The Sound and the Fury

[Anonymous No.12119997]

What the fuck am I supposed to take away from this? Are the narrations joined together at all? Benjy's and Jason's narrations seemed fucking pointless. Benjy's seems like it's just there for the puzzle of piecing together the narrative, and Jason's just a fuckin asshole. Why did Quentin's dad preach nihilism to him? Did he really not care that his own daughter was sleeping around? What the fuck is the recklickshun of the blood of the lamb, and what's it got to do with the novel?

I feel out of my depth

[Anonymous No.12120147]

>The Blood Meridian thread has 70+ replies and mine has none
Bump

[Anonymous No.12120162]

yeah idk i didn't like it either

[Anonymous No.12120167]

>>12120147
Blood Meridian is a lot easier to interpret and to read

[Anonymous No.12120216]

>>12120147
because your thread is shit

[Anonymous No.12120250]

>>12120216
Why

[Anonymous No.12120273]

>>12120250
becuas you'r gay

[Anonymous No.12120284]

i give it to you not so that you may remember time but so that you might forgot it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. because no battle is ever won. they are not even fought. the field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools

[Anonymous No.12120287]

>>12120284
This is the reason why no one should ever read Faulkner, what a rice water pseud faggot

[Anonymous No.12120303]

>>12119997
>Benjy's and Jason's narrations seemed fucking pointless

What do you think the goal of the book is, to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible? It's a book about time and distance and what is lost forever. Benjy is retarded in such a way that time jumps around for him, so we start off seeing a non-chronological collage of the despair that fell over the Compson's. Jason is miserable because he wants to be the big man of a plantation but is just a pathetic overseer of ruins but is too cowardly to despair like Quentin so he resents instead.

[Anonymous No.12120314]

>>12120303
>Jason is miserable because he wants to be the big man of a plantation
Is there any support in the text for this?

[Anonymous No.12120346]

Just observe the family, man.
Also, Revelation 7.14.

[Anonymous No.12120365]

>>12120287
That would be for quentins dad

[Anonymous No.12120373]

>>12120287
what's wrong anon, you don't appreciate profundity unless it's obscure and obfuscated?

[Anonymous No.12120381]

>>12120314
I dont have the text onhand to reference but he talks a couple times at least about how niggers dont know their place anymore and about how he singehandedly manages everything without getting any appreciation, demands respect from everyone without thinking he needs to do more than the bare minimum to earn it, etc.

[Anonymous No.12120414]

>>12120381
>>12120314
He is bitter because he was going to be a banker. It's also heavily implied if not outright shown throughout that he's obsessed with money. He thinks blacks are apes, but everyone did, everywhere. There's nothing to suggest he had some dream of being a plantation owner, especially considering even his father was born after the end of the Civil War

[Anonymous No.12120420]

>>12120414
This. It's no coincidence that when Jason was young he always had his hands in his pockets.

[Anonymous No.12120605]

Faulkner is not easy but very rewarding. Isn't 'Caddy' one of the 1st words of the book? The golf course is built on land previously owned by the Compsons but now gone forever, sold off to put Quentin thru Harvard, who of course can't take it. And Jason being bitter for not being a banker is spot on. And Caddy steals it all, yet was perhaps the only child capable of emotional love. Like the Confederacy after the Civil War, the Compson family lost so much for a 'lost cause'.

[Anonymous No.12120676]

>>12120605
>Isn't 'Caddy' one of the 1st words of the book?
Not directly in the text but it can be inferred because Benjy starts hollering whenever the golfers yell "caddie". What a fucking crazy book

[Anonymous No.12120693]

>>12120373
its incoherent, disjointed, effeminate mewling. has absolutely no meaning, and no I’m not a fan of Joyce or Nabokov. Much prefer clean style or at least a sense of humor, and if the prose must be dense it should relate itself stylistically directly to the canon.

[Anonymous No.12120698]

>>12120693

[Anonymous No.12120701]

>>12120693

[Anonymous No.12120781]

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.

[Anonymous No.12120802]

>>12119997
Perhaps it's all sound and fury signifying nothing?

[Anonymous No.12121709]

>>12119997

We're given 4 different perspectives in that mess. 1st is Benjy, the simple fool who's stuck in a timeless present where words like "future" & "past" don't mean a damned thing to him. Then there's the obsessive Quentin who loves the past & his sister so much that he hasn't got any significant future. & Jason, that fool's always blaming other people for his problems. He spent so much time complaining about the future that he doesn't have much of a present. Dilsey doesn't worry about time like the sad Compson crew, she's got mad love for Christianity & God, so instead of just thinking about the future, past, & present, she's all about eternity.

Little happens in the book, most books have an essential complication that drives the story, but in it, there isn't a core event, so it's hard to know what the purpose is. Maybe that is the purpose. The title comes from Macbeth: "Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts & frets his hour upon the stage, & then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, signifying nothing.".

Just like what Macbeth said about life, this book's just a bunch of jabbering that doesn't signify a damned thing, but that doesn't mean that the book's saying that life's meaningless, the book's got words that rep meaning, but it's meaning that the words don't obviously communicate. Think about the reverend talking at his sermon: "And the congregation seemed to watch with its own eyes while the voice consumed him until he was nothing & they were nothing & there was not even a voice but instead their hearts were speaking to one another in chanting measures beyond the need for words.". Sometimes words aren't good enough to describe life's bad & good, sometimes you've just got to feel it.

[Anonymous No.12122119]

>>12121709
Good post, thanks anon

[Anonymous No.12122896]

b7m0

[Anonymous No.12122995]

What is the cover depicting?

[Anonymous No.12123186]

>>12122995
It’s the first edition, artist kathe kollwitz
It’s one of the greatest covers imo, and one of the greatest books

[Anonymous No.12123191]

>>12122995
Looks like suffering

[Anonymous No.12123236]

>>12122995
the human heart is in conflict with itself

[Anonymous No.12123391]

>>12122995
Man being held back by his own shadow

[Anonymous No.12123474]

>>12122995
la esperencia hommana

[Anonymous No.12124164]

>The Sound and the Fury
>Absalom, Absalom!
>As I Lay Dying
>Light in August
>"The Bear"
>"A Rose for Emily"
>countless other short stories and novels
Is Faulkner the greatest writer of the 20th century?

[Anonymous No.12124172]

>>12120693

[Anonymous No.12124174]

>>12122995
the sound and the fury

[Anonymous No.12124199]

Everybody's obsessed with caddy's virginity and loss of, which is essentially the final push into the family falling apart. Quentin kills himself because of it, Jason is an asshole because he feels like all of his opportunities were taken up by Quentin/Caddy, and the ricklickson is to underline that Dilsey knew how this was going to turn out eventually, (since her and the other servants know the family better than they themselves do) as well as that the black community finds its strength in the church in the post war south. The ending is important because it signifies that Luster is taking them clockwise around the Confederate statue (and thus into the future) but Jason is hell bent on turning back to the past glory of his family.

[Anonymous No.12124212]

>>12124199
>Everybody's obsessed with caddy's virginity and loss of,
This is literally only Quentin. Maybe vaguely Benjy, but Benjy doubtless only cares about whether or not she'll be around

[Anonymous No.12124237]

>>12124212
The muddy drawers scene is where you're supposed to realize that that's what her brothers are fixated with. Why do you think Jason despises Quentin? Because Caddy left him with her and he blames her for what he sees as breaking the family up in the first place.

[Anonymous No.12124252]

>>12124164
Might be
Thankful this Thanksgiving there’s video of him I watched

[Anonymous No.12124267]

Glasgow University American Literature 1?>>12119997

[Anonymous No.12124275]

>>12124237
I don't think Jason's quite so complex though, or at least he doesn't appear to be in his section.
He hates Caddy because her fiance promised him a job as a banker before he discovered Caddy was pregnant and the child wasn't his. On top of this is probably jealousy (see below).
He hates Quentin because he feels that he is a coward for committing suicide and because he is jealous that the father sold virtually all their belongings for his tuition to Harvard.
He dislikes his father for this reason and this compounds into further disliking his father and Quentin for leaving him worse off after they gave away so much.
He dislikes Benjy because he doesn't have the same love for his family that others have, or just because he is an asshole and Benjy is just a pain in the ass. It's important to note that I don't think he cares so much at all about the statue except for that it causes Benjy to holler. That clock thing you mentioned is very interesting though, I have to go back and reread with that in mind.

[Anonymous No.12124296]

>>12124275
Read the Appendix Faulkner wrote after you do: then promptly forget it because it's apocryphal and shite. It helps by accentuating some of the themes.

[Anonymous No.12125178]

Personally I hate niggers

[Anonymous No.12125354]

>>12124296
Safe to just discount and not even read it then innit

[Anonymous No.12126736]

Bump

[Anonymous No.12126837]

>>12124212
>>12124237
Caddy has lost her innocence, much like the idea of the South that used to unite the culture. It drives them all to ruin
S o u t h e r n G o t h i c

[Anonymous No.12126851]

>>12126837

[Anonymous No.12126866]

>live in the south
>watch as local culture is erased and replaced with coastal transplants, third world immigrants, and shopping centers

The Compsons should be relieved that they didn't last long enough to see what would become of the south

[Anonymous No.12126993]

>>12126866
I dunno senpai the stuff they saw wasn't too uplifting either, and they were much closer to old ideals

[Anonymous No.12127340]

>>12126866
>local culture
>dad I fucked my sister pls dad just listen
>lol you're a tard go to harvard yard tard
>dad I don-
>reductio ad absurdum faggit now git along

[Anonymous No.12127375]

>>12126866
You do realize the Southern plantation "Culture" was propped up by, and all about, transplanting third world people into your business to feed shopping centers.

[Anonymous No.12127389]

>>12127340
>>12127375
>/lit/ loves Faulkner
>/lit/ hates the old south

[Anonymous No.12127401]

>>12127389
The people that claim to hate or do not empathize with the old southerners, especially post-bellum whites, dont really like Faulkner or purposefully misinterpret him to serve their own ideals

[Anonymous No.12127461]

>>12127401
You can wmpathize with individuals and still recognize that the Antebellum south was a dreadful period of American history. Carolyn pretty much outlines how the aristocracy sleepwalked into its own decay, and Jason is like the last bitter crack on a dying culture trying to orient itself within the market system.

[Anonymous No.12127675]

>>12127461
Feels to me like you're reading into it pretty selectively. The antebellum South may appear like a dreadful period to you, but have you considered that that is not how it appeared to those that lived in the wake of it, especially considering the state of the South after the Civil War? That is what the novel presents, not that how "Carolyn pretty much outlines how the aristocracy sleepwalked into its own decay" or that "Jason is like the last bitter crack on a dying culture trying to orient itself within the market system." (and those two ideas seem to come from some questionable selective interpretation themselves t b h).

Faulkner's showing the tragedy of the postbellum South so that others might be able to understand (the way Quentin couldn't) the tragedy of time passing and things changing and old ways disappearing and new ways that seem alien and disgusting. And that man ascribes values like honor and goodness and happiness in old ways that simply cease to exist as time goes on, despite the despair it causes them, especially in light of how these things signify nothing. Read the soliloquy that Faulkner named the novel after. As cliche and meme as it sounds on 4chan, it's a novel about the human condition more than anything else.

[Anonymous No.12127899]

>>12127675
This is a very superficial view.

[Anonymous No.12127940]

>>12127675
>questionable selective interpretation
Nigger that's the academic consensus put in laymen's terms for you. Dick riding the confederacy was not the objective of the novel, it's antithetical to the point. The sound and the fury is itself the cacophony of discordant retards like Jason trying to cling onto something that had already come and gone. There's absolutely nothing to 'new ways that seem alien and disgusting', unless you consider Carolyn an exemplary mother and their father anything other than a lousy, capituous drunk. The whole point of Quentin's section is to highlight that time is a subjective, individual experience, - shafted into homogeny by the advent of universal time. He's freed from the clock when he helps the little wop girl, but he ends up repeating the same exact failure he had with Caddy, and thus has double the reason to kill himself. The family had Benjy castrated: if you think that's an appeal for southern manners then you simply didn't comprehend anything in the text itself.

[Anonymous No.12128155]

>>12127899
Care to elaborate on how? It's actually very well supported by the text as far as I can tell.

>>12127940
I'll reply to this later, but just immediately
>Nigger that's the academic consensus put in laymen's terms for you.
Appeal to authority

>Dick riding the confederacy was not the objective of the novel, it's antithetical to the point.
I never made the claim that it was and I don't believe that it was.

>The sound and the fury is itself the cacophony of discordant retards like Jason trying to cling onto something that had already come and gone.
First of all, what do you even mean by this?
Second of all, how on earth do you determine that Jason is trying to cling onto anything that has already come and gone? Assuming you're talking about the ideals of the old South, how do you figure Jason in any way, shape, or form, idealizes the old South? He's presented from the outset as an avaricious angry antisocial asshole. What is there in the text, his section or anywhere else, that suggests he idealizes the aristocracy of the old South? Personally, I think there's ample evidence to suggest that he doesn't (for one, he doesn't talk about it).

>There's absolutely nothing to 'new ways that seem alien and disgusting', unless you consider Carolyn an exemplary mother and their father anything other than a lousy, capituous drunk.
First of all, are you suggesting that Carolyn and Jason III are supposed to be exemplary of the old South? Secondly, even if they are (and I don't think they are), why would that exclude new ways from seeming alien and disgusting?

>The family had Benjy castrated: if you think that's an appeal for southern manners then you simply didn't comprehend anything in the text itself.
I don't think it's an appeal for southern manners.

I'm not quite sure what exactly you're trying to say about Quentin's section, but when I figure out I'll reply to that as well.

[Anonymous No.12129157]

>>12128155
>First of all, are you suggesting that Carolyn and Jason III are supposed to be exemplary of the old South?
You know, there's a lot one could complain about with Faulkner, but before reading this post I never believed one of them could be 'too subtle'

[Anonymous No.12129219]

>>12122995
*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.*

[Anonymous No.12129236]

>>12122995
''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.''

[Anonymous No.12129260]

>>12120693
>if the prose must be dense it should relate itself stylistically directly to the canon.
this is what happens when your only experience with literature is mediated (in fact constituted) by 4chan posts

[Anonymous No.12129565]

>>12129157
Very good post

[Anonymous No.12129625]

>>12120287
>rice water
what does this mean in this context?

[Anonymous No.12130581]

Literally corncobby chronicles

[Anonymous No.12130958]

>>12124237
jason is not really present in the muddy drawers scene though. that scene definitely is a symbol for caddy's sexuality, but it's centered around quentin's reaction to it

[Anonymous No.12131078]

>>12130581
Fuck off Vlad

[Anonymous No.12131266]

>>12130581
t. Dumb Russian

[Anonymous No.12131768]

>>12124172

underrated gif

[Anonymous No.12132389]

Bump, just read That Evening Sun. Is there no real continuity? Quentin's like 24 in it

[Anonymous No.12132823]

>>12132389
Yeah he's 20 iirc during Absalom, Absalom! too. The Evening Sun was great; I know it's obviously regarding race inequality but I can't help but feel like Quentin's dad was more than fair to Nancy.

[Anonymous No.12134390]

FAULKNER

[Anonymous No.12135735]

Benjy - life is unfair from the start sometimes
Quinten - The search for meaning in a godless world is a futile existential effort that will wear your down (not to mention having a nihilist father)
Jason - Making weath and power your meaning will only be your own downfall
Mr Compson - Nihilism is stagnation
Mrs Compson - Unable to leave the meaning of the past behind and adopt a contemporary meaning in life
Caddy - innocence lost leading to hedonistic escape
Dilsey - witnesses the folly of the Compson's aimlessness, finds meaning in god

All over the place about purpose and the way life overlaps and we lash out in our own struggles

[Anonymous No.12137166]

nigger

[Anonymous No.12137202]

>>12137166
Based