The Sound and the Fury
A modernist novel of a decaying Southern family.
Faulkner's fourth novel, it is the second to be set in Yoknapatawpha County and the first featuring the Compson family, both of which would reappear in his later fiction. The novel's highly experimental style, including its use of stream of consciousness and multiple different unreliable narrators, are hallmarks of modernist literature. Its bleak and candid portrait of Southern life in the early 20th century is paradigmatic of the Southern Gothic genre.
- author
- William Faulkner
- genre
- Modernist literature, Southern Gothic
- setting
- Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi
- notable_techniques
- Stream of consciousness, multiple unreliable narrators
Lore & Background
The Sound and the Fury centers around Quentin, Benjy, Jason, and Caddy Compson as their wealthy Mississippi family descends into chaos and disorder. Each of the siblings has unique problems that impact the others, such as Benjy's mental disability, Caddy's promiscuity, Quentin's neuroticism, and Jason's impulsiveness. Faulkner originally planned the novel as a short story, inspired by the image of a girl climbing a tree while her brothers looked up at her muddy underwear. His working title was Twilight; the final title comes from a soliloquy in Macbeth.
Reader's Guide
Although it did not initially find commercial success, after the publication of Faulkner's novel Sanctuary, The Sound and the Fury grew in popularity and Faulkner began to receive critical attention. Now considered by scholars to be one of Faulkner's best novels, it has been described as 'one of the most complex novels in America's literary history.' The novel's stream of consciousness style was inspired by the works of James Joyce, and it also borrows language from Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Faulkner drew on his own life, including the decline of his family and the death of his maternal grandmother, as well as a mentally disabled man he knew in Oxford, Mississippi.
Did You Know?
- Faulkner's working title for the novel was Twilight.
- The final title comes from a soliloquy in Macbeth.
- Faulkner was inspired by the image of a girl climbing a tree while her brothers looked up at her muddy underwear.
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