Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The Sound And The Fury: Background

The Sound And The Fury By William Faulkner

a.
William Faulkner (1897-1962), grew up in New Albany, Mississippi until the age of five when his family relocated to Oxford, Mississippi. He joined the Canadian and later the British Air Force during the First World War while studying at the University of Mississippi, and working part-time at a local bookstore and newspaper. Faulkner enrolled in the University of Mississippi in 1919, but dropped out in 1920, three semester into the year. Except for a few brief trips to Europe and Asia, and a temporary job in Hollywood as a script writer, Faulkner remained bound in his hometown of Oxford where he later produced short stories and his most famous novels. He published 'his greatest artistic achievements', The Sound and The Fury in 1929, and To Go Down, Moses in 1942 and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. Faulkner died on June 6, 1962, after finihing his final novel, The Reivers, leaving his literature to live on, still considered one of the most influential writers of Southern literature of the United States during the twentieth century.

Nobel Prize Speech
b.
Faulkner wrote several novel series such as A Fable (1954), Soldiers' Pay (1926), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), Pylon (1935). He wrote twenty novels in his lifetime.
Faulkner, also wrote over a hundred short stories such as Landing in Luck (1919), Home (1925), Honor(1930), Thrift (1930), and Raid (1934).
Although known best for his novels and short stories, he also wrote a few pieces for poetry such as Visions in Spring (1921), The Marble Faun (1924), A Green Bough (1933), This Earth, A Poem (1932), and Mississippi Poems, published in 1979, which was discovered after his death.

c.
:The Sound and the Fury is an extremely frustrating book to read and easily confuses the reader. However, those who persevere will come away with respect for Faulkner’s ability to put the reader inside the character’s mind. The first three sections of the book are written from the perspective of three very different siblings. In each case, you find yourself thinking the way they do. It can be quite disconcerting to find yourself involved in the bitterness and rage of Jason Compson in section three.

If one takes time to think about the story and perhaps discuss it with others who have read it (in order to get different perspectives). It is possible to appreciate the complex interweaving of points of view to create a comprehensive story.

The greatest satisfaction found in The Sound and the Fury is the ability to say “I read it.”

2. http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Fury-Corrected-Text/dp/0679732241
: Notoriously "difficult," The Sound and the Fury is actually one of Faulkner's more accessible works once you get past the abrupt, unannounced time shifts--and certainly the most powerful emotionally. Everything is here: the complex equilibrium of pre-civil rights race relations; the conflict between Yankee capitalism and Southern agrarian values; a meditation on time, consciousness, and Western philosophy. And all of it is rendered in prose so gorgeous it can take your breath away.

What Faulkner has created is a modernist epic in which characters assume the stature of gods and the primal family events resonate like myths. It is The Sound and the Fury that secures his place in what Edmund Wilson called "the full-dressed post-Flaubert group of Conrad, Joyce, and Proust."
--David Laskin

d. Example of Academic Essays



e.
f.
Faulkner uses various different techniques of writing throughout the novel, The Sound And The Fury. The novel is separated into four different time periods, each uniquely written by a different narrator whose singular personality reflect on the writing style of the passage. The theme of the novel varies between each section, as the narrator's focus changes as their personality is expressed by their actions, thoughts and memories.

Faulkner has a very modernistic writing style for the time period of which he thrived in. He uses non-linear timelines, switching between time periods, and ages of the characters through memories. Furthermore, throughout the novel Faulkner uses the writing technique of stream of consciousness; recording thoughts, memories and obsessions of the characters, from which the plot develops.

Much like his earlier works, The Sound And The Fury, reflects issues in America's Southern States during the post-Civil War era. Faulkner portrays ideas of how old Southern life could be maintained and preserved in his novels. One might see the continuous decay of the Compson family as a portrayal of the decay of traditional Southern life. As well, Faulkner bases many of his characters and their values upon classical, Biblical and literary sources.






1 comment:

  1. Your list is extensive. There are a quite a few Wikipedia and Sparknote links, which are fine for a starting point, but providing literary sites that provide the same information would balance out these types of generic sites. Providing academic essays is beneficial, although try to repost them because the database screen is what appears, rather than the essay.

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