Noise and commotion

Author: Faulkner
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: The Sound and the Fury is Faulkner's mature work, as well as the novel he spend the most effort on and personally enjoys. The novel tells the family tragedy of the Compson family, a declining Southern aristocratic family. Old Compson is leisurely, fond of drinking, and his wife is selfish, cruel, and complains about everything. The eldest son, Quentin, desperately clings to the so-called Southern old traditions, and because his sister Caddy is promiscuous and dishonors the identity of a Southern proper lady, he is filled with remorse to the point of drowning himself. The second son, Jason, is cruel and greedy, while the third son, Benjy, is a moron, with the intelligence of a three-year-old at the age of thirty-three. Through the interior monologues of these three sons, the story revolves around Caddy's fall, and later, the housekeeper, Esseh, provides a limited perspective on the three parts, summarizing the entire novel. The novel makes extensive use of multiple perspective narration and stream of consciousness techniques, making it a classic masterpiece of stream of consciousness novels and modernist literature.