The question of time in William Faulkner’s ‘The sound and the fury’

The book that won Mr. W. Faulkner a Nobel Prize tells the story of the fall of the Compsons, an

aristocratic Southern family which actually mirrors the fall of the Old South after the Civil  War.

In my essay I propose to emphasize the matter of time as it seems to me it stands as a key point

into understanding the message.

Although Faulkner referred to The sound and the fury as “his most splendid failure” the way in

which he manages to challenge the readers using no chronology is absolutely remarkable. This

mechanism, however, increases the difficulty of understanding, making a lay reader incapable to

get to the core of things. ‘Faulkner deliberately disorients the reader, creating an emotional

experience that makes sense only gradually, but the novel richly rewards those who make the

effort to piece together the fragments Faulkner provides.’(Anderson,31) What is even more

intriguing is that at the beginning it was the author’s intention to publish the book using italics

for Benyi’s flashbacks: ‘I think italics are necessary to establish for the reader Benjy’s confusion,

that unbroken-surface confusion of an idiot which is outwardly a dynamic and logical coherence’

(Polk,8) .

Critics like Stephen Ross and Noel Polk tried to determine the flow of consciousness so as to

provide a useful summary of the novel’s chronology presenting evidence from the book itself

and from Faulkner’s own writings. They determine that Quentin, Caddy, Jason, and Benjy were

born in 1890, 1892, 1894, and 1895 and that tone of the most important scenes of the novel

occurred in 1900 at the time of the funeral of the children’s grandmother, Damuddy, when the

boys all saw Caddy’s muddy drawers. In addition, in his essay on The sound and the fury, Jean-

Paul Sartre claims that the technique Faulkner uses may seem at first as a ‘negation of

temporality” but in fact it is our understanding of time that clogs our perception: ‘the reason is

that we confuse temporality with chronology. It was man who invented dates and clocks’.

Another important idea Sartre outlines is that ‘In order to arrive at real time, we must abandon

this invented measure which is not a measure of anything.’

The part which seems to be most problematic is April ,7, 1928, Benjy’s section. What makes this

part so difficult to read is that it has no chronology, he has no concept of time so he jumps from

event to event as the story progresses. Often, he will make a jump of thirty years with little or no

warning to the reader. Actually Faulkner wanted to maintain this continuous ambiguity as much

as possible thinking to outline time shifts using different colors. Moreover, with Benjy being a

mentally handicapped 33 year-old man he cannot distinguish between present and past allowing

him to make connections that others are not capable of noticing. For example, one representative

scene is that of his birthday, the day of his monologue, April 7, when his caretaker is Luster and

after a paragraph the date shifts to December 23, 1908 when he was only 13 years old and his

caretaker was Versh.

Ross and Polk identify 14 distinct time levels in Benjy’s section. The recurring motif dominating

them all is the presence or absence of Caddy and of objects associated with her. As the boys do

not have a mother figure to guide their conduit they begin to see in Caddy besides a sister, a

mother who takes care of them, especially Benjy.

In contrast, Quentin Compson is trapped in time, he seems to forget how to live his own life

being caught in his memories of the past. Besides, the second section that he tells, on the day of

his suicide June, 2, 1910, is probably the best part to follow the stream of consciousness. The

most important symbol of time, which reminds of its implacability, is Quentin’s watch, a gift

from his father. ‘Quentin’s language is rich with images of time. At the beginning of his last day,

he breaks the hands off his pocket watch and avoids clocks; he is highly aware of the position of

his shadow as a symbol of time passing.’(Anderson,37) As Sartre states in his essay ’Quentin's

gesture of breaking his watch has a symbolic value; it gives us access to time without clocks’.

However being a gift from his father that particular watch has a special characteristic, it is

constant reminder of his heritage. The fact that Quentin can still hear it ticking although being

broken and leaving him in another room this making us think about time’s absolute passing.

Strangely enough Quentin ‘thinks of his last day in the past, like someone who is remembering’

(Sartre), this way he becomes a shadow, a weak men who is not able to live his own life.

Unlike his two brothers, Jason is the only one that lives in the present. His only wish and

satisfaction is personal gain. What is more he does not need the past, he knows only to live the

moment. Most of the time, as the day of his monologue, April 6, 1928 he spends being angry and

frustrated, in his mind ‘time is money’ and not a minute should be wasted without some profit.

Although he is his mother’s favorite and should become the head of the family after his father

and Quentin deaths, Jason is more likely to be seen as the modern alienated man with no need of

the past or humanity.

The final section of the book is dedicated to Dilsey, the Compson’s black cook on Easter

Sunday, 1928. This part is narrated from a third person’s perspective which offers an objective

view of the events that happen in the present. Dilsey seems to be the only one to cope with time,

she is aware of her passing existence and does not try to manipulate time in any way. Moreover,

she stands as an observer of the Compsons decadence. Making connections she sais at one point:

’ I seed de beginning, en now I sees de endin’ of course referring to her owners.

As Sartre sais ‘Faulkner's characters are like that, only worse, for their past, which is in order,

does not assume chronological order. It is, in actual fact, a matter of emotional constellations.

Around a few central themes (Caddy's pregnancy, Benjy's castration, Quentin's suicide) gravitate

innumerable silent masses. Whence the absurdity of the chronology of "the assertive and

contradictory assurance" of the clock’. Everybody needs to live in his own time not taking into

account time limits.

Although time is not the most important theme is the novel, it surely has a strong word to say in

what concerns the understanding of both plot and characters. It is my opinion that this technique

Faulkner uses increases the reader’s interest to see exactly what is going on there.

Bibliography:

1. Faulkner, William. The sound and the fury. New York: Random House. Print.2. Sartre, Jean-Paul.On The Sound and the Fury: Time in the Work of Faulkner.

3. Polk, Noel, ed. New essays on The Sound and the Fury. Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.

4. Anderson, John Dennis. Student companion to William Faulkner. West Port, Connecticut:

Greenwood Group,Inc, 2007. Print.