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The Sound and the Fury | Dilsey's Easter Conversion in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury

In the following excerpt, Philip Dubuisson Castille argues that the character of Dilsey is more developed than many critics have seen her. He interprets her actions after hearing the Reverend Shegog's sermon as leading her away from the Compsons and back to her family, a change that reflects the Christian idea of redemption.

The main action of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury occurs during Easter Week, 1928. Because Easter is the holiest event in the Christian calendar, and because the Passion Week serves as the book's main organizing device, many readers have sensed the presence of religious themes in this often opaque work. But over the past five decades, critical interpretations have ranged from Christian spirituality to existential nothingness. While there has been no consensus on the meaning of the novel, Faulkner scholars have agreed over the years that the structure of...

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