The Feminism Of "The Sound And The Fury" By William Faulkner

William Faulkner is considered to be one of the greatest and the most influential modern writers of the twentieth century in American literature. He generates a large volume of great literary works in his lifetime; The Sound and the Fury is one of his masterpieces and becomes the focus of study and research among critics. A lot of essays on it focus on either cold mother and degenerated daughter that he portrays in The Sound and the Fury or the loss of the daughter-Caddy's virginity which leads to the decay of the whole family; the way of William Faulkner's writing, men's hatred towards women and the author's deprivation of women's voice obviously show his misogyny.Up till now this fiction has seldom been analyzed from the feminist perspective. This thesis offers a new literary approach-feminist criticism to re-read it. The thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter is a brief introduction to the author and his works, and the previous critic views on the fiction over the past decades, illustrates the organization and the aim of the thesis as well. The second chapter is the theoretical framework; it discusses briefly the feminist literary criticism, and the possibility of approaching The Sound and the Fury from the theory. The third chapter is the focus of the thesis, the textual analysis from the feminist perspective. The fourth chapter is conclusion about the feminist features in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. Therefore, it can be concluded to some extent it is unfair for some critics and readers to analyze the women characters in the The Sound and the Fury. Faulkner's works undoubtedly reveals the difficulties women faced at that time; he sympathizes with women, respects them and wishes their freedom and good life in harmony with men.