Top 30 Modern Classics - XXX

The Sound And The Fury

William Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury, written by the American author Willaim Faulkner, was first published in 1929.

Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a person with lower mental capabilities, was considered to be a shame to his family. He was cared by Caddy, his older sister; and Dilsey, a servant.

Benjy's had three passions: fire, the golf course on land that used to belong to the Compson family, and his sister Caddy. But by 1928 Caddy had been banished from the Compson home after her husband divorced her because her child was not his. The family sold the golf course to a local golf club in order to finance Quentin's Harvard education. Benjy remembered his sister ardently and held very fond memories of her.

Pregnant and alone, Caddy then marries Herbert Head, whom Quentin did not like. Caddy was determined in marrying Herbert as she wanted to get married before resolute the birth of her child. Herbert found out that the child was not his and sent mother and daughter away in shame. 

Quentin, who was a very tormented person with a complex psyche, could not come to terms wit Caddy's fate and after sometime commited suicide.

Jason, the third child of the family had a single minded desire to acquire material wealth.  By 1928, after his father's death, Jason became the provider for the family consisting of his mother, Benjy, and Miss Quentin (Caddy's daughter), as well as the family's servants. His role made him bitter and cynical. He went so far as to blackmail Caddy into making him Miss Quentin's sole guardian, then used that role to steal the support payments that Caddy sent for her daughter.

Dilsey, the powerful matriarch of the black family servants drew a great deal of strength from her faith, standing as a proud figure amid a dying family.

On this Easter Sunday, Dilsey took her family and Benjy to the 'colored' church. Dilsey was mistreated and abused in the Compson family, but nevertheless remained loyal. She, with the help of her grandson Luster, cared for Benjy, as she took him to church and tried to bring him to salvation. 

Meanwhile, the tension between Jason and Miss Quentin, Caddy's daughter, reached its climax in the family discovering that Miss Quentin had run away in the middle of the night with a carnival worker She had taken with her all money that Jason had hidden in his closed which also included the support money sent be Caddy for Miss Quentin but stolen by Jason. He sets off once again to find her on his own, but loses her trail in nearby Mottson, and gives up.

After church, Dilsey allows her grandson Luster to drive Benjy in the family's decrepit horse and carriage to the graveyard. Luster, disregarding Benjy's set routine, drives the wrong way around a monument. Benjy's hysterical sobbing and violent outburst can only be quieted by Jason, who understands how best to placate his brother. Jason slaps Luster, turns the carriage around, and, in an attempt to quiet Benjy, hits Benjy, breaking his flower, whilst screaming "Shut up!". After Jason gets off the carriage and Luster heads home, Benjy suddenly becomes silent. Luster turns around to look at Benjy and sees Benjy holding his drooping flower.

In 1945, Faulkner wrote an appendix to the novel.

The appendix reveals that Caroline Compson died in 1933, upon which Jason had Benjy committed to the state asylum; fired the black servants; sold the last of the Compson land; and moved into an apartment above his farming supply store. It is also revealed that Jason had himself declared Benjy's legal guardian many years ago, without their mother's knowledge, and used this status to have Benjy castrated.

The appendix also reveals the fate of Caddy, last seen in the novel when her daughter Quentin is still a baby. After marrying and divorcing a second time, Caddy moved to Paris, where she lived at the time of the German occupation.

The appendix concludes with an accounting for the black family who worked as servants to the Compsons. 

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