| Remembrance has been a favorite literary motif for writers and poets since earliest times. It is a primordial human sentiment that is coeval with the birth of humanity. Precisely because of its ancient origin and its ubiquitous nature, we tend not to examine it systematically or investigate the human sentiments and yearnings lying behind, nor are we concerned with its humanistic implications for furthering our spiritual civilization.In the twentieth century people were compelled, after the bloodshed of the two great wars, to turn inward and look at their inner being and reflect about our future and fate. In this time period psychology as a discipline has broken new ground and began to be seen as able to provide scientific explanations for people's mental activities. This new development gave great impetus to literary production and scholarly interpretations of literature, inspiring writers to explore new forms for literary expression. This broadening of the artistic horizon at the start of a new century allowed considerable advances in the creation of imaginative literature."Remembrance"as a poetic motif of ancient ancestry likewise benefited from the progress made in psychology. New narrative modes, such as stream-of-consciousness and the collective unconscious, have greatly enriched its literary expression. Almost all the major writers of this era had one or more major novels devoted to the articulation of this subject matter, notably, James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and the culmination in Faulkner of The Sound and the Fury.It is impossible to mention Faulkner without evoking the American South, because the Yoknapatawpha Saga, his lifework, represented an entire era of that region. In 1949 for his outstanding contribution to American Literature he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Faulkner's characters are primarily southern folks who live in the shadow of the past of the Old South. Many of these people's varied, emotionally-charged inner stirrings are fraught with recollections of the past. Reminiscing about the Old South has become almost the chief melody of the Yoknapatawpha legend. Faulkner devoted his entire life to writing stories set in his southern hometown ("my own little stamp of native soil"in his own words). Like his characters, Faulkner himself could not get over his preoccupation with the Southern past, betraying everywhere in his work a nostalgic fondness for it. The Sound and the Fury, which was published in 1929 and also the book he loved most, best represented his obsession with remembrances. The grip the Southern past had over his imagination is manifest in the process of the story's creation as well as in its vivid characterization. Centering upon the fall of Caddy, the only daughter to the Compson family, the book is divided into four parts, each narrated by turns by one of the major characters.The first part of this thesis is given to an introduction of the"Remembrances"motif in literary history and two new techniques developed in modernist writings for the representation of"Remembrances". Then, it explains the"beauty of paradox", which this paper argues is intrinsic to the"Remembrances"motif. The second part of this paper analyzes and summarizes the influence on Faulkner exerted by the historical and cultural traditions of the Old South, with a view to comprehending his special fondness for representing this motif in his literary production. The third part of this study investigates his obsession with recollection about the South by way of detailed analysis of the characters in The Sound and the Fury and the literary techniques used therein. The last part of paper is devoted to scrutinizing the ultimate historical and aesthetic significance of"remembrances,"and Faulkner's humanistic concern for our destiny that lies concealed in such remembrances..In fine, in questing to engage this ancient literary motif as it is presented in The Sound and the Fury, this paper seeks to tease out and shed light on Faulkner's"Remembrances"complex, and to comprehend its admonishing significance for humanity. In an age where people tend to"forget"rather than"remember"the past, it is my hope that by thus elucidating the oracular power of a canonical author like Faulkner, this thesis may provoke strong reflection on our destiny.
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