Post-Sound and the Fury Blog Tribute

Salutations. Salum. Jambo. Namaste. Aloha. Howdy.

Whatever floats your boat, I just wanted to take the time to sincerely thank everyone for the positive feedback I received on my blog posts just like how you all took your time to leave such lovely comments. It's pretty neat to me to have over 500 blog page views and 18 comments. (Or maybe it's just my mom viewing my blog because I pleaded her to, but hey, I'm counting it as a small triumph. Next: BROADWAY or a small desk job I don't know...) 

I have always wanted to start a blog, but never got around to it. Thankfully, AP Lit forced me to, and maybe, just maybe, I can find free time to continue. But we allll know that junior year is the most stress-free, easy-going, and plain sailing year of high school right?!?!?! Wrong. 

All jokes aside, this blogging experience was surprisingly satisfying, and hopefully, it was as equally satisfying for you to read what I had to say. So, thank you! 

-LBugL

The Sound and the Fury Chapter 4 (April Eighth, 1928)

Now is when we, the AP Literature students who read ever so carefully and lost sleep over the meaning over Faulkner's words until class the next day and toiled through this novel and pulled our hair out in fury (ok, maybe a small exaggeration), move our thinking cap tassels from right to left because we have officially crossed this roller coaster of a story. Cue the sigh of relief. 

The last and final chapter of this book begins through the eyes of a black woman, Dilsey, in which she starts goes through a routine day of cooking, cleaning, preaching the good Lord's name, and such. She is, after all, the servant of the house, an important point to bear in mind because it signifies how she has seen both the beginning and end of the Compson house in all her years of service to them, shown in her quote, "I seed de beginning, en now I sees de endin" (Finally, good riddens hallelujah). 

Immediately from the start of this chapter, a stark contrast is present in comparison to all other chapters of the book: this chapter is taken from the perspective, if you will, from a black woman, instead of a white male, and is narrated through third person instead of first person. The effect that is achieved by Faulkner doing so is providing the reader with a more panoramic, sweeping view of the Compson family through someone not of direct Compson blood, relaying an objective narration to view the plight of the family in it's actuality. Faulkner also makes Dilsey such a character that instead of having Benjy's or Quentin's or Jason's sense of time in either through the past, present, or future, she is persistent towards the concept of eternity, demonstrative of her strong Christian morals. This chapter is a fresh perspective and is symbolic in the sense that Dilsey represents another view of Southern culture; instead of becoming swallowed by it's ideals (like how Quentin was wholly consumed by the idea of honor, for instance), she maintains her center and stays grounded, making her the redeemer of the family to an extent. She constitutes a reversal of the traditional Southern society because she is conceived as a savior and in an honorable light notwithstanding that she is black and a woman (Southerners have ideas on women and blacks differently, as seen by Jason). 

Overall, Faulkner provided the reader with some good mind benders and twisted the idea of the South to a derogatory, disintegrating one. This is evident in the conclusion of the last chapter as Benjy is taken off his usual route, which makes him "bellow" (bit seriously, when is this kid not bellowing 24/7? He should not see The Notebook), and breaks to pieces his idea of familiarity and regularity; in this small episode, order is destroyed in Benjy's mind, but in the broader scope, order is also destroyed in the Compson family name. Being familiar with the Christian culture, one knows that after an end, there is usually a "resurrection" or "redemption" of sorts, which role is assumed by Dilsey in this chapter. 

And with that, the Sound and the Fury is done in a flurry. Thank you (This is the part where I drop the mic and exit the stage).    

-LBugL

The Sound and the Fury Chapter 3 (April Sixth, 1928)

Jason Compson is the kind of person who would get his picture thrown darts at. Maybe if he'd change (his personality, not his clothes- if it's the Judge uniform, then definitely the clothes too), he'd be somewhat tolerable, but "once a bitch, always a bitch" (direct quote from Jason... irony at it's finest). Any last ember of hope for Jason there is extinguished. Unfortunate, but a very brilliant move on Faulkner's part. 

Jason Compson is uncanny to the biblical character Judas, who is commonly known for receiving pieces of silver for betraying Jesus in Matthew 26:15; Both are blinded by the sweet taste of wealth, but bitter price. However, differences lie in the aspect that Judas is openly exposed at The Last Supper, but Jason is not truly exposed because his mother continues believing he is "the man of the house." 

The common ground that all the Compson children, I found, is the condition of mental illness: Benjy is handicapped, Quintin is hell-bent on prestige, and Jason is money-grubbing. I choose to analyze Faulkner's intentional disposition of the Compson family to be an underlying message of the crumbling Old South; The family seems to be degrading parallel to the Old South (and the concept of affordable college education nowadays is fading too...). Through Jason, I think Faulkner is saying more than just this. Jason's racism and belittling of women is downright despicable, just like the belief of white supremacy in the Old South was. An example of this Jason's monologue in the hardware store where he says, "What this country needs is white labor. Let these dam trifling niggers starve for a couple years..." (Faulkner 198). However, Jason's spiteful nature was prevalent even as a child, evident when he would reveal all of Caddy's flaws out, strikingly different from Benjy and Quintin as they absolutely adore Caddy but Jason seems have prejudice against her, and when he would scam other little children into selling kites made from flour paste. As Jason becomes an adult, his actions become more disgusting; he steals his niece's money, lies to his mother, bashes on non-whites, etc. (So, Jason's sweater is definitely not boyfriend-material). Even with all the money he deceitfully acquired, it still could not change his malice-filled existence. Perhaps through this, Faulkner is suggesting that the South is so far antiquated that the only way out is for it to cease to exist, similar to how Jason is so far corrupt that the only peace brought will be from him ceasing to exist. 

And with that, I conclude with the note that man made money, but money made him mad. If you want an example of this, then look no further than Jason in this chapter.  

-LBugL

The Sound and the Fury Chapter 2 (June Second, 1910)

Just as we are about to get comfortable with the narrator Benjy in chapter one, Faulkner pulls the rug from under our feet and switches gears to a new narrator: Quentin Compson. (Who wants their readers to actually understand what they're reading, right?) Another change brought with this chapter is also the shift in time setting; it is now 1910, 18 years prior to the Benjy chapter.

The chapter starts off with the reader waking up along with Quentin as he rises from his sleep and checks the time on his Grandfather's watch (not the phone like most do); it was "between seven and eight oclock and then I [Quentin] was in time again, hearing the watch" (Faulkner 50). Immediately, a difference among Benjy and Quentin should be noted: Quentin pays regards to time, whereas Benjy did not. This peculiarity in character is furthermore surfaced in the progression of the sub-plots in the chapter where Quentin, for instance, goes into a clock shop and asks if any of the clocks are correct, and when Quentin muses about the tolls of the town bells. Perhaps this difference in the characters is Faulkner's way of saying that time is purely a human-created concept that is inconsequential to memories/events. In the last chapter, although Benjy didn't mention time, the memories and flashbacks relayed in the chapter were there nonetheless, and parallel, although Quentin does mention time, the memories and flashbacks are still relayed in the chapter. 

However, uncanny similarities among Benjy and Quentin I ound was their heightened sensitivity of senses, particularly smell,and fondness of their sister Caddy. In chapter one, Benjy seemed to frequently be reminiscing about Caddy's scent of trees, and in chapter two, Quentin seems to be struck with the image of honeysuckle at night ("sad honeyuckle," to be precise). This is one way that the Compson brothers are tied, and anothwer way I found they are tied is "mental illness." Benjy is conventionally menally ill, as he is disabled in a way that is present to society. However, Quentin, in my thoughts, is "mentally ill" in the sense that he is obsessive and compulsive towards the prestige of honor, one of the reasons why he weakly tried convincing his father that he committed incest with Caddy, because he knows that Caddy was with other men, a serious defamation of the Compson family honor, and Quentin believes that having sexual relations with one's brother is less of an evil than having those relations with foreign men. Quentin's infatuation with honor is not rare however, because honor and pride is a deeply-rooted aspect of Southern culture. (Why else did cowboys have "duels to the death" in movies, after all? To defend ego) Also, it is evident that Quentin, and Benjy for that matter, adore and constantly bring to mind their sister Caddy. We can safely conclude this because as we are given the first-hand perspective of the characters, we experience their [jumbled and varying] emotions, flashbacks, and thoughts.

Overall, the Quentin chapter was key in piecing more information of not only the characters, but also the Compson family as well as southern culture. I'm inferring that the next chapter will be the perspective of another Compson family member?

-LbugL 

The Sound and the Fury Chapter 1 (April Seventh, 1928) 

Faulkner may as well have started this chapter with Chinese, for it would not have made a significant change to the overall initial comprehension of the chapter. First reading this chapter and trying to firmly grasp it is like trying to whisk egg batter with a shoelace (not that I've tried it, just for the purpose of an analogy); one can't get far without realizing how futile it is and how wise it would be to use that time to analyze another aspect of the chapter rather than the plot (one aspect that is bound to create less of a migraine too).

First things first, let's begin with what we, the readers, can explicitly comprehend from chapter 1: Benjy is one of the four Compton family children, he is mentally handicapped, his name was changed from Maury (the family name), and of course, he is the person whose perspective we are experiencing the novel from thus far. It is no "accident" that Faulkner incorporated these details into chapter 1; as twenty-first century English students, we know that what the author is saying is far more of importance than what the characters are saying, although it is nonetheless beneficial to know what the characters are saying because one needs context to interpret author's tone from. 

What we can infer from this chapter is that Benjy is as naive and unimpeachable (woah, big word? Google is your friend, my friend) as a character can be. This can be supported in Faulkner's representation of him; he is handicapped mentally, and tends to have the train of thought that a juvenile child does. Parallel to this, children generally are associated as pure and innocent beings whose minds are not corrupted or blemished (yet). Additionally, Benjy is depicted as one with "special senses." For instance, Benjy seems to have been very sensitive to Caddy's scent of trees, remember? This supports that he is like the character of a fool in Shakespearean literature, for what the "fool" says is the truth. The notable part of this representation of Benjy is that we, the readers, can place our credibility in Benjy as he narrates the accounts of the chapter; he cannot soil what is being told, but merely relay them as they unfold, for he is not soiled himself. 

His symbolic role in the novel is to be the messenger of truth, which is not always pretty. One truth we get is Benjy's name change which portrays the antiquated Southern societal flaw of placing status over righteous human dignity. As we are taught now, a person's state of being, handicapped or not, does not dictate their merit regardless. The exposure we get about Benjy's unjust treatment and inferior sentiment from other characters is Faulkner indirectly talking to us as to how the South was like in the nineteenth century. And just like that, the chapter is starting to sound more like English, and less like Chinese (Thank you, AP Lit).

-LbugL

At the SOUND of a name like William Faulkner, high school english students may let out a groan under their breath and immediately disregard him FURIously under the file "Boring AP Literature authors who ruin my brain power when I could be using it to play Trivia Crack" in their brain. Hmmm, maybe that's why it's called The Sound and The Fury, right? Well... maybe not, but good try.

Diving deeper into the life of Faulkner and what he was like as a person just like any other Average Joe (even though an Average Joe probably doesn't have a Literature Nobel Prize under his name) can create a sense of familiarity and allow the high school student to perhaps see Faulkner in the eye as they try to get inside his mind and decipher his writings, particularly The Sound and The Fury.

Learning more about Faulkner, the student can find that he was a Nobel-Prize-winning novelist of the American South. Also, he was brought up by an old southern family in Oxford, Mississippi and throughout his life, his endeavors led him to dabble in the Canadian and British Royal Air  Force during World War I, booking keeping in New York City, writing scripts for Hollywood, as well as embarking on some excursions to Europe and Asia. So, his college resume probably would have looked as golden as the Golden Fleece. But, most of his brain power behind his short stories and novels was generated on a farm in his hometown, Oxford. After all, he is most commonly know for being a writer, not an ex-soldier turned bookkeeper turned Hollywood writer turned writer turned tomb-rester. 

However, the detail that he was from the South is especially important to take note of here (although most know that taking notes is something not akin to high schoolers), as it is one of the factors that influences his writing style. According to an article on nobelprize.org that gives a biography on William Faulkner, "Faulkner has invented a host of characters typical of the historical growth and subsequent decadence of the South." In other words, he was quite familiar with Southern culture and nature and this seeps through in his the imaginary Yoknapatawpha Country (in The Sound and The Fury) and it's residents, i.e. the characters. The incorporation of the South is also surfaced in one theme of the degeneration of the South and rising prominence of the newcomers, the Snopeses. 

As the high school student gets ready to go take on the big shoes of reading and comprehending a complicated writer such as William Faulkner, it is of upmost importance to keep in mind his Southern upbringing and influence of his writing. That will probably help take out the FURY one gets in deciphering the intricate complexity of Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury. 

-LbugL