The Sound and the Fury-
GuideQuestions for Parts I & II
1. Tree imagery is prevalent in this novel:
- Note several specific parts of the text (from Parts I and II) where a tree or trees are used as central images. Note page numbers.
- What are some of the classic archetypal associations we make with trees?
- What kinds of conclusions can you draw about how the tree imagery is important?
2. Shadow imagery is prevalent in this novel:
- Note several specific parts of the text (from Parts I and II) where shadows are used as central images. Note page numbers.
- What are some of the classic archetypal associations we make with shadows?
- What kinds of conclusions can you draw about how the shadow imagery is important?
3. Do the same for Water imagery.
4. Time is a central focal point in the novel. Faulkner is clearly thinking about some of the theoretical questions of Time which were being postulated by Einstein and others during the early 20th Century. The Theory of Relativity, as applied to time, teaches that past, present and future all exist simultaneously. Einstein wrote: “us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."
- How does the narrative structure of this novel reflect this concept?
- Come up with several specific quotes from parts I & II of the novel which comment on the nature of time. How does time work for Benjamin?How is Quentin’s view different from that of his father? Note page numbers.
- What kinds of conclusions can you draw about Time in the novel?
5. Part One is told from Benjy’s perspective, and Part Two is told from Quentin’s (Jason, the third brother, narrates Part Three). Each brother devotes significant attention to recounting scenes involving Caddy. Yet Caddy never tells her own story, and is not even mentioned in Part Four. Faulkner later wrote this about how he began to write The Sound and the Fury:
…I, who had three brothers and no sisters and was destined to lose my first daughter in infancy, began to write about a little girl.
I did not realize then that I was trying to manufacture the sister
which I did not have and the daughter which I was to lose, though the
former might have been apparent from the fact that Caddy had three brothers almost before I wrote her name on paper. I just began to write about a brother and a sister splashing one another in the brook and the sister fell and wet her clothing and the smallest brother cried, thinking that the sister was conquered or perhaps hurt. Or perhaps he knew that he was the baby and that she would quit whatever water battles to comfort him. When she did so, when she quit the water fight and stooped in her wet garments above him, the entire story, which is all told by that same little brother in the first section, seemed to explode on the paper before me…
- What does Caddy mean to Benjy? How is the reader’s perception of her colored by Benjy’s narrative? Give specific examples.
- What does Caddy mean to Quentin? How is the reader’s perception of her colored by Quentin’s narrative? Give specific examples.
- Consider the implications of Caddy, the novel’s central character, being presented in this indirect manner, through the male perspectives of her brothers.