A Comparison between the Benjy & Quentin sections of The Sound & the Fury.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life 's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth: V.v.18-27)
These Shakespearean verses lend William Faulkner the title of this novel, and speak of the philosophy behind it. In this soliloquy, Macbeth implies that the life is only a shadow of the past. He idealizes the greatness of the past, and expresses his inability as a modern man to achieve that greatness. "Faulkner reinterprets this idea," comment Phillips & Johnson, "implying that if man does not choose to take his own life, as Quentin does, the only alternatives are to become either a cynic and materialist like Jason, or an idiot like Benjy, unable to see life as anything more than a meaningless series of images, sounds, and memories."1
The three Compson brothers reveal their perspectives through their streams of consciousness in the first three sections of the novel. The fourth section is the perspective of "the narrator." Before we attempt to compare the first two sections of the novels i.e. the perspectives of Benjy and Quentin, we must not forget the conclusion of Donald Kartiganer, as he analyses the form of the novel. "None of the four tales speak to another, each imagined order cancels out the one that precedes it. Truth is the meaningless sum of four items, that seem to have no business being added: Benjy plus Quentin plus Jason plus 'the narrator '. 'You bring them together '," he quotes Faulkner, " '...and...nothing happens '." 2
Benjy Compson is a mentally retarded thirty year old man at the time of narration. Although he can not speak, he often registers his protest in the form of loud unpleasant moans, and these moans are
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life 's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth: V.v.18-27)
These Shakespearean verses lend William Faulkner the title of this novel, and speak of the philosophy behind it. In this soliloquy, Macbeth implies that the life is only a shadow of the past. He idealizes the greatness of the past, and expresses his inability as a modern man to achieve that greatness. "Faulkner reinterprets this idea," comment Phillips & Johnson, "implying that if man does not choose to take his own life, as Quentin does, the only alternatives are to become either a cynic and materialist like Jason, or an idiot like Benjy, unable to see life as anything more than a meaningless series of images, sounds, and memories."1
The three Compson brothers reveal their perspectives through their streams of consciousness in the first three sections of the novel. The fourth section is the perspective of "the narrator." Before we attempt to compare the first two sections of the novels i.e. the perspectives of Benjy and Quentin, we must not forget the conclusion of Donald Kartiganer, as he analyses the form of the novel. "None of the four tales speak to another, each imagined order cancels out the one that precedes it. Truth is the meaningless sum of four items, that seem to have no business being added: Benjy plus Quentin plus Jason plus 'the narrator '. 'You bring them together '," he quotes Faulkner, " '...and...nothing happens '." 2
Benjy Compson is a mentally retarded thirty year old man at the time of narration. Although he can not speak, he often registers his protest in the form of loud unpleasant moans, and these moans are
Citations: 1. Phillips, Brian and Johnson, Evan. SparkNote on The Sound and the Fury. 18th February 2004 2. Kartiganer, Donald M. The Sound and the Fury and the Dislocation of Form in The Fragile Thread. University of Massachusetts Press, 1979. 3. Stonum, Gary Lee. The Search for a Narrative Method in Bloom, Herald (ed). Modern Critical Interpretations: William Faulkner 's The Sound and the Fury. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. 4. Deshaye, Joel. A Brief Analysis of The Sound and the Fury 's Namesake The Sound and the Fury: a Hypertext Edition. Ed. Stoicheff, Muri, Deshaye, et al. Up. Mar. 2003 University of Saskatchewan. Accessed 18th February 2004 5. Storhoff, Gary. "Faulkner 's Family Crucible: Quentin 's Dilemma." Mississippi Quarterly. 51:3-4, 465-482, 1998. 6.Irwin, John T. Doubling and Incest / Repetition and Revenge: A Speculative Reading of Faulkner. Expanded edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. 7. Guetti, James. "The Sound and the Fury" and "The Bear", in The Limits of Metaphor. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967. 8. Sundquist, Eric J. The Myth of the Sound and the Fury in The House Divided. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. 9. Matthews, John T. The Discovery of Loss in The Sound and the Fury: A Norton Critical Edition. David Minter, ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1982.