The Sound and the Fury Study Guide

The Sound and the Fury Study Guide

Original title:
The Sound and the Fury
Published:
October 1990 by Vintage (first published October 7th 1929)
Setting:
Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi (United States) Jefferson, Mississippi, 1928 (United States) Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1910 (United States)
ISBN 0679732241 (ISBN13: 9780679732242)

“The Sound And The Fury” is a major creation of a great American writer William Faulkner. The author has perfected his writing style while compiling the novel, especially the parts that employ the stream of consciousness tool. The book was published in 1929 and it took the novel a couple of years to gain acknowledgment of the critics. 

Words. Lots of words, different words, in different places, and about different things. Then or now, rivers or houses, children or adults, Benjy or Caddy. There exist a sizable meaning once in every two or three sentences, but as soon as the reader gets it, the meaning disappears. Welcome to the beauty of William Faulkner writing style. 

Finally, the reader realizes that there's a family. Their children narrate the whole story of the Compson family. Memories. It’s so terrifying to be left one-by-one with your own excruciating thoughts. The memories and thoughts about pain, despair, and regret. The memories of one of the Compson children, the kid that is mentally troubled, represent a typical Faulkner writing style. The time has a different course and focus is absent. 

The reality that the family lives in is actually much more boring and predictable than the way it is portrayed. We meet a family with its ups and downs, weak father, a difficult mother, frivolous children. Weird feelings between the parents and children. 

The secret to reading Faulkner texts is simple. Don't try to draw a picture in your head. Imagine that you are the eyes, the consciousness, the memories that are trying to break free from the limits around you. You can go out from the limits of your mind, but you also can’t at the same time. Nobody knows where is the phantasy and where is the memory. But somehow it all falls together into a story that is understood and felt on multiple levels. 

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Sound and the Fury

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