On The Images Of Men And Women Struggling In A Declining World

American Southern Literature has already become an indispensable part of the literature of the United States and that of the world. William Faulkner, as one of the U.S. greatest modern novelists, pushed the U.S. literature to reach its peak, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. On his "own little postage stamp of native soil", he worked hard for tens of years and created a great many novels and a series of short stories set in Yoknapatawpha County by applying the writing devices of stream of consciousness, interior monologue, multiple point of view, symbolism, juxtaposition, epiphany, etc. In his works, Faulkner depicted the decay of the South America, and from different angles he revealed the hardship and spiritual crises the Southerners were faced with; explored the fates of the people, the American society and even the whole human being.Among Faulkner's works, The Sound and the Fury is the one he had "the most tenderness for" and thought it was a "most splendid failure", too. In this novel, Faulkner depicted the breakdown of the Compson family, the human life and the inner world of its main characters, full of sound and fury, and the fates they were struggling against. He sets his hope for the endurance and immutability of human beings on his characters in the novel, believing that "man will not merely endure: he will prevail."The thesis consists of an introduction, a main body and a conclusion.The first part is the introduction, in which critical responses to the writer and The Sound and the Fury are mentioned and what this thesis is about is elicited.The body consists of four chapters:Chapter One deals with the writer's life and the background in which the novel is created.Chapter Two explores the characterization of Mr. and Mrs. Compson. Mr. Compson is weak in personality. He passes the traditions of the family and the old South to his children, especially to his eldest son, Quentin, but breaks the traditional concept of value by his nihilism and cynicism. The fall of the family and his failed idealism are just exemplifications of his defeatism. He evades the reality by resorting to alcohol and leaves this world in drinking. Yet, Mrs. Compson is a cold, vain, self-pitying Southern "lady" withholding her thoughtfulness to his husband and maternal love toward her children. They make their children feel like living in a dungeon. Their inadequacies are the root of the family's tragedy, and they cannot shirk the responsibilities for the degeneration of the whole family. Their children's tragedies are their own, too.Chapter Three, through the analysis of the three brothers' personalities, reveals their loss and inexorable fates: Benjy, an idiot, has the intelligence of a three-year-old child at the age of thirty-three, and he cannot understand what happens around him, except moaning and bellowing. Quentin, a half-baked Galahad, has been made so keenly aware of his ancestral glories and the aristocratic code of conduct of the old South that he cannot free himself from the past world. Jason, "the first and the last sane one" in the Compson family, is extremely selfish, greedy, envious, caustic, and full of vengeance and coldness. Vengeance and despair make him a definite failure. In the end, they are whether castrated and sent to the state asylum, whether drowned in a river by himself, or laughed at by the town people. Their life is filled with "sound" and "fury" but signifies nothing. Their failures are also the failure of the Compson family, the U.S. Southern society and even the human beings.Chapter Four probes into the characterization of the "two lost women"—Caddy and her daughter Quentin, and the Compson family's black woman servant, Dilsey. Although Caddy does not relate her own story, she is manifested through her three brothers' narration, and becomes the focal image of the novel. Caddy is beautiful, full of enthusiasm and love, but she, in the circumstances of the society and the family, has at last to turn her life into the "the sound and the fury", blending herself into her world so as not to be able to struggle, and thus sink into depravity during the process of bitter struggle. Her illegitimate daughter, Quentin does not know who her parents are since she was born. She becomes the true tool used by her uncle Jason to revenge against her mother Caddy. She lacks certain virtues that her mother possesses: graciousness, pity and disinterested love. However, she is brave enough to challenge the male hegemony. It is Quentin who dares to threaten Jason's hegemony and bloodless rule, and gives him a fatal blow. Dilsey, who has firm principles of virtue, is diligent, kind, honest and loyal, with courage, sympathy, sacrifice and endurance gathered in her bones. She has much confidence in her own life and never evades the misfortune but bravely confronts it, thus becoming the sole pillar to support the "great building".The conclusion gives a summary of the thesis. The changes of the society may result in the changes of people's ways of life. The disintegration of the old social order and old ideology may make those, who depend on the traditional concept of value, lose their psychological balance and the root of life, therefore feeling the social and spiritual crises. After the breakdown of the traditional concept and before the re-establishment of a new one, different people have different ways to face the crises. But depravity, evasion and suicide cannot free oneself from and solve all the problems. So they should bravely face up to the changing world and life. In the novel, what the author advocates are courage, honor, hope, pride, pity, sympathy and even sacrifice. It is quite true that "man will not merely endure: he will prevail." Nowadays, we live in such a society also full of "sound and fury" that we must still uphold the traditional virtues of the human beings, adjust ourselves to the fast-changing pace of the society and face various difficulties, faithfully and unbendingly.