Dec 25, 2009

The Sound and the Fury | Themes

Time
The themes in The Sound and the Fury are so closely interwoven with the characters and structure of the novel that it is difficult to separate these elements. In all four sections of the novel, however, time is an important theme that Faulkner develops. The central characters of the four sections each cope with time in a different way. In the first section, Benjy's sense of time is defective. His thoughts move from present to past time without the ability to grasp the real meaning of events. Benjy is free from time because he cannot understand its...