The Sound and the Fury
Sound and the Fury, The,novel by Faulkner, published in 1929. The story is told in four parts, through the stream of consciousness of three characters (the sons of the Compson family, Benjy, Quentin, and Jason), and finally in an objective account.
The Compson family, formerly genteel Southern patricians, now lead a degenerate, perverted life on their shrunken plantation near Jefferson, Miss. The disintegration of the family, which clings to outworn aristocratic conventions, is counterpointed by the strength of the black servants, who include old Dilsey and her son Luster. The latter tends the idiot Benjy Compson, who is 33 and incapable of speech or any but the simplest actions. Through his broken thoughts, which revert to his childhood at every chance stimulation of his acute senses, is disclosed the tragedy of his drunken father; his proud, sniveling, hypochondriac mother; his weak-minded Uncle Maury; his sister Candace (Caddy), whom he...
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