Narrative Strategy Of Time In The Sound And The Fury

William Faulkner’s outstanding contribution to the modernist literature is his reformation in the writing style. He is regarded as one of the most well-known American writers in the twentieth century and he is also thought of as one of the greatest representatives of the U.S Southern Literature. He dramatically discards the traditional forms and structures and becomes a predecessor in the modernist literature. The Sound and the Fury is of the most significance and wide influence as his masterpiece. He expresses his characters’connotation and thematic ideas with multiple modernistic methods in his works. Due to his outstanding contribution, the Nobel Prize was awarded to him for his achievement in literature in1949.The title of The Sound and the Fury (1929) is from Macbeth’s Short soliloquy in Act Five, Scene Five:"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The Sound and the Fury is Faulkner’s first mature work which he has spent most of his effect on, and it is his favorite one.By means of Gerard Gennette’s narratology, the thesis analyzes the narrative strategies from the aspects of order, duration, and frequency in The Sound and the Fury. On one hand, it mainly makes a deep exploration to the anfractuous methods of image-building, reveals Faulkner’s outstanding achievement in narrative skills and provides a new optic angle to experience the novel’s beauty. On the other hand, it offers a little help to the readers for understanding the theme of the novel deeply.The thesis is composed of three chapters. Chapter One analyzes the relationship between the story time and the (pseudo-) time of the narrative, which is named order. Meanwhile it expounds the features of the unique method Faulkner uses in the novel and the aesthetic features of the method. Underneath the surface of disordered time of narrative in The Sound and the Fury is the clear story time. Chapter Two analyzes the relationship between the story length and the length of the text, which is called duration. Faulkner’s narrative speed changes very fast; he can use over270pages to describe the Compson family’s rise and fall in the past thirty years or use only one line to describe what happens during more than ten years. The thesis demonstrates that Faulkner’s narrative has profoundly changed the total system of the narrative rhythm. The narrative strategies asks for the readers’intellectual challenge, because it is not an easy thing for the readers to understand The Sound and the Fury, but it can help the readers to enjoy the beauty of literature. Chapter Three analyzes the relationship of frequency (or, more simply, of repetition) between the narrative and the story, which is called frequency. The narrative frequency in The Sound and the Fury is that the singulative frequency and the repetitive frequency are used interchangeably. Faulkner uses the singulative frequency to describe something less important or people pay less attention to while uses repetitive frequency to the events people pay most attention to. The usage of different forms of duration emphasizes the theme of the novel.The thesis aims at a comprehensive analysis of the time system from the perspective of narrative strategy. The present author hopefully expects that it will help the readers to understand Faulkner’s order and chaos by means of Gerard Gennette’s narratology, the thesis analyzes the narrative strategies in The Sound and the Fury from the aspect of time that includes order, duration, and frequency. The usage of experimental narrative strategy of time perfectly conveys to the readers what Faulkner feels. The techniques of narrative take the readers to the maze of time. The readers get lost in it at first but after reading the novel several times, they will find the loveliness of The Sound and the Fury is beyond compare because of the unique narrative strategy of time. The combination of order, duration, and frequency creates a world successful novel.