Thursday, August 17, 2006

Final Paper: Session 1, Week 13

posted by Michael at 9:48 AM

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Blogger Ern and Leeard said...

Dirty Drawers and Easter Revelations: Women’s sexuality and accepted values in The Sound and the Fury Erin Hughes

“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.”

Unfortunately, many readers of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury only see Caddy as a loving figure. Furthermore they perceive the text’s representation of the fall of the American south as an arena that the male sex dominates. Indeed the majority of the characters are male, drawing the attention away from the female characters and implying that the men are the key figures in the story. It’s not entirely certain what role the test’s representation of women and women’s sexuality fulfill in arguing for the fall of the Post- Reconstruction South in the U.S. However, The Sound and the Fury may suggest that the decline of the family contributed to the fall of the south, and that women contribute to the fall of the family when they are perceived as promiscuous.
Grasping that Caddy is possibly in the view of the text not a loving figure but a selfish person who makes a dishonorable decision that brings her family down, enables a reader to grasp what this novel is possibly trying to say about women and families in the society it portrays. Dilsey is arguably the only admirable character in the text, showing what qualities the text values in that same society. Failing to grasp some aspect of Caddy being a catalyst for the family’s downfall, the text only presents itself as a tragic story of a family growing apart. Missing that Dilsey is the hero at the end of the story results in a loss of grasping text’s admiration of a remarkable African American character and focusing more on the loving Caddy. Grasping what qualities the text values in the culture illuminates the South’s strengths according to the text. These qualities are supposedly what would have aided the south in rising from the racist Jim Crowe to a society of support and equality. Moreover this demonstrates at least a lack of primacy for the hierarchy.
The men in her family view Caddy’s sexual choices as deviant, harmful, and dishonorable and they attempt to control her sexuality, causing her to leave the family. Womens’ perceived promiscuity in the novel may have caused women to lose the respect of the me, contributing to the text’s representation of the fall of the traditional family and the south. When the women are no loner represented as “pure”, the men see them as neglecting their place in the family. This manifests itself in part through Quentin’s conceit of incest and suicide with Caddy because it helps him to control her, at least in his own mind and thus appease the perceived threat of his own mother. Jason’s view of African American women shows his society’s worst degree of racism and sexism which the text seems to condemn. This manifests itself by upholding Dilsey as an admirable and even prophetic character. As a sort of epilogue, Dilsey is the one to foresee the end of the Compson line and aims for reunion and reconciliation in her own home. Therefore, the text may suggest that the treatment of women and African Americans by racists and patriarchs in the Jim Crowe south was detestable, but the south’s glory was further tarnished by women’s sexual choices that did not fall under the familiar patriarchal family system at the time.
Grasping that Caddy is possibly in the view of the text not a loving figure but a selfish person who makes a dishonorable decision that brings her family down, enables a reader to grasp what this novel is possibly trying to say about women and families in the society it portrays. Dilsey is arguably the only admirable character in the text, showing what qualities the text values in that same society. Failing to grasp some aspect of Caddy being a catalyst for the family’s downfall, the text only presents itself as a tragic story of a family growing apart. Missing that Dilsey is the hero at the end of the story results in a loss of grasping text’s admiration of a remarkable African American character and focusing more on the loving Caddy. Grasping what qualities the text values in the culture illuminates the South’s strengths according to the text. These qualities are supposedly what would have aided the south in rising from the racist Jim Crowe to a society of support and equality. Moreover this demonstrates at least a lack of primacy for the hierarchy.CADDY’S SEXUALITY IN A PATRIARCHAL SOUTH
Due to society’s expectations for women and their accepted roles, Caddy’s promiscuity is treated as a serious, shameful sin that leads to her disgrace and isolation from her family. This helps us to understand the role of women in a society where a woman’s personal sexual choices were not supported. It also gives us a glimpse of the text’s ambivalence towards women. Caddy has a close relationship with both Quentin and Benjy-- relationships that have a great affect on them as men. Caddy and her relationships with her brothers are the propelling force of the novel. Dilsey Gibson is the Compson family’s African American servant and Jason Compson is the middle son. Jason is cruel, cynical and troubled by feelings of inadequacy compared to his older siblings. In The Sound and the Fury, Caddy’s promiscuity is what begins to drive the family to ruin. The text hints that to keep the patriarchal family intact, the woman must be submissive and reproduction must remain under control. Caddy and her illegitimate daughter Miss Quentin both rebel against their family and society’s pressures, seeking an escape, and both eventually find their own way out of their situations by themselves. At the close of the novel, Caddy lives far away. Throughout the book, Caddy is very important character, influencing all of her brothers and acting as the catalyst for the family’s ruin and estrangement, but she has no narrative to speak her side of the story. Her influence is shown by her brothers’ obsessions toward her. At the end of the novel, Miss Quentin has stolen money that was rightfully hers from Jason and run away from the Compson home. While living with the Compsons, Miss Quentin cuts school, defies and manipulates Jason, “runs about in the streets”, wears makeup, and forges Mrs. Compson’s signature on her report card to avoid showing her grades. Society demanded that women be gentle, obedient figures of purity and grace. Miss Quentin and Caddy defied that demand and had a significant effect on their family. This novel is presumably about the decline of the south. It takes place in the south after it has just lost the Civil War and is no longer the economic and communal success it once was. Therefore in seeking someone to blame for south’s lost influence and honor, the text does not support the actions of these female characters, but sees families such as the Compsons as a bad thing detrimental to the old values of the south. Dilsey and people like her are the hope for the values to return and the south to be restored to its former glory. With Dilsey, a church-goer who receives a revelation during a church service, the text shows respect and appreciation for the church. Conversely, none of the Compson family members are shown going to church or practicing their religion.
The text suggests that the members of the Compson family are failures. Jason is too cruel and dishonest to be a “good” patriarch, his father drank himself to death, and Mrs. Compson was not the loving, strong and serving mother-figure that her sons needed. Of course most of the blame falls to the promiscuous Caddy and her possibly sin-inheriting daughter, Miss Quentin. Quentin has committed suicide, wasting his opportunity to save his family due to Caddy’s sin. Condemned in this tale are traditional immorality of sex, drinking, thievery, and cruelty, as well as racism. These are the things left by the Civil War that have destroyed the old honor of the south.
In the novel, Caddy’s sexual choices are viewed as filthy and are foreshadowed as something that will make her impure, as shown by the scene where she falls in the mud as a child, dirtying her underpants. “He went and pushed Caddy up into the tree to the first limb. We watched the muddy bottom of her drawers…I couldn’t smell trees anymore and I began to cry.” (39) Whenever Benjy sees or senses a sinful act, he cries or yells. Benjy sees this and moans with foreboding, foreshadowing and symbolizing her future fall. Quentin reacts in awe to Caddy’s muddy drawers, while Jason is disgusted. Jason aims to punish Caddy for climbing the tree. “‘I told her not to climb up that tree,’ Jason said. ‘I’m going to tell on her.’” (45) This scene foreshadows the relationships Caddy will have with her brothers as an adult. In the future, Jason thinks of Caddy with contempt and anger, desiring petty revenge for her actions that cost him a job. Quentin is obsessed with Caddy and Benjy mourns for her in her absence from the household. After Dilsey Gibson finds Caddy in the tree, she takes the children inside, removes Caddy’s dress and attempts to get all the mud off of her. “She wadded the drawers and scrubbed Caddy’s behind with them. ‘It done soaked clean through onto you,’ she said. ‘But you won’t get no bath this night. Here.’ She put Caddy’s nighty on her and Caddy climbed into the bed…” This is important because it foreshadows how Caddy’s innocence will be permanently lost and there will be nothing Quentin or anyone else can do to restore it. It has “soaked clean through.” (74) During this scene, young Quentin is lying in his bed, facing the wall, unable to look at his muddy sister. This scene shows the effect that Caddy’s promiscuity will have on her brothers and her family in the future when she is painted as soiled.
Because Quentin had a disappointing relationship with his mother and due to society’s stereotypes, after Caddy loses her virginity and becomes pregnant, Caddy’s brother Quentin feels that he needs to take responsibility to protect his sister from her shame. This shows us Quentin’s patriarchal mindset that she should not be responsible for her own actions and needs him to protect her. Stephen Ross wrote that Quentin has an obsession with words although they have no power for him when he uses to them to change or understand something. He tries to convince his father that he committed incest with his sister so that it will overshadow her sins. With words, he attempts to create an alternate reality where he has control of the situation. “I have committed incest I said Father it was I it was not Dalton Ames” (79) Here, Quentin wishes to be in control of her innocence, his family, and the tense situation surrounding him. If he were in control, he believes he could restore her virtue. Because the word and the act are always separate for Quentin, he fails and his father does not believe him. Later Quentin realized that if his father had believed his false claim, it would have only complicated matters.
He is not the only character that seeks to protect and control Caddy Compson. Quentin’s parents argue about whether or not Caddy should be watched and followed in the future. Quentin’s agony over Caddy’s situation has been tied to his relationship with his parents and his anger at his mother, who favored Jason.
In his article, “The ‘Loud World’ of Quentin Compson”, Stephen Ross writes, “His romantic notions of honor and chastity can be traced to his mother’s constant harping on respectability, while his contradictory obsession with physical sexuality was abetted by his father’s words. Mr. Compson’s imagery reinforces the disgust and fascination Quentin expresses as he thinks about Caddy and her lovers.” (235) An example of this can be seen when Mr. Compson says to Quentin, “Because women so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equilibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips and thighs.” (159)Were it not for the influential words of Quentin’s parents, he might have been able to process Caddy’s action in a more healthy way. His father fails him by speaking of women in the way he does and his mother failed him by putting too much emphasis on appearance, meaning the way a woman in Caddy’s position is expected to behave.
The stream of consciousness technique gives this section its disturbing power where an omniscient third-person narration would have been an account that did not consider that there could be another side to the story. Instead of doing that, The Sound and the Fury uses four narrators and shows us the inside of four different minds at different times during the history of a troubled family. The inside of Quentin’s mind shows us flashbacks, his obsessions, his present actions, and his neuroticism as he spirals into mental instability and eventually suicide.
Because of the implied incest, it is important to note that this section also contains romantic jealousy between Caddy and Quentin, furthering the Oedipal and incestual themes of the novel. In his section, Quentin remembers Caddy kissing a boy and him slapping her and demanding to know why she let the boy kiss her. She defiantly tells him that she didn’t let the boy kiss her, she made him. Caddy also shows jealous behavior when Quentin kisses a girl named Natalie and Caddy pushes Natalie off a ladder. Beginning in childhood, there was a jealous and protective tendency between these two siblings, giving the impression that the incestuous ideas may not have been completely conjured by the two in an attempt to rebel against society, and if it was, it was a subconscious rebellion that began the attraction.
TRAUMA AND THE THREAT OF VIOLENCE; CADDY AND QUENTIN
After Caddy sleeps with Dalton and their worlds are disrupted, Quentin offers his sister a double suicide pact. “I held the point of the knife at her throat it won’t take but a second just a second then I can do mine I can do mine all right can you do yours by yourself yes the blades long enough Benjys in bed by now yes it wont take but a second Ill try not to hurt all right will you close your eyes no like this youll have to push harder touch your hand to it but she didnt move her eyes were wide open looking past at the sky….push it are you going to do you want me to yes push it” (152) Due to the trauma they have recently experienced in a rather repressive and controlling environment, Caddy is more than willing to escape her parents and the societal constraints placed upon her, but Quentin is unable to go through with it. It has been suggested that the knife is a phallic symbol and Caddy would go through with an incestual act, but Quentin would not.
Again Quentin is satisfied with only words, while Caddy is driven to act on them and make a difference in her life. Caddy is willing either to commit suicide or incest to reject her family, as they are both violent acts. The scene between Caddy and Quentin by the water is passionate, violent, dark, and strangely sexual. The theme of violence is strong is this scene and is present in other parts of the novel, such as when Jason beats Miss Quentin, when Quentin attacks Dalton Ames, Quentin’s suicide, and the end when Jason beats Luster and Benjy moans, showing the family’s deterioration in a physical, obvious way.
Because of the sensual nature of one particularly interesting scene, the text suggests that Quentin and Caddy are more than siblings, although they did not actually commit incest. “Do you love him her hand came out I didn’t move it fumbled down my arm and she held my hand flat against her chest her heart thudding” (151) It is generally uncommon for a sibling to invite another sibling of the opposite sex to place a hand on their chest and to hold the hand there. The scene has a romantic and unnatural tone. Quentin continues his attempts to create his own reality only with words. He says,” Caddy, you hate him don’t you?” (151) Because Quentin can’t bear the thought of her loving him and he wants to hate her lover and avenge her honor, he seeks out the man Caddy slept with, Dalton Ames, and fights him, losing terribly. Quentin’s strongest attacks against Dalton Ames are useless and dramatic verbal threats. “’Ill give you until sundown to leave town.’” (151) In this novel, the consequences for Caddy sleeping with Dalton Ames are great, while he seems to suffer no repercussions, showing the double standard still existing in society today where men are free to have sex while women must be controlled. Also, Caddy’s brother Quentin tells her that he has had sex “loads of times with loads of girls.” (151) But because he is a man and can’t become pregnant as Caddy did, this would not be a large issue as it was with his sister, although there is much doubt as to whether or not Quentin was lying about his sexual conquests.
Ross writes, “Except for his pre-adolescent sex-play with the ‘cow-faced’ Natalie – a scene itself rendered as primarily a dialogue – Quentin has apparently had no direct sexual experience. He has discovered sex, like so much else, from what others have told him….Besides actually spying on Caddy, Quentin actually tries to get her to tell him about her lovemaking, for maybe he can understand sex if it is put into words.” (253) This argument also furthers Ross’ theory that Quentin is obsessed with language and makes everything real through words, rather than actions. Quentin may feel that in order to understand his sister, and to be on her level, he needs to understand the details of her action. This assessment is an example of the perspective that Quentin was lying about sleeping with many women.
Quentin is repressed and can not misbehave like Jason does. Jason’s misbehaving for Quentin may show that he is the healthiest of the Compson family because he is doing it as a result of his society and is the one seen as a rebel. It may also be argued that Caddy is the healthiest for breaking away from the dysfunctional family system. In leaving to pursue her own life away from her family and leaving Miss Quentin with them, she is able to function without her family despite the caveat patriarchy trying to prevent her from being the healthiest. Birth order usually plays a role in any family system. Here we see Jason being babied by his mother as the youngest, while the hopes of the family rely on the oldest male, Quentin. Quentin receives expectations from his parents that he has trouble meeting. Jason is selfish and dependent on his mother and others for financial security, as a younger child often is. Caddy as one of the older siblings is an influence to her younger siblings and is expected to influence them well.





VINDICATION OF DILSEY UNDER PATRIARCHAL JIM CROWE
While Quentin’s oppression of Caddy’s sexuality is little more than misguided and sad, Jason Compson’s treatment of women is cruel and disrespectful when he becomes patriarch of the Compson household, after the death of his father. The first line of his narrative reads: “Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say. I says ‘you’re lucky if her playing out of school is all that worries you. I says ‘she ought to be down there in that kitchen right now, instead of up there in her room, gobbing paint on her face and waiting for six niggers that cant even stand up out of a chair unless they’ve got a pan full of bread and meat to balance them, to fix breakfast for her.” (180) This is one example of his thoughts toward the females in his family; Jason’s view of women is expressed with disdain throughout his section of the novel. Because Jason’s character is almost completely unlikable, it could be argued that the text condemns his attitudes and statements such as the one above that refers to a woman as a “bitch”.
Jason’s stereotypical racist and sexist character may echo a view at that time in the Jim Crowe that women are not naturally as good with business as men are. The view that women cannot be trusted to handle business matters and are inferior when it comes to pursuing a career, gives us a look at the possible societal judgments a woman must surpass if she opts to support herself in that society depicted by The Sound and the Fury. The text appears neither to reject nor support this view.
Jason shows readers his acceptance of this view when, after receiving a letter from his sister, he narrates, “I opened her letter first and took the check out. Just like a woman. Six days late. Yet they try to make men believe that they are capable of conducting business. How long would a man that thought the first of the month came on the sixth last in business. And like it as not, when they sent to bank statement out, she would want to know why I never deposited my salary until the sixth. Things like that never occur to a woman.” Things that never occur to Jason include that Caddy’s failure to send the letter six days previously probably stemmed from factors other than her gender, such as personality or circumstances. Possibly, through Jason’s lack of acceptance of the working woman, the text is expressing approval for women in the business world. While it may possess no approval for a woman making sexual choices outside of the patriarchal family model, The Sound and the Fury does not seem to condemn Caddy in this passage, but rather Jason. The text shows him as closed-minded and full of hatred as he is thinking this, lending his view little credibility.
It is possible that Jason shows us his society’s strict view on gender differences, telling us that at least according to some people in his world, women are not expected to be capable of conducting business, nor are they capable or at all worthy of his respect. In her bookGender Trouble, Judith Butler argues that gender is a fallacy, a product of society and its influence on individuals, not a real distinction between sexes. “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; ... identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (25). She asserts that language, repeated over time, "produces reality-effects that are eventually misperceived as 'facts’ (151).This more progressive view of the sexes is largely absent in the text and it is probably accurate to say that it was not a popular view in the society it depicts.
Jason is bitter about his present circumstances and takes out his frustrations on the women in his life, giving us insight into his motives and desires. Jason is unmarried and sees a prostitute named Lorraine to satisfy himself sexually, an act that is condemned by Faulkner, a lover of the traditional family. He is hostile towards his sister Caddy, who is estranged, and is violent toward and obsessed with his niece, Miss Quentin. Although his brother Quentin is dead after committing suicide, he holds animosity toward him for the opportunities he wasted that in his opinion should have been bestowed on him. He says to his mother, “I never had time to go to Harvard or drink myself into the ground. I had to work.”(181) As an adult, Jason is a failure who remembers that his brother was the intelligent one and so he was trusted with the hopes of the family and sent to Harvard.
The role of women being such an important theme in the text, readers may want to note the relationship between Jason and his mother as depicted by his section of the novel. It has been suggested by Kathleen Moore in her article “Jason Compson and the Mother Complex” that Jason has a mother complex.
“[The text] suggests that Jason is unduly compelled by some unconscious part of his mind which retains a libidinal attachment to his mother. We find evidence for this idea in the text when we notice that all the women in Jason’s life- Mother, Caddy, Quentin, Lorraine, Damuddy- are at times indistinguishable from one another in the structural form of Jason’s narrative. I am thinking, for instance, of interesting moments in the narrative, rendered in stream-of-consciousness, in which these female characters seem to be all jumbled in his mind into the same figure, or in thoughts or words.” (541)

Jason’s unique link to his mother is also visible in the section of the novel that Benjy narrates. Jason was his mother’s favorite child and his perceived perversion in adolescence can be traced back to his being a favorite of his mother. As a child, Jason was an antagonistic character. “ ‘He (Jason) cut up all Benjy’s dolls.” Caddy said. “I’ll slit his gizzle.”... ‘He did it just for meanness’” (65)
Years later, in Jason’s section, his mother’s favoritism has not disappeared. When Jason is an adult, his mother tells him, “You are the only one of them [her flesh and blood] that isn’t a reproach to me.” (181) In his narration, Jason directs many of his thoughts towards his mother and many of his verbal statements can be taken as things he would like to say to his mother. He is unable to handle Miss Quentin in his own way (a harsh and sometimes violent way) because his mother “interferes”, afraid that he will lose his temper with her. Jason says to his mother, “Not if you come interfering just when I get started. If you want me to control her, just say so and keep your hands off. Everytime I try to, you come butting in and then she gives both of us the laugh.” (181)When he disciplines Miss Quentin, he says his motives are his mother’s good name and Christian sensibilities. In the opening scene of his section, Jason grabs Miss Quentin’s wrist, drags her into another room, calls her a “dam little slut”, and attempts to hit her with his belt. Dilsey protects Miss Quentin from this harsh treatment, nearly getting hit herself.
Because of the stream-of-consciousness narrative and Jason’s tendency to jumble females together into the same figure or problem, Moore suggests that he retains a libidinal attachment to the woman he is obsessed with, his mother. For example, Jason narrates: “because I’ve got every respect for a good honest whore because with Mother’s health and the position I was trying to uphold to have her with no more respect for what I try to do for her than to make her name and my name and my Mother’s name a byword in the town” (182). In this passage, he refers to three different women and suggests an unconscious association between them. Also, note that “mother” is capitalized in Jason’s narration, even when grammar doesn’t warrant the capitalization.
Because of Jason’s possible mother fixation, his view on women’s perceived promiscuity are also affected. Moore writes;”
Jason’s relationship with the prostitute Lorraine, then, suggests his mother-fixation, yet we can go further…and argue that (Miss) Quentin, too, represents this “promiscuous” aspect of his mother for him, and is a stand-in for her in his unconscious mind. After all, Jason apparently thinks of Quentin solely in terms of sexual promiscuity. In fact, Freud’s essay allows us to speculate that promiscuity is not the only trait a man may focus on to choose a woman as a mother-surrogate. Caddy and Damuddy, too, can be seen as mother-surrogates for Jason in that they represent some aspect of his mother for him.” (540)
This shows that Jason may be obsessed with the sexually progressive and more independent women in his life due to his possible mother fixation. Arguing this futher, Moore cites Freud;
“If the love-objects chosen by [one who has a mother fixation] are above everything mother-surrogates, then the formation of a long series of them…[brings] to light that the pressing desire in the unconscious for some irreplaceable thing often resolves itself into an endless series in actuality- endless for the very reason that the satisfaction longed for is in spite of all never found in any surrogate.” (198)

Jason is possibly seeking an unfulfilled need through his actions towards Miss Quentin, Lorraine, Caddy, and possibly Dilsey Gibson, who possesses many motherly traits and had a hand in raising the four Compson children.
Jason and his mother agree on most things even if they take different actions in response to them. Her tears and words affect him and his behavior and he goes to great lengths to avoid her scrutinizing gaze. In one passage, the text narrates,” he and his mother appeared to wait across the table from one-another in identical attitudes; the one cold and shrewd with hazel eyes with black-ringed irises like marbles, the other cold and querulous, with eyes so dark as to appear to be all pupil or all iris.” (167) Here there is a possible connection between them as similar people with similar views on how the family should be run, with attention to appearance and discipline.
Moore writes that this passage “suggests their extreme likeness to one another. Both the likeness in the look of their eye, and the identical attitudes they share, suggests a resemblance which goes deeper than physical appearance.” (538) This passage suggests that Jason is truly his mother’s son on a deeper level even then actions or words, showing the reader that if they desire to understand Jason’s views of women or anything else, a good beginning place could be analyzing the views of Mrs. Compson.
On the other hand, while Jason may be fixated on his mother, he shows little respect and love for her. Jason cheats his mother out of money and calls her and “old fool”, showing that he feels contempt for her and doesn’t appreciate her love. Moore argues that his theft of money is a part of his fixation. Moore writes;
“Money is a tool for Jason whereby he can merit his mother’s affection or withhold his own. It is a means of manipulation used to bond with his mother or to punish her for her promiscuity. It symbolizes his power and control over his mother. He gives Lorraine money to buy her affection and make her ‘his’. He toys with Quentin and Caddy, using money in a strange mesh of both withholding in part and bestowing in part which signals his ambivalent notion towards his mother.” (549)

This could possibly show how Jason views money and its use to keep women under the patriarchy by its use. Jason attempts to control all the women in his life with it, although in the end it is stolen from him by Miss Quentin.
Jason’s mother is grateful for what he does for the family, oblivious to the fact that he is harmful and stealing from her. She says to him, “I know I’m just a trouble and a burden to you… I know you have to slave your life away for us.” (181) This shows how Mrs. Compson sees herself as helpless and in need of a man to care for her and the family, when really it is Dilsey, another woman with her own family, who cares for the Compsons in the most effective way.
Race plays a great role in The Sound and the Fury because of the presence of Dilsey and the other African American servants in the Compson household. Readers notice how they are treated by the Compson family and by the text in the Post-Civil War society depicted by it. Jason, who we have already established as a more despicable character represents the worst group of racists in his time and location. Jason is under the false impression that he is the one holding his family together, when in reality it is his black servant, Dilsey. In the section of the novel that Jason narrates, he complains about “the negro”, saying that he “needs to be free from the burden of them”. Jason uses racial slurs and insults Miss Quentin by comparing her to a black person. Defending his harsh actions towards Miss Quentin, he says, “When people act like niggers, no matter who they are the only thing to do is treat them like a nigger.” (181) He also narrates, “What this country needs is white labor. Let these dam trifling niggers starve for a couple of years, then they’d see what a soft thing they have.” (190) It’s not only African Americans that Jason despises. He is broadly racist as shown by anti-Semitic statements such as, “No offense,” I says. “I give every man his die, regardless of religion or anything else. I have nothing against jews as an individual, “I says. “It’s the race. You’ll admit that they produce nothing.” Jason makes easy and stereotypical generalizations about others while failing to look inside himself for wrong, blinded by pride and hatred. Jason is a person who only respects people like himself, meaning white males, showing the text’s possible disdain for people who are racist.
The final scene of the novel has Jason Compson beating his African American servant Luster and Benjy crying loudly, his cries reaching an “unbelievable crescendo” (320). The final scene is a hopeless and tragic one because it has Jason as the leader of the household and Benjy’s cries foreshadowing the end of the family. Dilsey is released from worry over the Compson family during a church service in the final fourth of the novel. She accepts that the family is going to crumble and end. A dominant reading of the text seems to suggest that families like the Compson cannot be saved, but will disappear and new families that are more dedicated to the traditional family systems and to their religion should conquer and rebuild the south. Dilsey tried to unite the Compson family through compassion, but as a result of the church service, she realizes that some people are beyond her help and should be left to God. In caring for the Compsons, Dilsey had been neglecting her own children and marriage. Dilsey is the character who will flourish and achieve order in her family by returning to them. This passage also serves as closure for the reader because Dilsey states that the ending will be what is implied; The Compson household will come to ruin because it is ending with Jason in power and the innocent Benjy being sent to an insane asylum. She says, “I’ve seed the first en de last … I seed de beginning, en now I sees de endin.” (297) Additionally, the future of the characters is implied rather than specifically stated, leaving the readers to fill the gaps themselves. The implied epilogue also allows the text to end on an ominous note, rather than conclude it in a nice orderly way, emphasizing the disorder that the Compson house has fallen into.
The Sound and the Fury may imply that in order for the south to flourish in the time that is depicted by the novel, racism must end and women must return to their roles in the family, refraining from promiscuous behavior. Understanding what this novel is possibly trying to say about women and their families in the society that it portrays enables the reader to understand the text’s message about the traditional southern family in the Post-Civil War era. Grasping what attributes the text values in this society shows the worldview and philosophies of the text, giving the reader a fuller understanding of the text as a commentary on the society. Further knowledge gleaned includes what characters and actions of characters are condemned by the text and why.
The role of men in the eyes of the text remains to be known. Additional research includes the effect of birth order on the Compson family, particularly how the mental handicaps of Benjy affected the birth order system. The question of Mrs. Compson’s effect on Quentin could be more thoroughly examined. It would be interesting to research whether his obsession with Caddy was a repressed obsession with his mother and examine the message of the text regarding his suicide. Caddy’s fate would be a fascinating subject on which to speculate because it is unknown and it could further imply whether or not the text approves of her departure from the family.
“Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling 'Kilroy was here' on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.” William Faulkner in an interview with Jean Stein


























Bibliography:

Faulkner, William The Sound and the Fury Toronto: Vintage International: 1929

Moore, Kathleen “Jason Compson and the Mother Complex”

Adamson, Joseph “The Rising of Dilsey’s Bones; The Theme of Sparagmos In The Sound and the Fury”

Ross, Stephen “The ‘Loud World” of Quentin Compson” Purdue University

Butler, Judith P. Gender Trouble Routledge 1990

Tyson, Lois Critical Theory Today: A User Friendly Guide Garland Publishing, Inc.; 1 edition (Aug 31 1998)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_sound_and_the_fury

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/soundfury/

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