
rehabilitated. His brother Jason’s grief takes the
form of bitterness and vengeance. Caddy’s divorce
prevented Jason from getting a job with her husband
in a bank, and he is now responsible for her daugh-
ter. Jason’s theft of the money she sends to support
her daughter is a form of revenge against Caddy,
but the money he takes may also be seen as com-
pensation for the loss of his sister. Although Jason’s
pilfering may be partly to blame for the unruly
behavior exhibited by Caddy’s daughter, Quentin,
her rebellion is also an angry response of grief over
her mother’s absence from her childhood. Finally,
since Caddy never presents her side of the story,
readers experience a kind of loss of her as well. Like
Miss Quentin, we are mainly left to speculate about
her, gathering what little we can from the subjective
viewpoints of others.
One such viewpoint belongs to Caddy’s brother,
Quentin. He cannot believe that he will one day
recover from the hurt he feels. That hurt is caused
by Caddy’s lost virginity and marriage, and Quentin
knows the passage of time will make this pain fade.
Thus, he is obsessed with time from the moment
he awakens each day. Quentin breaks his pocket
watch in an attempt to stop time, as if to prevent
his cherished memories of Caddy from fading and
thus leading to the diminishment of his grief and
hurt. But Quentin’s handless watch keeps ticking;
the changing sunlight, his persistent shadow, and the
hourly church bells are other reminders of passing
time. He realizes time cannot be escaped, prevented
from passing, or reversed. Quentin’s loss is such that
he cannot visualize a future in which he might be
reunited with his sister or even transcend his deep
grief. Taking his life is the only way Quentin can
imagine stopping time and keeping his grief intact.
Although Caddy is certainly his greatest loss,
Benjy undergoes other significant experiences of
loss. He loses his field next door when the Comp-
sons sell it to developers for a golf course so Quentin
can go to Harvard. One consequence is that he must
suffer the experience of hearing the word caddy
throughout the day, reminding him anew of his
grief over Caddy’s absence. His testicles are another
loss—removed after he chased a neighbor girl, who
he believed was Caddy. Mrs. Compson changes
his name from Maury to Benjamin, a name that
means “son of my sorrow,” because she considers
his condition “a judgment” on her. Benjy’s bellow-
ing, which disturbs every character in the book, is a
potent expression of grief for everything he and each
Compson has lost.
No one feels more persecuted by those losses
than Mrs. Compson. She wonders what she has
done to deserve a mentally challenged son, a selfish
daughter, a son who kills himself, an unruly grand-
daughter, and a husband who drinks himself to
death. Only Jason, she claims, has never given her
“one moment’s sorrow,” although Jason has done
many things behind her back that would give her
grief. When Miss Quentin disappears, Mrs. Comp-
son leaps to the conclusion that her granddaughter
has also committed suicide. She seems to thrive on
these occurrences of loss, and blames them for her
sickly, confined life. Rather than grieve for her losses
and set an example of strength by moving forward in
spite of everything, Mrs. Compson takes to her bed
as if nothing more can be done but wait for the next
round of loss and grief.
With such an oppressive atmosphere of loss
and unresolved grief surrounding the Compson
household, there seems little hope of anyone thriv-