sound and the fury notes

7/29/2019 Sound and the Fury Notes

1/5

THE SOUND AND THE FURY

- repetition of words often an obvious fault of Fs style - beck

- sometimes repetition used to adumbrate tone and significance - beck- profuseness of lang linked to thematic struc - beck

- persistent lyrical embroidery and coloring - beck

- master of colloquialism in dramatic scene - beck- stream of consciousness limited to first two sections - beck

- Dilsey, after sermon, moves away from Compsons, back to her family; redemptive - castille

- interps of bk have ranged from xtian spirituality to existential nothingness - castille- follows the modernist mythical method - castille

- this bk Fs favorite - lilburn

- race, suicide, incest, time, history, rel major themes - lilburn

- breakdown of fam rels; compsons tragic deterioration - lilburn- each chapter another attempt to know caddy - lilburn

- both benjy and luster seek something lost - lilburn

-julios threatening of quentin matches quentins threatening of dalton - lilburn- quentin cant accept change - lilburn-jasons barely concealed desire for his niece? - lilburn

-jasons pride, rage, isolation contrast with dilsey and congregation in section 4 - lilburn

- caddy the only sibling whose voice is never directly heard - lilburn- abt death of family and corresponding decay of society - longley

- caddys tragedy: cant find anyone capable of loving as she can - longley

- blocked love central theme - longley

- shegogs sermon an effective presentation of an oral genre - hein- shegog uses biblical technique of inversion - hein

- struc of sermon mirrors struc and presentation of novel - hein

- impt thing abt the sermon is the collective ceremony of its utterance - hein- thadious davis attacks its crude presentation of negro dialect - hein

- sermon demonstrates the transformative powers of lang - hein

- sermon recapitualtes in reverse the narrative strategies of the novel itself - hein

- the sermon implicitly interrogates modernism - hein-benjys mental state changes considerably; becomes more withdrawn - roggenbuck

- Fs later comments abt the novel have influenced its interpretation - burton

- even postmodernist interps of the novel have tended to rely on F - burton- 4 narrators challenge idea that one vantage pt can disclose whole truth - burton

- few critics since 1970s have shared Cowleys vw that the novel is unified - burton

- jason is mother-obsessed - moore

- quentin commits suicide bec he feels guilty abt destroying caddys chance for a normal life -bauer

- juxt of past, present, future - martin

- certain key words and phrases repeated - martin- fire emphd in benjy section; used to soothe him; also mirror and shadow - martin

- other impt words in benjy sec: window, bright, smoke, blur, lights, lightening bug - martin

- shadow dominates quention section - martin- quentin a fine example of the human heart in conflict with itself, Fs main concern - martin


2/5

- q cant tolerate any degree of disorder- martin

- rarely is q portrayed in full light - martin

- no dominant word or phrase in jason sec, where narrative is as simple as char - martin- door emphd in dilsey sec - martin

- finally, in dilseys sec, we get detailed phys descriptions of the others - martin

- conflict betwe Compson self-absorption and xtian self-sacrifice - yarup- passive moral evil of mrs. Compson - yarup- q lives in past; tries to make present conform to its standards; fails; commits suicide - dobbs

- q affected by the Lost Cause and his fathers cynicism - dobbs

- benson argues q reps an emotional self-portrait of F - dobbs- novel shows how families shape individuals - storhoff

- compsons are an alcoholic family - storhoff

- family systems theory provides a better expl of the compsons than freudianism - storhoff

- jason a family scapegoat whose misbehavior provides self-esteem to q and c - storhoff- jason assumes role of hero in alcoholic family - storhoff

- caddys presence implied thruout final section even tho shes absent - visser

- Fs inability to envision female chars and bestow them with sexuality - waldron- Fs narrators take paradoxical atts toward women; creatures of instinct who trouble men -

waldron

- deja vu prominently emphd, as in Eliots Waste Land - McGann

- some see F as a nihilist, his phil one of despair - messerli- chars like quentin fail bec they cant accept change - messerli

- each char relates to time in a totally diff way - messerli

SPARKNOTES

- father: gentlemanly but cynical and fatalistic; concerned with ideal of fam honor but not in

practice- mother: hypochondria, self-pity, self-absorbed, neurotically insecure

- caddy: escapes by being disowned

- quentin obsessed with past; jason obsessed with present and future- dilsey lives by family, faith, prsl honorsame values Compsons once lived by

- corruption of southern aristocratic values

- household devoid of love- if benjy is x fig, may rep impotence of x in modern world; or mod world fails to recognize him

- motif: time not objective, constant, simple

- dilsey only char whos at peace with time

- each char orders his life diffly- water a symbol of purification

- watch a symbol of the past and of time passing

CLASSIC NOTE-stream of consciousness

-benhys section at first seems to signify nothing

- caddy muddying her dress a metaphor for her sexual fall- children prefigure adults


3/5

- q not just obsessed with fam honor but with sisters purity

- time-words and shadow images esp impt in q sec

- jason and mom manipulative and passive-aggressive- book progresses from chaos to order, from timelessness to chronology, sensation to logic

- progression from private to public

- jason sane but, like brothers, tries to control his life thru strictly confined order- each brother remains irrationally connected to the past-benj, like x, the only pure person, incapable of evil

- Q2, like X, lives misunderstood life; disappears on Easter

- last sec doesnt satisfactorily bring fam story to a close

BARRONS

- themes: passing of time, fall of family, fall of the the south, emptiness of modern life

- one reader counted 53 refs to shadows- figuring out what is going on absorbs the reader; you become a detective, hunting for clues

- meaning of life; does life have a meaning; dilsey the only one with clear purpose

- war between good and evil- stream of con; interior monologue; free association

- Benjy thinks in simple sentences, limited vocabunlike Q

- imagery and symbolism: water, shadows, watches, sisters, honeysuckle, trees

- Jasons language slangy, vulgar- accurate reproduction of black dialect

- limited pts of vw: perspectives not entirely trustworthy

CLIFFS

-shadow: shadow of the past; shadowed actions; shadowed chars; shadows of real actions (q)

- water: purification; return to the womb; death

- each brother has diff att to time- b sec comes first bec earliest chronologically; vivid, fresh; creates curiosity, later satisfied

- b reps id of family; most elemental; therefore shd come first

- if j sec had come first, our vw of caddy wd have been distorted

TWAYNE

- two tasks: take us inside chars; advance the plot- any truth is far more complex than it appears on the surface to be

- by opening with benjy, f gives us an initially simple view which he then complicates

- in Q sec, undergraduate erudition; inner debate

F ENCYC

- does the switch to 3rdperson in sec 4 acknowledge that he cdnt inhabit Dilsey, or suggest

distance?

- why is Caddy not given a section? Patriarchy of South or of F?- debate abt whether the appendix shd be considered a fifth section

VOLPE- benjy reacts to sensual stimuli; otherwise he is limited to memory


4/5

- scenes from past indicated by presence of versh or t.p.

-bs memory stimulated by phys sensation

- limits of bs mind actually make sec 1 easier than sec 2- juxt of certain scenes in sec 1 signif

- unlike b, q makes judgments, estabs rels, derives signif

- sec 3 simplest; j ignorant, superficial, thoughts easy to follow-j no objective reporter; cant accept him at face value


5/5

-bs sec contains all the scenes and themes devd later

- metaphys nov concerned with time; soc nov depicting deterioration of fam and south

- tragic sense of loss; sim to waste land- mod man as self-centered; commercial values have replaced humanistic ones

- qs vws abt old south are romantic, adolescent

- qs vw of imm past of childhood as innocent, idealistic- poetic; emph on emotions; inter monol, symbols, images, allusions, e.g. allusion to easter story- human compassion is what mod man has lost

- despair and nihilism suggested by title

- loss of love central cause of decay- qs is an adolescent mind is stasis; emotionally unstable; tries to keep intact his youthful world

- blands are prob closer to plantation aris than qs idealization of it

- Spoade the only other student who seems mature

- Mrs. C in constant retreat from reality- Q, C, and B dont grow up associating love with their mother

- thus Qs attraction to C stronger than usual

- Qs emotional instability rel to Mrs Cs failure to provide her children with love- Q fears that sexual feelings threaten his rel with caddy

- q centers all his idealism on caddy

- honeysuckle a symbol of qs incestuous desire, of sex, and of sexual maturity

- q wants to SAY he committed incest in order to isolate himself and caddy- qs weakness due to emotional insecurity and char weakness lack of vitality, inner strength

- Mr C tells q its useless to impose moral values on life; cant measure up, values meaningless

- no absolutes; nothing stable- q kills himself to stop time, the ultimate reality

- q struggles to keep his own sister, then cant get rid of sister

- qs ironic iding of himself as upholder of lost values is reflected in hisiding himself w/ jesus

- despite his weakness and self-involvement, q is a sympathetic char- j is the only one of the brothers who achieves functioning adulthood

- j may very well rank as one of most hateful villains in world lit

- with his complete lack of feeling, j fits readily into mod soc- one cause of lack of meaning in js life is his complete alienation from past, isolation from

others

- self-love becomes self-destructive-j becomes an exagd reflection of his mother

- when emotions are distorted, as in j, result is sterile existence

- sec 3 a bitter invective vs. mod soc

- source of dilseys strength is her humanity- dilseys mature acceptance of pleasures and pains of existence

- dilsey a symbol of hope but is isolated from complexities of society

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