The Decaying American South Through Three Compson Brothers In The Sound And The Fury

William Faulkner is one of the greatest contemporary writers in the United State. People always associate him with the American South. The writer works hard on the "little postage stamp of native soil" for decades and writes enduring works one after another which win him worldwide fame. These works root in the American South and explore the fate of American society and even of the human beings. The Sound and the Fury is one of them.The novel focuses on an ever-prominent family - the Compsons in the American South in four chapters, by four very different voices and on four different days. The first three chapters are narrated by the three Compson brothers respectively, while the writer tells the fourth chapter. The distinctive feature of the novel is that the three Compson brothers are not only the narrators, but also the characters the writer describes carefully. As narrators, what they see and hear presents the historical course of the Compson family from prosperity to decay. As characters, their existence, characteristics and mentality reflect the decay of the family, even of the whole South.In the first chapter, this thesis introduces the international research on Faulkner and his works, especially on The Sound and the Fury. Then, the purpose of this thesis is presented. The second chapter discusses the background of the novel, that is, the American South, and Faulkner's life and writing in the South. In the third chapter, this thesis analyzes the narration, characteristics and mentality of the three Compson brothers, and presents a decaying American South in differentaspects: deaths, moral decay, mental collapse and corruption of the Southern values.