The Inner Reasons Of The Sound And The Fury's Tragedy

William Faulkner is one of the greatest contemporary writers in the United States. The Sound and the Fury is generally recognized as one of the most successful novels. It is his first novel and his favorite one. The novel focuses on an ever-prominent family—the Compsons, giving us a general description of decayed traditional aristocratic families. With the rising of capitalism in the north and the falling of the plantation slavery system in the south, old South is gone. The old South is over, whereas the Southerners are still the slaves to the old tradition. From the viewpoints of culture, religion, and family environment, the essay makes a further analysis on the origin of Compson clan's tragedy, exploring the fate of American society and even of the human beings.The article is mainly carried from there aspects. The first chapter is tried to find the answer to the tragedy from aspect of old culture. Puritanism has profound influences on Mrs. Compson and Quentin. Mrs. Compson is a representative of Puritanism. She is honored to be a well-bred girl. At the same time, she is a neurotic. Quentin's code of honor is connected with his sister's virginity. His idealistic conception of Southern womanhood and appears to him as the only means of saving Caddy from degradation. So when Caddy loses her virginity to Dalton Ames, Quentin's whole world collapses. Quentin's jumping into the river is the sign of the decline of the Old South.In the second chapter, lack of love in the family is a very important element of their clan's tragedy. As a mother, Mrs. Compson gives no care and love to their children. Mr. Compson is a lawyer without a practice. The children grew up in passive, depressing surroundings. It is doomed to meet with hardships when they go into the society. So their tragedy has great relation to their parent.In the third chapter, the essay analyses the causes of the tragic life of Compson from a characteristic perspective. Quentin inherited from his father's nihilist and sarcastic pseudo-philosophy. In the face of the social reform, his mind is filled with glorious past of the family. He has no courage to avoid the torment. Caddy pursues independence, freedom and love at first. But because of her weak points of her character, she accepts the doom without either seeking or fleeing it. Jason is the last of the old Compson family. He cares little for the glorious past and he believes that money is the only value. He has decided to be a man of his time, to live like everyone else, not according to a code of honor but by his wits, stealing and lying. While he is still restricted by old tradition and his family, so he fails when he engages in the fight with Snopes.Faulkner tries to pursue the way for the Old South through the main characters in The Sound and the Fury, but there is no way to find. This is due to the Southern tradition, code and values. The inner reasons are also including family surroundings and their weak points of characteristic. So Compson clan's tragedy is inescapable.