The Sound and the Fury and Faulkner's Quest for Form

Author(s): Donald M. Kartiganer

Reviewed work(s):
Source: ELH, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Dec., 1970), pp. 613-639
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2872385 .
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THE SOUND AND THE FURY AND FAULKNER'S

QUEST FOR FORM
BY DONALD

M. KARTIGANER

In The Soundand theFuryFaulknerpassedabruptlyfromhis

novelsofpromiseto thefirstachievement
of his mastery,
chiefly
because he had founda formcommensurate
to his vision-a
successionofgrotesquely
shapedfragments
struggling
to discover
theirownunity.In the sequenceofnarratives
whichconstitutes
the novel,Faulknergraspedhis worldboth in its fact and its
direction,
whatit wasand whatit was striving
to become.
Nearlyall of Faulkner'ssubsequentnovels-and certainlyall
the majorones-are conceivedas studiesin fragmentation,
violentlyjuxtaposedstationsof a brokenworld,apparentlydrawn
togetheronly by a commonsubject of concernor by parallel
actionsinforming
distinctly
separatestories.The technique
reveals
itselfin thesequenceof voicesin The Sound and theFury,As I
Lay Dying,and Absalom,Absalom!,in thesubtlycomplementary
patternsof Lightin Augustand The Hamlet,the integration
of
twonovelsin The WildPalms,or theoddlyarrangeddaysofthe
Passion in A Fable. The primarymotivationof the work-althoughrarelyachievedand neversustained-isthe quest of one
to moveintothelifeof another,to shatterthe private
fragment
in relationship
prisonand standat least momentarily
itself.
notto say moral,richnessof thisfictional
The aesthetic,
style,
thisdreamofunityperceivedthrough
multipleglasses,cannotbe
While Faulknerseems to us one of the less
under-estimated.
" conscious" artistsof our time,in commentson his own work
to theircomplexity
insensitive
almostdeliberately
and difficulty,
his bestnovelsreveala staggeringartistry-and a writerwho may
be said to have seen throughto the end of his art. The fictions
themselves are securely " aware " of what they are doing, the

problemstheyare raising,and the onlysolutionspossiblefromthe

givensof the technique. At its best, in otherwords,the art is an
unsparinglyhonestone.
To put it perhapstoo lightly,Faulkner's characteristicformis
Donald M. Kartiganer

613

" reversed
" picaresque:notthesequenceofbizarreincia curiously
dentshappening
to a singlehero,butthesequenceofbizarrecharto a singleincident.It is a seriesofvoicesor acactershappening
a singlenotquiterealizedevent.
dissonantly,
tionsechoing,
however
the novelsare
To approachtheproblemfromanotherdirection,
to become
in theattemptto becomethemselves,
aesthetic
exercises
the singlestreamof theiralienatedparts. Their achievement,
ofit,is theiraffirmawhenFaulknerseeshiswayto theexpression
form-which
tion of the possibilityof viable, comprehensive
ofknowing
theverypossibility
century
becomesin thetwentieth
in the world.
and communicating
oftenmoving
in 1929as a presenceoffragments
To seeexistence
rationale,requiredof course
to no particularend or recognizable
ofthought.It was becomingclear,through
no specialoriginality
theworkofConrad,Joyce,Woolf,Eliot,as wellas the" process"
philosophyof Bergson,that the unbrokencontinuityof most
centuryliterature-itsleisurelyArisand nineteenth
eighteenth
marked
plotpointedly
paraphrasable
through
totelianmovement
middle,and end, to a completed,controlling
with beginning,
mythos;or theorderedmotionofits lyrics,privateand dramatic
-must be replacedby thebrokenversesof The WasteLand and
and shatteredtimesequenceof Nostromo.
narrators
the shifting
as
to Bergson,realityappearsto normalperception
According
"
distinct,
sharp,like" frozencrystals
a seriesofstaticmoments,
capableofbeingorderedinspace. But " whatweperceiveas being
once the fog
a successionof statesis conceivedby our intellect,
has settled,as a systemofrelations,"'a systemaidedparticularly
dismissalof that whichthreatensorganization.
by our arbitrary
in the world;
It is onlyin thisway thatwe are able to function
currentof
and yet it is markedby a failureto see the unifying
"
which
river
is
bankless
essential
"
2
the
bottomless,
motion,
theintuition.To
reality,and whichis approachableonlythrough
those
aside
one
must
first
conceptualorganiput
see whatis real
or analyticalmind-and
of the scientific
zations-characteristic
replacethemby a moreintuitivemodeof knowledge.Not, from
Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind, trans. Mabelle L. Andison (Totawa, N. J.,
1965). p. 105. While I am not seeking to establish conscious influence,Faulkner did
comment once: " I was influenced by . . . Bergson obviously " (LoIc Bouvard,
" Conversation with William Faulkner," trans. Henry Dan Piper, MFS, 5 [1959-1960],
363-364).
'Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. T. E. Hulme (New York, 1912), p. 692.
1

614

" The Sound and theFury " and Faulkner'sQuest forForm

without,to impose static concepts on a collectionof immobile

fragments,
but ratherto see,fromwithin,the continuityand interpenetrationof a durationalreality:lifeas a " continuouscreation
of unforeseeablenovelty."'
What in the early part of this centurywas called traditional
literaturewas incapable of renderingthe illusionof such a reality
which
as Bergsondescribed.This was trueespeciallyofthefiction,
insistedverymuchon " conceptualizing"reality. Consistentwith
his philosophy,Bergsonthoughta truthfulnovel would have to
createsomesenseofthe incessantmotionof reality;it wouldhave
to presenta characternot as if he were being lived by a preconceived scheme,but in the act of creatingthe schemeitself. But
conventionalnarrative,to borrowBergson'sdescriptionof " ordinaryknowledge,"" startsfromimmobility. . . and by an ingenious
arrangementof immobilitiesit recomposesan imitationof movementwhichit substitutesformovementitself."' Such techniques
wereanalogous to those " mechanistic" and " finalistic" theories
of the evolutionof man whichBergsoncriticizedin CreativeEvolution. The firsttype sees man as a machine," buildingup .
under the influenceof external circumstances"; the second as
cparts . . . broughttogetheron a preconceivedplan witha view to
a certain end.

. .

. the realization of an idea or the imitation of a

model."' The methodsof nineteenth-century

fictionappeared to
be the workof what was actually,fromBergson'spoint of view,
a " scientific"vision,and correspondingly
remotefromtruth.
There were those, of course, who grasped the significanceof
Bergsonand what he represented,
and saw what theirconsequent
obligationsas artistsbecame: to reveal,firstof all, preciselythat
senseof fragmentation,
the sharplycut states ofperceivedreality,
with whichnormalperceptionbegins-and to reveal it prior to
the impositionby the intellectof a false " systemof relations";
and yet, even as they reveal it, to attemptthe task of replacing
this fragmentation
with a sense of duration,of a unifiedflowof
continuallychanginglifeand personality.
One solutionwas the stream of consciousnesstechnique-the
work set withinthe creatingmind itself;another,in certainrespects inclusiveof the streamof consciousness,was the style of
'Bergson, The CreativeMind,p. 104.

4Ibid., p. 127.

' CreativeEvolution,trans.Arthur
Mitchell (New York, 1944), p. 99.

Donald M. Kartiganer

615

process,of Sterne,Rimbaud,and Whitman,in whichthe major

at the
actionbecomestheveryquestfordesign:thepoethimself
centerofthework,thepoemas thehistoryofits ownbecoming.6
A fluid,durationalreality,in otherwords,couldbe suggestedin
into
an artcentering
on theveryprocessofthework'semergence
ofitsownachievement
being,itsconfrontation
withthedifficulties
had
ofform.In thissenseprocessand thestreamofconsciousness
identicalaims: a literaturewhichsuggestedmindin the act of
knowing
and thepoetin themakingoforder.
Even in a poetrylikeEliot's,withitsquestforcontextormyth,
the subjectbecomesthe verypursuitof this myth-eitherthe
failureto achieveit,as in The WasteLand,ortheapparentsuccess
in Four Quartets.R. P. Blackmurhas noted," Eliot's effort
to
findhis subjectis his subject. To findthe meansof poetryis a
steptowardfinding
the subject,forthe poetrywillbe its actual
form.'7 For Eliot,it is the vital imagealone whichmay create
theredeeming
pattern;and thatpatternistheonlyvehiclethrough
whichimagecan bothremain,
yetbecomemorethan,itself:" But
. . . Be rememonlyin timecan themomentin the rose-garden
bered." This discoveryof valid structure
becomesforEliot not
onlythe aestheticquest,but the " echo" of a largerredemptive
process: "He must make what he does stand for what he

cannotdo."8

ofcourse,Eliot,likemostofthe
By thetimeofFour Quartets,
modernists
in theirmaturework,has addedhisownuniquestamp
to thecommonaesthetic
problem.Andyetall thesemethods-the
ofconsciousness,
theachievement
methodofprocess,thenarrative
ofcontext,
ofthesewhichareperhapsmost
and thecombinations
which
typical-stillpointto a singlecentralresult:a literature
triesto come closerto the qualityof a life in the processof
one whichis committed
repetition
to " thesuperfluity,
becoming,
and fumbling
ofactualspeech" and suspiciousofthepresentation
' It is a literature
ofthe" nakedpowerofsignificance."
which,in
its sensitivity
to the gap betweenmotionand aestheticstasis,
becomespreoccupied
withits ownattemptto createviableform.
' For a relevantdiscussionof Bergsonand fiction,see Shiv K. Kumar,
Bergsonand
the Streamof ConsciousnessNovel (New York, 1963).
7 Form and Value in ModernPoetry (New York, 1957), p. 164.
8 Blackmur,
p. 171.
' The quotationsare fromJean-PaulSartre'sessay," FrancisMauriac and Freedom,"
in Literaryand PhilosophicalEssays, trans. AnnetteMichelson (New York, 1962),
p. 22.

616

" The Sound and theFury " and Faulkner'sQuest forForm

of" concept,"notto mention

distrust
GiventheBergson-inspired
and art revolvingaroundthe centrality
a centuryof philosophy
becomesnearlyinevitable.
ofselfand mind,sucha literature
Thus the problems,the plots,the tensions,the solutionsof
as theBergsonianinfluare altereddrastically,
modernliterature
Despairin modernpoetryis registered
encebecomeswide-spread.
whoseinternaldivisionand the factthat " It is
by a Prufrock,
to say just whatI mean!" are thecoreofhis excruciimpossible
atingpassivity;or by Stevens'ladiesin theirwhitenightgowns,
whosesolelossis to misstheredweatherofa richerreality.The
tragediesof fictionare Jimand Marlowunableto discoverthe
ignorant
qualityofJim'sbeing,and ThomasSutpen,frighteningly
the
tormentors
on
to
bring
done
has
he
what
it
is
that
ofprecisely
oftheheroesin bothnovels
ofhisdynasticdream.Andthehorror
do in the futilityof what
may
they
of
what
bloodiness
is the
theydo notknow.
There are occasionallytriumphs;when they occur they are
nothingmoreand nothingless than the earnedassurancethat
meaningis possiblein theworld: " How gladlywithproperwords
thesoldierdies."10
thereis one
of modernwriters,
Amongthe manydifferences
to singleout here,and it is the difference
important
particularly
" pure" processworkof writerslike
betweenthe comparatively
Whitmanand W. C. Williamsand that of Faulkner.Wallace
Stevensis closeto it when,in " Notestowarda SupremeFiction,"
the need to apprehenda " real." He remainsconhe recognizes
sistentwithBergson-" Not to impose,not to have reasonedat
ofsome
in thefashioning
all "-and yethe insistson participating
"
" supreme reality,somethingthat is not merelythe process of
a
settingdownan endlesssuccessionof imagesand registering
resilientcapacityfor wonder.Somethingliterallyartfulmust
emerge:
It is possible,possible,possible.It must
Be possible.It mustbe thatin time
come.
The realwillfromitscrudecompoundings

(CP, 404)

An art ofprocessis a recordingoflife'smotionand ofthemind's

constant attemptto keep abreast of it. It returnsintegrityto
1o " Notes toward a Supreme Fiction," The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
to this poem will be cited in the text
(New York, 1964), p. 408. Furtherreferences
as CP.

Donald M. Kartiganer

617

reality,to be sure,but thismay not be enoughforthe artistto

whomtheintegrity
ofrealityand thedignity
ofmanarenotidentical. For Stevens,the supremefiction
mustnot only" change,"
it mustbe " abstract"; it mustdrawout ofthechaoticmotionof
existencethe schematawhichwillidentify"
if onlymomentarily,
a privateimagination
andthemovingworld.Man and artistmust
constantly
create,evenas theyinevitably
givethelie to,thesolid
boundariesof a disappearing
reality.Such an aesthetic,unlike
thatof processart,is potentially
a tragicone,sinceit seemsto
polarizemoreemphatically
opposingcommitments,
oneto motion
and theotherto form.
One of the important
in Stevens'careeris from
developments
"
"
a hedonist poetry,in whichtheinfinite
surfacesofthesea are
quiteinterchangeable,
to thepoetryofthe" Notes,"in whichthe
" fiction.Faulkner,
quest is no longerforfictionbut " supreme
to returnfinallyto my chiefconcern,does not have a hedonist
period,and lacks entirelyany atheisticease or delightin the
vanishing
of" imperishable
bliss." The stakesofFaulkner'sfiction
are,certainly
by The Sound and the Fury if not before,always
high:hisfictions-themselves
revolving
through
schemeset upon
scheme-are still the historiesof characterswhoseverysanity
seemsto rideon thetruthoftheirperspectives.
Faulkner'squest forformis the effort
to drawhis disparate
materials
together,
to compelhisfiction
intodiscovery
oftheunity
ofits seemingly
opposedparts. And yet-at leastin his greatest
work-heresiststheanalyticalmode,or whatmightbe calledthe
mythicmode (to be distinguished
fromEliot's uniqueuse of it),
theartificial
conceptualframework
conveying
onlyan " imitation
of movement."Ratherhe worksfor the transformation
from
to comeuponorderas a principle
within,
ofmovement,
to create
an authentic
senseofintegrated
experience.
The aestheticdesignis verymucha moralone as well. For
Faulkner'sintentionis to renderpersuasively
the possibilityof
" meeting,"not onlyamongthe fragments
of whathe sees,but
amongmen. On thisside of the coinhe deals withthe apparent
alienationof humanbeings,and the rigorously
imposed" concepts" of traditionalcommunity,
conceptswhichare of course
justified-likeanyframework-by
" to
theircapacityto function,
utilizethereal.""
" The expressionis Bergson's;see Introductionto Metaphysics,p. 66.

Form
618 " TheSoundand theFury" and Faulkner'sQuestfor-

To referto Faulkner's" aims" as I have,is,in a sense,to read

fromthevantagepointofsomeofthelaterwork,
retrospectively
suchas Absalom,Absalom!We see moreclearlywherethewriter
has been by seeingwherehe eventuallyarrived.CertainlyThe
Soundand theFury,whichI am goingto treatin somedetail,is
failingto unifyitself,of isolaof fragmentation
the quintessence
by communion.It is, in fact,a book of
tionnearlyunmitigated
thenatureofthat
nearlytotaldespair.But we do notunderstand
despairuntilwe understandfullywhat it is that has failedto
so differso similarin termsofbasicstrategy,
occur.In Absalom',
the momentof love and the momentof a
ent in implication,
" ordering
Sutpenhistoryare one
" supreme
of theunfathomable
and the same. Whenthe two boys,Quentinand Shreve,open
themselves
to the remotepast and to each other,althoughonly
and whenthenovelof whichtheyare a partfinally
temporarily,
a shape that is compreassumesout of its agonizingfragments
we see exactly
hensibleand integralto thelifeofthosefragments,
wastelandand theroadFaulkthenatureoftheearlier-conceived
ofits redemption.
to thepossibility
nerwas traveling
II

The Soundand theFuryis Faulkner'sversionof a waste-land

an irredeemably
brokensequenceofspeakersandnarrative
fiction,
sectionsseemslockedwithinitselfof
the
Each
four
episodes.
at an absoluteminimum-andnoneofthenarrainterpenetration
tors,eventhe " author" in the fourthsection,is able to escape
of his privatevision. The novelseemsto me diagthe confines
nostic,especiallywhenseen in the contextof the workswhich
oftherealityofalienaportrayal
followit-Faulkner'sremorseless
theagonywhich
tionand theinadequacyofvisionitselfto clarify
it seesandis partof.
center
Neitherin thefigureof Caddy-forsomean organizing
fourthnarrativedo we
of the novel-nor in the well-wrought
in
of
reallyfindan adequatebasis unity the work. The former
possibilityhas been encouragedin severalplaces (outsidethe
who claimedthat the storyreally
fiction)by Faulknerhimself,
beganwiththe imageof Caddy in the tree.'2But ratherthana
theimageis itselfcomtogether,
meansofbindingthefragments
12

ed. FrederickL. Gwynnand Joseph

See, forexample,Favlknerin the University,

L. Blotner (New York, 1965), p. 31.

Donald M. Kartiganer

619

plicatedby thefragmentation;
finally
it movesintothatisolation
eternaland not quiterelevant,whichall the
withinthememory,
majorimagesof the novelpossess. Michael Millgaterevealsa
commonuneasinessabout this problem: "The novel revolves
13
definition."
escapessatisfactory
uponCaddy,but Caddyherself
The fourthnarrative,like the firstthree-althoughfor quite
ofthe Compdifferent
reasons-remainsan inadequaterendering
Dilsey,it orderstheexperisonstory.Likeoneofitsthreecenters,
ways,but,to quotefromanothernovel
encesoflifein traditional
"
on theproblemoforder: It just doesnotexplain.. . . Theyare
14
is missing."
there,yetsomething
and thequestforform
moderncrisisofknowing
The peculiarly
arecentralissueshere,a factwhichcompelsus to focusespecially
The ways of
on the severalmodesof knowledgedemonstrated.
seeing,of course,definethe otheressentialsof characteras well,
judgments.
andthusopenthedoorto moralas wellas aesthetic
a condition
The Benjy sectionrepresents
extremeobjectivity,
to theordinary
consciousmind,and farin excess
quiteimpossible
of eventhe mostnaturalistic
fiction.Quentinand Jasonare extremelysubjective,each imposingan utterlydistortedview on
experience;theirtwistedschemataare the exact oppositeof
Benjy'sinabilityto " abstract" any orderwhatever.The fourth
century
novelist,
nineteenth
sectionis thevoiceofthetraditional
the qualitiesof thefirstthreesections:
combining
in moderation
and crediblywhathappens
objectivein thatit tellsus faithfully
(ourfaithin QuentinandJasonis,ofcourse,minimal),and at the
butwithoutobviousdistortion.
Following
sametimeinterpretive,
orselfofthethreebrothers,
in experience
uponthetotalimmersion
fromwithout,
thelast sectionis toldentirely
and establishesthe
but still" fixed" claritywe expectto find
kindof sophisticated
The Achievement of William Faulkner (New York, 1966), p. 98.
Absalom, Absalom! (New York, 1951), pp. 100-101. Some of Faulkner's most
important critics have seen greater resolution in the fourth section than I think is
actually there. Concentrating on Dilsey, Olga Vickery writes, " her very presence
enables the reader to achieve a final perspective on the lives of the Compsons," The
Novels of William Faulkner (Baton Rouge, 1964), p. 47. Hyatt Waggoner notes:
" [the fourth section's] implicit perspective is based on judgments which we ourselves
have been brought to the point of making," William Faulkner: From Jeffersonto the
World (Lexington, 1959), p. 58. And Peter Swiggart: " The language of Dilsey's
section suggests the point of view of a reader who has struggled long and arduously
with The Sound and the Fury, and who now recognizes beneath the 'cluttered
obscurity' an extraordinaryclarity of action and theme," The Art of Faulkner's Novels
(Austin, 1962), p. 107.
'3

14

620 " TheSoundand theFury" and Faulkner'sQuestforForm

in fiction.Andyetforthoseveryqualities,whichformanyareits
strengths,
it does not-even as the othersdo not-tell us what
we mostneedto know.'15
The Benjysectioncomesfirstin thenovelforthesimplereason
that Benjy,of all the narrators,
cannotlie-which is to say he
cannotcreate. He is probablyas good an exampleas any in
fictionofwhatBergsoncalls " pure" perception,
a " brute" consciousnesswhichsees realityas " an uninterrupted
seriesof instantaneousvisions,whichwouldbe a partof thingsratherthan

of ourselves."16 Being an idiot,he is actuallyperceptionpriorto

consciousness,
priorto the " intelligent"'a
view of experiencewhich,
seeingrealityas a successionof objects,is nevercontentto allow
it to exist in that state, but must renderit immediately-in the
veryact of vision-into schematicform.
Benjy possessesmemory,to be sure,but his memorydoes not
serve him as it serves the normal human mind, becomingpart
of the minditselfand integralto the streamof constantlycreated
perceptionwhichwe are: our past which" gnaws into the future
and whichswellsas it advances." 17 In Benjy's case, memorydoes
not reallyinfluenceperception,and in facthe does not seem aware
ofthe difference
betweenthem.The memoriescalled up by present
experienceare themselveslike new perceptions,new in the sense
that he is not recallingthem but relivingthem with exactlythe
" of
feelingof theirfirstoccurrence.Thus he is the " refutation
Bergson'sinsistencethat " thereare no two identicalmomentsin
the life of the same consciousbeing."18 In the interimbetween

My position here should not be confusedwith that of Walter Slatoff," The

Edge of Order: The Pattern of Faulkner'sRhetoric,"in WilliamFaulkner: Three
Decades of Criticism,ed. FrederickJ. Hoffmanand Olga W. Vickery (New York,
1963) and Quest forFailure: A Study of WilliamFaulkner (Ithaca, 1960), who has
failsto resolveany of his novels," that everyone of
arguedthat Faulknerdeliberately
withformand style . . . is a movementaway fromorderand
Faulkner'sexperiments
coherence."The quest in Faulkneris not for failure,but for form,to move toward
coherencebut only in ways acceptableto the modernwriter. The attack on " conceptual" art, the need to create an illusionof " process" in fiction,to create viable
yet not static forms-theseare the motivesof the great twentieth-century
writers,
who refuseonly the kinds of resolutionSlatoffis insistingon, not resolutionitself.
This wholequestionof whethera literaryworkcan indeedbe about its own struggleand ultimatelimitation-to create a vision of realityis examinedcomprehensively,
if negatively,by JamesGuetti,The Limits of Metaphor (Ithaca, 1967).
16 Matter and Memory,trans. Nancy M. Paul and W. Scott Palmer (London,
1911), p. 69.
17 Bergson,CreativeEvolution,p. 7.
to Metaphysics,p. 12.
1 Introduction
15

Donald M. Kartiganer

621

occurrence
and recollection
Benjy has not changed,he has not
beengoingthrough
creationwhichBergtheprocessofcontinuous
son saw at the coreof humanduration.He is absolutelystatic
man,outsidethe fluxof durationalmovement,
and clearlyfree
"
fromtime.Havingno " mind hisperceptions
arenotreallythat,
but " a partofthings,"and thushe is trulyat one withessential
reality.For himfactand meaningare notdivided,forhimreality
is notthechaosofimagewhichmustbe orderedto preventmadness. He givesthelie to Stevens'notionthatit is impossibleto
thatfrom
realizethe nakedsun withoutthe shieldof metaphor,
the " weightof primarynoon" thereis no mindthat need not
shrink.Faulknerthusopenshis storyof chaoticmovementby
it fromthepointof viewof stasis.
composing
And yet Benjy is not the supremeartist,largelybecausehe
does not have to be. For thoseof us cursed,if you will,with
consciousness,
whatBenjy tellsis not enough.Not onlybecause
hisnarrative
is a jumbleofeventsfromall thestagesofhisthirtythreeyears,but becauseonce we have controlled
thatjumbleand herewe have no choice-the narrativeis too simpleto be
accepted.It is not a kindof truthwe recognizeas beingcommensuratewithour experiencein the world. That we do not
acceptit maybe of courseourproblemratherthanBenjy's,the
problemofa consciousness
whichknowsonlyby metaphor.
The factis thatsectionI is nottoo jumbledbut too clear. The
charactersBenjy revealsto us are one-dimensional,
almostlike
"
"
thosewiththe depthlessqualityofstampedtin Faulknerlater
described.Caddyis love,theparadisialsmelloftreeswhichholds
himin its arms,whileQuentinis sullenness
and impotentanger:
"QuentinkickedT. P. and Caddy put her armsaroundme s 19
Jasonis evilincarnate,
and fatheris the occasionalsurrogate
for
Caddy'sverdantsmell. Caddy and Jasonare the mostclear-cut
of these-Caddy tryingto lifthim,Caddy holdinghimin bed,
Caddy washinghermouthin orderto quiet his inarticulate
but
incisiverage;and Jason,handsin pockets,cuttingup paperdolls,
and tattlingon theothers.Quentinis not quiteso vivid,yethis
consistent(whichis basic to the unstanceis stillremarkably
realityof the section): fighting
nearlyconstantly,
kickingT. P.,
withhisfistsa girlagainstthethreatof
hittingCaddy,defending
'" The Sound and the Fury,photographed
copyof the firstprinting,
1929 (New York,
will be citedin the text.
n. d.), p. 48. All subsequentreferences

622

" The Sound and theFury" and Faulkner'sQuest forForm

frogsin November,and, in the finalscene,his faceturnedresolutelyto the wall. Caddy'sdaughterQuentinbecomesthe exact

reverseof hermother,as revealedin the companion-piece
swing
scenes,and in the promiseof one to take care of him and the
of the otherto send him to Jackson(p. 85). It is
willingness
Caddywhoascendsthetreeofknowledge
outsidethehouse,but
it is Quentinwhois constantly
seen climbingdown.
These are not lies or the distortions
of the secondand third
sections.But theyare not the wholetrutheither,althoughtoo
manycriticshave reliedtoo heavilyon themas truth.20
What
followsBenjy'stellingis no less true,is in factessentialto our
knowledge,
notmerelybecauseit helpsus to put Benjy'ssection
in orderso thatwe maybe able to read it, but becauseit complicatesandenriches
thattruthimmeasurably.
For Caddydidnot
holdback time,and withQuentinas heralibi (as Jasonbecomes
her daughter's,
as Mr. CompsonbecomesMrs. Compson's)did
not denyherself
the fulfilment
ofherpassions,did not take care
ofBenjyas shepromised,
orherdaughter
forthatmatter.Jason's
identity,we later discover,is in the terriblesuffering
of his psychoticparanoia,as Quentin'sis in the rage of his murderouspurity: of this suffering
Benjy tells us little. And Mr. Compson
may just be the one who has cursed them all in his cowardly
and unhelpfulcynicism.
But mypurposehereis hardlyto be judgmental,or to substitute
new villainsin a Southernmelodrama. My purposeis to make it
clearthat thisnovelis about the veryagonyof seeingand creating
encompassingorder,and that the flatimagesof Benjy's narrative
are not the answer to Faulkner's quest, and should not be ours
either. The centraltruthof sectionI is the truthof beingBenjy,
not the truthof being any of the others. It is brilliantlyconceived and executedin that it miraculouslyrevealsto us what we
accept as the world of the inhumanmind. The great irony of
Benjy's vision is that, freeof distortingconsciousness,it seems
Waggoner, William Faulkner, p. 45, writes, " All the other characters in the book
are finally judged in terms of their relationship with Benjy. . . . Judged within the
frame of values decisively determinedby Benjy's functionin the story,[Caddy] emerges
a creature of pathos." And John W. Hunt, William Faulkner: Art in Theological
Tension (Syracuse, 1965), p. 89, notes, " But for the very reason of their simplicity,
Benjy's responses functionas a quick moral index to events." This is indeed the effect
of Benjy's narrative, and its very danger. The intention of the subsequent narratives
is to qualify the simplicityof the first. Much of what Faulkner is doing in this novel
is missed if Benjy becomes too impressive a " moral index."
20

Donald M. Kartiganer

623

to us partial-too clear, too sharp, and thus too poor in the

povertyof a directunornamentedsight. His truth,if the world
were standingstill,would be the truth,but because it moves his
truthis barelya truth,at least forthe fallenvisionof his readers.
What is impliedin the Benjy sectionwhenseen in the context
of the whole novel, is that truth cannot emerge without the
imaginativeventure,withoutthat active engagementof the mind
withrealitythat somehowbringswhat we recognizeas truthinto
being. In the nexttwo sections,of course,Faulknerturnsaround
and demonstratesthe dangersof subjectivetruth,whenimagination is simplythe agent of a twisted order rigidlyimposed on
experience;and at the end he again allows his narrativeto " fail,"
ifin a somewhatdifferent
way. But it is vital,even in thisdespairriddenbook on the inaccessibilityof adequate vision,that we see
the novel's rejectionofpure,inhumanobjectivity-even ifit were
possible. Not because it is not " true" but because it is not the
truthof what it means to be human in that worldwhich,to our
human senses,exists.2'
III

Quentinis as close to the conventionalartistfigureas Faulkner comes in this book, chieflyin that he abstracts the most
clearlyand the most deliberatelyof the threebrothers.22He is,
ofcourse,diametrically
oppositeBenjy's immobileobjectivity,and
thus an excellentnarratorto take up the historyat this moment
in the novel. More specifically,
Quentinappears to be Faulkner's
versionof a romanticartist,a view sufficiently
in accord with
contemporarynotions of romanticismif not with the truthsof
literaryhistory.The swornenemyof time and change,Quentin's
is a quest forpermanence,to tear himselfand Caddy out of the
terriblemovementof the world-and fromall the symbols of
change,like Caddy's and his own sexuality,and the stimulating
smell of honeysuckle,when " the whole thingcame to symbolise
nightand unrest... whereall stable thingshad become shadowy
paradoxical" (p. 211) -and to dreaminstead some eternalstasis
21 In his chapter on A bsalo~rn,
A bsalo'mi Waggoner writes, "meaning is neither given
nor entirelywithheld. It must be achieved, created by imagination and faith. Historical
meaning is a construct" (p. 168). The statement, it seems to me, is pivotal in
Faulkner criticism,and is one of the sources for much that I am trying to do in
this paper.
22 See Vickery,
p. 38: Quentin" inventsinsteadhis own play. . .."

624 " The Soundand theFury" and Faulkner'sQuestforForm

thathe can conceiveonlyas Hell itself:" the pointingand the

" (p. 144).23

horror
walledbythecleanflame

The imageof Hell aside,thisis stilla deathaesthetic,an aestheticoflifeless

purityin thatit refuses
theveryengagement
with
realitywhichmust precedean adequate vision of it. Indeed
Quentin,forall his attractivesensitivity,
is perhapsthe most
ominousfigurein the novel,forhe is the successorto all those
purity-obsessed
charactersin Americanliterature;
thosefigures,
liketheGiovanniofRappaccini'sDaughter-" Shallwe notquaff
it together,
andthusbe purified
fromevil?"-who conceiveoflove
onlyas thepoisonthatenablesthemto escapetheprisonofflesh
theyabhor.
Late inthissectionMr. Compsonremarks
thatQuentinis " contemplating
an apotheosisin whicha temporary
stateofmindwill
becomesymmetrical
abovetheflesh" (p. 220)-the imaginedabstractionof Caddy'smaturation
and his ownwhichhe has built
aroundhishorror
ofall sexualneedand act. He can copewithhis
understanding
ofrealityonlyby the completefabrication
thatit
is he whois thefatherof herunbornchild-and thathe prefers
the fabrication
to the factof incestis verymuchto the point.
Quentin'sdeparturefromthereal in orderto cope withthe real
is a patternforwhichFaulkneris ableto elicitenormous
sympathy
-Quentin, morethan StephenDaedalus forexample,is a compelling,almostbeautifulfigurein the awfulunrealityof his art.
Yet his distancefromthe world'sbody is his distancefroma
visionthatcan encompass,
partakein the real. In thishe is like
Stevens'CanonAspirin:
He imposesordersas he thinksofthem,
As thefoxand snakedo. It is a braveaffair.
To discover.

But to imposeis not

(CP, 403)

In his attemptto conceiveof a permanence

forhimselfand
Caddy,to findin conceptthe meansof stoppingtimeforever,
his visionis doomedto a kindof irrelevance;
nor does he completelymissthefateStevensassignstheimmobile
artproduct:
23 See

RobertM. Slabey, " The Romanticismof The Sound and the Fury,"Missis-

sippi Quarterly,16 (1963), 146-159.

Donald M. Kartiganer-

a suspension,
a permanence
so rigid
That it made the Generala bit absurd.
(CP, 391)

Immobilityis the attractivenessof death forQuentin,death the

clarityand stabilityof the flame as well as the unbrokenand
therefore
permanentcontinuumof the river: " the sense of water
peacefuland swiftbeyond" (p. 210). And incestis the path to
the constructeddesign.24But the desirefaroutrunsthe fact,and
it is absolutelynecessaryto Quentin's approach to realitythat
it do so: " and he did you tryto make her do it and i i was afraid
to i was afraidshe mightand thenit wouldnthave done any good
but if i could tell you we did it would have been so and then the
otherswouldntbe so and then the worldwould roar away" (p.
220; myitalics).
The commentis of vital importance;not only does it tell us
muchof whatQuentin'sneeds reallyare,it is also an earlyexpression of one of Faulkner'smost significant
themes,one whichwas
to go throughnumerouschangesand shadingsover the years: the
difference
betweencontemplationand action, tellingand doing.
There are, in fact, several suggestiveparallels between Quentin
and the hero of Sartre's Nausea, Roquentin, who expresses a
similarnotion: " But you have to choose: live or tell."25 Like
Quentin he has discoveredthat existenceis a chaos in which
nothingreally" happens" preciselybecause thereis no evidence
of a shape: " There are no beginnings.Days are tacked on to
days withoutrhymeor reason,an interminable,
monotonousaddition. . . . Neither is there any end " (N, 57). This is life as exis-

tential (and Bergsonian) man has the insightand courageto see

it, the same successionof brokenmomentswhichordinaryhuman
intelligenceperceives,but withoutthe orderingand fallaciousconceptionswhichtie it together.But Roquentinalso sees that there
may be an answerin art, for this " transformseverything."In
the tellingof action,in retrospect,actionscan be made purposeful
because directioncan now be seen; knowingthe end we can at
last identifythe beginning. He decides that he would likealthoughit is impossible-his life to be such a piece of art: " I
That Quentinconceiveshis sin as incestis significant,
itselfan image of interest
to the romanticpoets,particularlyin its Platonic versionas the returnto wholeness
of the two partsof a once androgynous
being.
25 Nausea, trans.Lloyd Alexander(New York, 1959), p. 56. Subsequentreferences
will be cited in the text as N.
24

626 " TheSoundand theFury andFaulkner'sQuestforForm

wantedthe momentsof my lifeto followand orderthemselves

like thoseof a liferemembered"(N, 58). Quentinrevealsa
similardesire,althoughhe is not so keenlyawareof its impossi" If thingsjustfinished
" (p. 97;
bility,whenhe thinks,
themselves
whilethe factsof literaryhistoryindicatethe unlikelihood
of a
deliberatejoke in Sartre'schoiceof a name,the thoughtis a
tempting
one-see note29).
WhenQuentinremarks
to hisfather
thattheact ofincestwould
nothave beenas usefulas thetellingofit,he has,iftentatively,
made the same discoveryas Roquentin-although,
of course,he
does not continueto Roquentin'send. Quentinis trying,
in the
verymidstof lifeas it were,to transform
it, and in doingso to
discoverthe onlyorderhe can imaginewhichwillco-existwith
Faulkner'scommenton Quentin'sefforts
Caddy's promiscuity.
here,however,
liesintheapparentgrotesqueness
mostreadersfind
in them:invention
aloneis nottheanswerto theproblemofvision
or genuineliving.Ratherit mustinvolvea particularkind of
one not reallyavailablein thisnovel,whichis able to
invention,
moveperilously
betweenwhatFrankKermodecalls the " need
to mimecontingency
and . . . the powerof formto console."26
It must,in otherwords,be a " supremefiction,"that the " real
willfromitscrudecompoundings
come,"notmerelythedistorted
fableswhicharea function
ofQuentin'sinsanity.27
Quentin'ssuicideis his confession
of the inadequacyof his
"telling,"and is thus similarto Roquentin'sdiscoveryin the
middleof Nausea that " things" are "in the way" (N, 1792).
Physicalthingsbecomeuncontrollable
forRoquentin,beyondthe
reachof metaphor:" each of themescaped the relationship
in
whichI triedto encloseit,isolateditself,
and overflowed.
. . . these
28

The Sense of an Ending (New York, 1968), p. 151.

27 The precise nature of Sartre's views as contained in Nausea is difficultto under-

stand. Much depends on the significanceof the song " Some of these days " within
the novel, and exactly how Roquentin, in his enthusiasm for the song-" They have
washed themselves of the sin of existing" (N, 327) -and his immediate decision to
write a novel are to be taken. His ambition is to write a work which will be " beautiful
and hard as steel and make people ashamed of their existence " (N, 237); the readers
will consider his life " precious and almost legendary" (N, 238). It is difficultto take
all of this seriously-and yet where are we in our reading of Nausea if we do not?
For other views see Kermode, pp. 142-152, Hayden Carruth's introduction to the
translation referredto above, and John K. Simon's " Faulkner and Sartre: Metamorphosis and the Obscene," Comparative Literature, 15 (1963), 216-225: " there
are critics who still believe that this music is meant to be an indication of Antoine's
salvation " (p. 222).

Donald M. Kartiganer

627

relations. . . no longerhad theirteethintothings" and therefore,

" I, too was In the way" (N, 173). Having shed totallywhat
seemsto be an innatehumancapacityto organize,Roquentin
standsamidsttheuncontrolled
presenceofnature.The " willto
powerover things,"in J. Hillis Miller'sterminology,
has been
utterlylost.28But whereasRoquentin-inkeepingwithSartre's
" in The Sound
well-known
criticism
of Faulkner's" metaphysic
and the Fury-chooses life,retainsfaithin a future,Quentin,
facedwitha similarcrisis,can do nothing
butkillhimself.29
Thispolarityoftellingand doingis resumedin Faulkner'snext
novel,As I Lay Dying.AddieBundrensays:
I wouldthinkhowwordsgo straight
up in a thinline,quickand
harmless,
and howterribly
doinggoesalongtheearth,clinging
to it,
so thataftera whilethe twolinesare too farapartforthe same
personto straddle
from
oneto theother30
The despairand frustration
whichwefindin these,thefirsttwo
novelsof Faulkner'smaturity,
are preciselylocatedin this gap
whichAddiepointsto-and whichshe verymuchillustrates
in
the absurddistancebetweenher dyingrequestto be buriedin
Jefferson
and herfamily'sactions (and individualintentions)in
carrying
it out. But thispolarityofdreamers
and do-ersbecomes
increasingly
complexas it movesfromQuentinand Jason,Darl
and Cash,thereporter
and theflyers
ofPylon,to a richparadox
of the creativeand active man in the narratorsand Thomas
Sutpenof Absalom,Absalom!,Ike and Cass McCaslinin "The
Bear," and in the scenein A Fable whenthe symbolof Western
civilization(theold General)confronts
theimaginative
man (the
corporal-Christ)
and offers
himtheworldfortherejectionofthe
word.
Faulknerwas soonto learn,if he did not senseit at the very
beginning,
thatthesecretofhisquestfora livingform,
in his art
and in the livesof his characters,
was to make worditself-the
Poets of Reality (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), p. 8.
The bulk of Nausea (1938) was written in 1933-34, the essay published in July
1939 after the translation of The Sound and the Fury the previous year. There is
little evidence that Sartre had read the novel by 1934. Simone de Beauvoir, in The
Prime of Life, discusses her and Sartre's excitement over As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary,
and Light in August (all translated by 1935), and it is unlikely she would have omitted
The Sound and the Fury if Sartre had indeed read it. One curious fact is Sartre's
mentioningof this novel and Absalom,Absalom!in his article on Sartoris (February,
1938) before either one had been published in French or German.
" As I Lay Dying,corrected ed. (New York, 1964), p. 165.
28

29

QuestforForm
628 " The Soundand theFury" andFaulkner's8

imaginative
rendering
of the worldas lived-also move terribly
alongtheground.In Sartoris
he had treatedthisproblemofthe
separationof wordand deed witha general(althoughnot consistent)skepticism:
as she grew older the tale itselfgrew richerand richer,taking on a
mellow splendorlike wine; until what had been a harebrainedprank
of two heedlessand recklessboys wild with theirown youth had become a gallant and finelytragicalfocal point to which the historyof
the race had been raised fromout the old miasmicswamps of spiritual
sloth by two angels valiantly fallen and strayed,alteringthe course
of human events and purgingthe souls of men.31

Andin The Soundand theFury,withconsiderably

lessverbosity,

he refers to the young boys in their talk of the giant trout,

"cmaking of unreality a possibility" (p. 145). He was to learn
that the dangers of subjective distortiondid not necessarilynullify
the value of subjectivism itself,and that in these passages there
was the germ of his finesteffortsto solve the fictionalproblems of
expressing the " real." Not, in The Sound and the Fury, where
Quentin's words must forever rest symmetrical above the flesh,
helping us to live our lives only by concealing the agony that is
making it so difficult,but like the Quentin of Absalom, who, with
his diametric opposite Shreve, is able in his imaginative sympathy
to enfold the fragmentsof the ground itselfand name them.
In the first Quentin Faulkner had created not only another
Prufrock,powerless and self-conscious,but a Quixote as well (a
favorite among his books, and an archetypal figure throughout
his work), at this point conceiving forhimselfa glory of sin rather
than heroic virtue; but subsequently to become in the second
Quentin the imaginative mind central to an act of sympathy and
love, without which the actions of the Sutpen family are only a
" powder of moments," 32 meaningless to no one so much as Sutpen
himself. They are that " terribly doing" that hugs the ground,
the facts of the closed past valueless because non-existent,until
opened into meaning by the imaginative word.
IV

In his Appendix to The Sound and the Fury, writtentwenty-six

years afterthe novel, Faulkner called Jason " the firstsane Come
1Sartoris(New York,1929), p. 9.

32

The expressionis Bergson's,Introductionto Metaphysics,p. 59.

Donald M. Kartiganer

629

son since beforeCulloden" (p. 4920),which gives us some idea

of the value of that appendixas a piece of literaryinterpretation.
It is a view whichhas been absorbed whollyor in part by many
criticsof the novel, althoughin re-readingthe book one is puzzled that anybody, especially Faulkner, could ever have consideredJason sane or rational."3Jason, to put it bluntly,is as
removedfromwhatis generallyconsideredsanityas any character
in The Sound and the Fury. He is even less aware of what is
actuallyreal than his brotherQuentin,and is so utterlyimmersed
in his conceptof self-victimization
in a worldhe thoroughlyhates
that he is certainlyas pathetic and, if not so comic, would be
nearlyas movingas the otherspeakers. Such is our quicknessin
the twentiethcentury-so influencedby Bergson-to polarize
rationalityand emotion,intellectualand intuitiveresponses,that
of The Sound and the Fury has foundit
criticalinterpretation
easy to set Jason up as its " rational" scape-goat,the opposite
" intuitive"Sartorisesand Compsons,
numberofthehigh-minded,
and probably,with white-trashSnopeses and invadingYankees,
the secretof the fall of man in the Faulknerworld. Such a thesis
is hardlyadequate forthe kind of complexityFaulkner offersus
here and elsewherein his fiction.Faulknermay indeed be on the
side ofintuition,
particularlyas Bergsonhas describedit,but in his
best work he does not demonstratethat preferenceby neat,
inhumanpolaritiesof the kind in whichJasonhas been too often
pigeon-holed.
A man who says, " I wouldn't bet on any team that fellow
Ruth played on. . . . Even ifI knewit was goingto win" (p. 314)
-to pick out only one example-is hardlythe epitomeof coldheartedbusiness-like
behavior.And thathe could everhave c competed with and held his own with the Snopeses" (p. 420), as
Faulknerwritesin the Appendix,is simplyincredible.Surelyno
man who is fooledand humiliatedso many times in one day by
everyonefromMiss Quentin to Old Man Job, is going to be a
match forFlem Snopes, whose coldly analytic inhumannesshas
so oftenbeen wronglyidentified
withJason. The latter'sinsistence
that he wouldnot bet on a surewinneris not onlyirrationalbut is
even the mark of a curious idealism. In this case it is also the
code of a painfullyneuroticman who spends his Good Friday
33 Hunt, p. 38, writes: " Compared with Benjy's and Quentin's, his mind appears
sane, normal, and rational." Hunt's subsequent extended discussion of Jason, however,
is actually one of the more comprehensiveand sympathetic.

630 " TheSoundand theFury" andFaulkner'sQuestforForm

provides.
persistently
himself
on thecrosseshe himself
crucifying
Whatis so patheticaboutJasonis his utterblindnessto what
he is actuallydoing,and to theintensehatredhe feelsforlife.It
to suffer
provides
is thishatredforwhichhisconstantcompulsion
that defiesmost
the rationale.Creating,witha resourcefulness
thesituationsofhis ownpain,he gainsthe
criteriaofrationality,
giftoftherightto hate. Andthis,likeBenjy'sslipperor firelight
and static
or jimsonweed,and Quentin'sdreamof a clarifying
Hell,is thebasis oforderin Jason'sexistence.
not to Jason.
The sourceof hatredis neverknown-certainly
Like all the Compsons,of course,Jasonhas cause enoughfor
his retreatfromreality:the ones he himselfrelates,and others,
of his olderbrotherand sisterforeach
such as the preference
from
other,that we can surmise.But his retreatis different
that of the others,even as he lives and stays behindwhile
like
theyeitherdie orrunaway-literallylikeCaddy,figuratively
Mrs. Compson-ordon'treallyhave to do either,as in the case
that life
of Benjy. For Jasonis unableto recognizeconsciously
centerof things,
terrifies
him. He sees himselfas an effective
familyhead, marketspeculator,brainyswindlerof Caddy and
a manofkeenbusinesssenseheldbackmomentarily
herdaughter,
ofcoursehis lifeis goingall to pieces,a
by circumstance-when
he is compelled
of dreamand factwhichironically
contradiction
on
thatfeelingof victimization
to admit,ifonlyto allowhimself
whichhe depends. His is a mentalsplit of nearlypsychotic
and the
betweenthe senseof his own thoroughness
proportions,
as theworld'sscape-goat.
needto see himself
whichgoesfarbeyondhypocrisy
or rationalizaA contradiction
ofthethirdsection.With
tionis centralto theentiremonologue
seventhousanddollarsstashedaway,Jasonthinks" moneyhas no
value;it's just thewayyou spendit. It dontbelongto anybody,
thathe mustbe a deso whytrytohoardit " (p. 241). Regretting
tective(p. 297), he makeshispursuitofQuentina majorproject.
Insistingonlythatshe show" discretion"(p. 299), fearingthat
somedayhe'llfindher" underthewagonon thesquare" (p. 299),
chasesher way out into the countryon a day
he nevertheless
whennearlyeveryoneis at the travelingshow in town,when
thereis no oneto see herbuthimself.He scoffs
at Compsonpride
in blood (p. 286), yetlaterit is his and his mother'snamethat
Quentinis " makinga bywordin thetown" (p. 291). He firmly
believesthatit is Caddy whohas deceivedhim,whohas broken
Donald M. Kartiganer

631

herpromisesto him,and thatQuentin,in lettingthe air out of

his tires,has givenback far morethan she has receivedfrom
him: " I just wouldn'tdo you thisway. I wouldn'tdo you this
wayno matterwhatyou had doneto me" (p. 303). And in the
midstof all thisdouble-dealing
and plain fraud,Jasoncan sin"
cerelysay, If there'sone thinggetsundermyskin,it's a damn
" (p. 285).
hypocrite
The elderQuentin,withsensibility
enoughat leastto compose
a dramain whichhe wouldbe satisfied-evenif a dramaof sin
and thepunishments
ofHell-gives wayin thissectionto theman
whois so utterlydrownedin hisownresponses
thathe hasn'tthe
slightest
objectivesenseof thoserealitiesthat are mostrelevant
to him. Quentinhas at least retainedsufficient
awarenessof
" things" to see that suicideis his onlysolution:he knows,for
all he doesnotknow,thathe has notcommitted
incest,and that
he is notin Hell withCaddy.
But Jasonhas neithertheconvoluted,
theoretical
thoughtprocesses nor the exquisitesensibility
necessaryto the somewhat
Byronicimageof selfwhichQuentintriesto cultivate.Jasonis
confusion
personified,
guiltyof all he seemsto hate,hatinghis
own imagein others,the least aware of all the Compsons,and
perhapsthe mostgrotesquely
imaginative.He is certainlythe
Christofhisownworld,and themeannessofhisbehaviortoward
thatworldfromthe timeof childhoodhasn'tthe slightest
effect
on hisself-conception.
The universe
has aligneditselfagainsthim,
fromthe Jewsin New York to the Negroesin the kitchen,and
especiallyin thefamilywhichhas cheatedhimat everyturn,and
whichsomehowcontinuesto oppresshim,althoughostensibly
he now holdsall the cards. When,even to his distortedmind,
thefactsoflifewillsimplynotconcursufficiently
withhisreading
ofthem,he managesto arrangethingsso thathispainis adequate
to his awfulneed. In his wildpursuitof Quentinand the man
witha red tie,his head achingfuriously,
he thinks(addressing
"
his mother), I've triedto keepyou frombeingworriedby her;
I saysfaras I'm concerned,
lethergo to hellas fastas shepleases
and thesoonerthebetter" (p. 297). Yet evenas he is entrusting
Quentinto the pit, and utteringhis pleas for" an even break
not to have to have them[headaches]" (p. 298), he continues
his pain,his anger,and his conthepursuitthatonlymultiplies
fusionoverhis own purposes.Coveredwithlice and twigs,his
head nowpractically
breakingopen,havingcrosseda fieldand a
632

"The Sound and theFury" and Faulkner'sQuest forForm

stretchofwoodsin his ridiculous

and pointlesschase,he can still
say " letherlay out all day and all nightwitheverything
in town
that wearspants,what do I care" (p. 300). Returningto his
car,Quentinhavingbythistimelettheairoutofhistires: " They
neverevenhad gutsenoughto punctureit, to jab a hole in it.
Theyjust let the air out" (p. 309Z).
Jason'svisionofrealityis akinto Quentin'sin its subjectivity,
butit has beenintensified
in theutterconfusion
offactand fancy,
and the ego-maniacal
bentof his mind. SurelyBergson'snotion
oftheanalyticmodeofvisionhas littleto do withJason.Analysis
is " the ordinaryfunction
of positivescience,"
34 similarto that
" ordinary
" capableofthe" ingenious
knowledge
arrangement
of
immobilities."
3
It is thatkindofperception
whichordersreality
ratherthanentering
intosympathetic
unionwithit. Because it
viewsthingsas staticand inert,it can organizethemaccording
to
" of thingsis so conpreconceptions.
But Jason's" organization
fusedand contradictory
thatwe can hardlyobservein himthat
senseof control,
throughconsciousmanipulation,
whichBergson
identifies
withtheanalyticmind.It is truethathe is committed
to simplistic
cliches,and that generalization
is the languageof
but the mostobviousqualityof Jason,at least on
convention;
thatApril6 whichis hislifeforus,is hisinability
to utilizereality,
to appropriate
that part of it integralto a specificdesign. To
comparehimwithFaulkner'stwomastersof analyticreasoning,
Flem Snopes and Sutpen,is to see how absurdlydistanthe is
fromthem.
Suchis Jason'sconfusion,
in its ownwayso muchgreaterthan
Benjy's,thatit is almostimpossible
forhim-unlikeQuentin-to
communicate
to us hisagony,orin anywayto accountforhimself,
to explainwhyhe has becomehimself.In a sensethiscompounds
hissuffering,
makinghimthetormented
beastwhocannotcomprehend. But it also reachesthe comic,preciselybecauseour emois bluntedby ourinability
tionalinvolvement
to explain.36
" Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 8.
" Creative Mind, pp. 126-127.
36 There is, however, one place in the section where we get a small glimpse of something deeper in Jason, and it is worth pointing out. It comes when he recalls his
father's funeral, and, watching the gravediggers at work, " throwing dirt into it,
slapping it on anyway like they were making mortar or something or building a
fence . . . I began to feel sort of funny" (p. 250). He repeats the expression shortly
after,this time accounting for it, " thinkingabout now we'd have Uncle Maury around

Donald M. Kartiganer

633

Thus Faulkner adds still one more piece to his explorationof

the possibilitiesof vision. Still subjective,as opposed to the more
from
objectivefirstand fourthsections,but substantiallydifferent
Quentin,Jason'sis the mind that seems to have dissolvedalmost
entirelythe boundariesof fact and invention-not as theymight
be dissolvedin the intensecollaborationwithina supremefiction,
but as in the furtheststages of paranoia. The great ironyof the
sectionis that Jasonis the one Compsonwho createsat least the
appearance of ordinarysocial existence:he holds a job, he wears
a hat, he visits a whorehouseregularly,and he manages to fool
his motherinto burningwhat she believes are Caddy's checks.
But his existenceis actually a chaos of confusedmotion,utter
disorderwithinthe mind. Quentin,preparingmethodicallyfor
suicide,is a studyin contrast.
V

At thispoint Faulkner'sexperimentstops,or at least its major

phase does. His explorationof the possibilitiesof orderingthe
fragmentedworld of the Compsonsfrom within has come to an
end. Not in Benjy, Quentin,or Jason has Faulkner discovered
a visionwhichis bothtrustworthy
and adequate to what we know
of life. The difficulty
of imaginativelyrenderingthis world,and
of any of its membersenteringinto meaningfulcomthe difficulty
munionwitheach otherare, as I have suggestedbefore,one and
the same. The failure would seem to be preciselythe book's
intentionand the verysubstanceof its despair.
But Faulkner is not yet done. If the vaunted stream-of-conscious monologuecan tell us the quality of a mind,but cannot
rendersuccessfullythe quality of a world,thereis stillone possibilityleft which Faulkner must exhaust to make his wasteland
of sensibilitycomplete: the traditionalfictionalmethod of the
removednarratordescribingobjectivelythe faces and the events,
them forus.
and, withoutexcessiveintrusion,interpreting
The fourthsection,fromthe outset,places us in the world of
the conventionalnovelist: " The day dawned bleak and chill,a
movingwall of greylightout of the northeast. . ." (p. 330). The
is followedby the descriptionof perdescriptionof surroundings
the house all the time " (p. 252); and yet one wonders. It would seem as if Jason has
revealed a thoroughlyhuman emotion, which his very language seeks to control, yet
does not quite.

634

" The Sound and theFury " and Faulkner'sQuest forForm

sons, and with that descriptiona new voice entersinto the

novel: " as thoughmuscleand tissuehad been courageor fortitude whichthe days or the yearshad consumeduntilonlythe
indomitableskeletonwas leftrisinglike a ruinor a landmark
above thesomnolent
guts . . ." (p. 331). It is a
and impervious

voice set apart fromthe chaos and the distortionwhichwe have

alreadyseen; and fromits secureperch,intimatewiththe events
yet alooffromthe essentialagoniesofbeinga Compson,thisvoice
seeksto tell us the meaningof whathas come before.
Benjy, so brilliantlyrenderedfromwithinin the firstsection,
is now describedfromwithout: " Then Ben wailed again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound, It mighthave
been all timeand injusticeand sorrowbecomevocal foran instant
by a conjunctionof planets" (p. 359). Jason, once again in
pursuitof Quentin,this time forthe seven thousand dollars she
has taken fromhis room,is also described,and his ";meaning"
wrestedfromthe confusionofhis monologue.The narratorfocuses
chieflyon the bank job promisedJasonyears ago, whichhe never
received because of Caddy's divorce fromHerbert. It is supposedlyneitherQuentinnor the moneythat he is reallychasing:
" they merelysymbolizedthe job in the bank of which he had
been deprivedbeforehe ever got it" (p. 3892). What has been
stolen fromhim this time was simply" that whichwas to have
compensatedhim forthe lost job, whichhe had acquired through
so mucheffortand risk,by the verysymbolof the lost job itself"
(pp. 383-384).
In both cases a great deal has been lost in the abstractionof
meaningfrommovement.Fromthetotal immersionoftheprivate
monologuewe move to the detachedexternalview; fromconfused
and confusingversionsof reality,we get finallyan orderly,consistentportraitof the Compsonfamily.And yet this claritydoes
" of Jason and Benjy seem
not explain: these "interpretations
pale and inadequate beside their respective monologues: can
Jason'sterribleconfusion,forexample,reallybe embracedby the
motive attributedto him in this section? There is a curious
irrelevancyhere, as if in this " achieved" meaning one were
readingabout different
charactersentirely.And yet in thosevery
monologueswe have already seen the inadequacies of intensive
personal distortionand the one-dimensionalclarity of "'pure"
perception.
My point here,I hope, is not simplya determinedrefusalto
Donald M. Kartiganer

'685

admit the effectiveness

of what I am reading;it is ratherto
recognizethatin thisfourthattemptto tell the Compsonstory
we are stillfacedwiththe problemsof the firstthree,namely,
a failureofthecreationofa comprehensive
form.It wouldseem
that betweenBergson's"intuitive" form-emerging
fromthe
mindof the characterhimself-andhis notionof " conceptual
"
form-thetellingfromwithout,a quite arbitrary
selectionfrom
eventscreatinga falsified
organization
of reality-thereis really
no adequatealternative.The fourfragments
ofthenovelremain
themselves
separate;and in noneis therean encompassing
vision
of whatwe can acceptas an essential" supreme
" reality.
The fourth
to read. It
sectionis,ofcourse,theeasiestfragment
is dividedintofourparts:thescenein thehouseEastermorning,
showingDilsey at workand the discoveryof the stolenmoney;
thechurchscene;Jason'spursuitofQuentin;and theshortscene
inwhichLustertriesto takeBenjyto thegraveyard
through
town.
The polaritiesof Dilsey'sand the Compsons'existenceare quite
emphatic,especiallyin the juxtapositionof the Negro church
service,in its celebration
of God's time,and Jason'smad chase,
hisstriving
in thecontextofhumantime.Dilsey,comprehending
thebrokenclockinthekitchenorthe" beginning
and theending"
in church,
has a suregraspofboth.
Dilsey has beenpointedto as the one sourceof value in the
novel-aided by the comment
in whatseemsto me is invariably
a misleading
Appendix-andit is clearthat she embodiesmuch
thattheCompsonslack,especiallya senseofdutyto herposition
as servantand hertotalfaithin God.37It is also clearthather
serviceto the familyhas not been sufficient
to save it, and that
evenherownchildren
disobeyherconstantly-incertaininstances
emulating
theCompsonsinofpride.Her religious
faithis utterly
remoteso faras the Compsonsare concerned;if the Christian
mythis beingput forthhereas a sourceoforderin theworld,it
clearlyhas onlyironicreference
to them:
" I knowyou blameme,"Mrs. Compsonsaid," forlettingthemoff
to go to churchtoday."
" Go where?" Jason said. "Hasn't that damn show left yet?"
(p. 348)
But Dilsey is tragicallyirrelevantnot only to the Compsons,
but to that apprehensionof realitybasic to the novel. In this
tSee Vickery,forexample,pp. 30, 47.

>636

" The Sound and theFury " and Faulkner'sQuest forForm

respect,herfunction
in the workis similarto that of Gretchen
in Goethe'sFaust: theembodiment
of an orthodoxvisionwhich,
howeverattractive
it mayseem,is clearlyinadequateto thecomplexityofexistence
to cope. Faust's
withwhichtheworkis trying
internaldivision,whichis the verysourceof his creativedrive
towardtruthand theplay'sdynamiccenter,is utterlystrangeto.
Gretchenand even pitiedby her. Givenher absolutereligious
had no place in her being;
conviction,
it is as if Mephistopheles
yetthisweknowmaybe thehappiestbutnotthehighestwisdom
in theplay.
Whileat one side,she,withherchildlikemind,
Dwells in a cottageon theAlpineslope
Withall herquietlifeconfined
Withinher smallworld'snarrowscope.38
In The Sound and the Fury, of course,thereis no Faust, and no
authenticcreativecenterwhatever.If Dilsey's visionis equivalent
to Gretchen's,thereis certainlyno adequate alternativeto it in
the novel.
The scene in the churchis of special importance,however,not
onlybecause it revealsa capacityforlove and faithmissingin the
Compsons,but because it is the onlyplace in the novel in whicha
communionbetween people exists and the alienation of men
temporarilyredeemed. The momentoccurs,like the momentsof
communionin Buber's I-thou philosophy,because of the recognition of God as well as the Other,communionactually a triangle
in whichrecognitiongoes heavenwardsand earthwardsat once.
And the congregation
seemedto watchwithits own eyes whilethe
voiceconsumedhim,untilhe was nothingand theywerenothingand
therewas not evena voicebut insteadtheirheartswerespeakingto
one anotherin chanting
measuresbeyondtheneedforwords.(p. 367)
Such a communionbetween souls is similarto the communion
experiencebetween Quentin and Shreve in Absalom, Absalom!,
an experiencewhich,Faulkner makes clear, is finallynecessary
to theirrealizationof a plausible and meaningfulreality.
But such a possibilitywas still far in the futurewhen The
Sound and the Fury was written;and in this earlierwork the
Negrocommunionis seenless as possibilitythan as simplyanother
image of what is absent fromthe Compson world. In one sense
88

Faust, trans.Charles E. Passage (Indianapolis,1965), p. 118 (11.3359-3855).

Donald M. Kartiganer

637

Dilseyis rescuedfromthatworldby hercapacityto see herown

lifein termsof Christianorder:
" I've seed de firsten de last,"Dilseysaid. " Neveryou mindme."
" Firsten last whut?" Fronysaid.
" Neveryoumind,"Dilseysaid. " I seed de beginnin,
en nowI sees
de ending."(p. 371)
This is preciselywhat Quentinwisheshe could do, to be able to
see, almostin the midstof action,the directionof that action,to
see the livingmoment-in Roquentin's terms " like those of a
liferemembered."At this point,Dilsey seems to feel she understands at last where everythinghas been going; perhaps she
understandswhy,as well. And clearlythe Easter serviceshe has
just attendedhas everythingto do withthis knowledge.
This is an understandingavailable to no one else in the novel.
And it is not available to the reader either,because it does not
exist in the structureof the novel itself. What Dilsey really
knows,as Frony'scommentmakes clear,is forDilsey alone. But
the religiousor mythicstructurewhichis the sourceof orderfor
her is simplyanotherorderwhichFaulkner refusesto allow predominancein this novel. Hers is the benefitof a concept once
assumed to be the truth of the world's movement,but it is a
conceptwhichI believeFaulkner,surelyat thisstage ofhis career,
is unable to affirm
or justify.
The Sound and theFury is a masterpieceof its kind,an assault
on theseveralpossibilitiesofliteraryform,ofhumanand inhuman
and of its " failure,"
vision,which,in the genuinenessof its efforts
rankswith The Waste Land and Nostromoamong those modern
the crisesof
workswhichhave exploredmost uncompromisingly
our time. For Faulknerthe novel standsat theheadwaters;before
it lies the great decade of his career,each subsequentnovel an
attemptto cope withthe problemslaid down in this one. Sometimes,as in As I Lay Dying,he comesclose to repeatingit through
the ironyof Addie's bizarreschemeharshlyimposed on the isolated and independently
motivatedmembersof her family;or, as
in Light in August, to seek truerresolutionin the complicated
interweavingof "duplicate " charactersand events,a unitynot
so much actual as metaphorical. Joe, to point out only one
example,both is and is not the new-bornchild of Lena Grove;
he is and is not resurrected.But always Faulkner is in quest of
an orderto his fragmentedvision of the world and human com638

" The Sound and theFury " and Faulkner'sQuest forForim

munity. It is an order,however,whichmust not be imposed on

that world but must emerge fromthe fragmentedview itself:
must discoveritselfout of some human potentialityforescaping
the conventionalinto the real, fromreality'sown susceptibility
to formwhendiscoveredby the imagination.
In his later fictionFaulknerresortsto othermethodsof order,
particularlythe mythicmode-the imposed controllingframework,eitherin termsof the Christstoryor his Yoknapatawpha
chronicle,a device withwhich (encouragedby someof his critics)
he became increasinglyinfatuated. Both become orderingprinciples in the later work: the Christstoryin The Bear, Requiem
for a Nun, and A Fable, the Yoknapatawpha myth in the last
threenovels. These genuineexperiments
withmythas a structural
method (as opposed to a moreironichandlingin As I Lay Dying
and Light in August) reflectFaulkner's continuingconcernwith
the need to order materials which, even here, are persistently
fragmentary.Yet, there is hardly question that the techniques
of the earlierworkare by farthe most excitingand valuable.
The Sound and the Fury is, as I have already suggested,the
diagnosticnovel-the termsof the realitywith which art must
deal. To see Faulkner'smoreimmediatedirections,we need only
place thisnovelnextto Absalonm,
whichstandsat the centerofhis
decade of most significant
achievement.Here we have as good a
versionof Stevens' notionsof a supremefictionas we are likely
to find: a Sutpen historythat has indeed been " rendered"-we
feel that in someway we "know " the Sutpen experience-and
yet a historywhichwe feel could be renderedfurther,could be
told still again, differently
yet persuasively.This is an art both
of meaningand possibility:it means,yet it continueson. Faulkner has somehowcaught the illusionof " process" while creating
what is verymuch persuasive" product." In The Sound and the
Fury we are left certainlywith the feelingthat the Compson
historycould be renderedfurther,
could be told again, by all its
from
members.What is different
Absalom,and what makes this
novel a modernversionof tragicform,is our feelingthat rendering,forall the passion of its telling,has not even begun.
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Donald M. Kartiganer

639