New Historicism Embodied In The Sound And The Fury

As one of the greatest twentieth century American writers, William Faulkner(1897-1962) is recognized as the most contributive and creative novelist in the modernAmerican literature. His works reflect the uneasy society and man’s spiritual crisis inAmerican South, especially after American Civil War and the First World War. TheSound and the Fury is a typical one.The Sound and the Fury focuses on an ever-prominent family the Compsons in theAmerican South in four chapters, by four very different voices and on four differentdays. As narrators, what they see and hear presents the historical course of the Compsonfamily from prosperity to decay. Since this novel was published, it has aroused manyscholars’ attention, and almost all the theories have been used to interpret the novel.However, few scholars have tried to interpret this novel from the angle of NewHistoricism. Therefore, based on the previous scholars’ studies, the thesis, with themethod of close reading, attempts to reinterpret Faulkner’s new historical consciousnessin The Sound and the Fury from the perspective of New Historicism. And it will add asignificant understanding to this novel and the relationship between literary text andhistory.Firstly, through an analysis of Faulkner’s historical consciousness of reconstructingthe South in The Sound and the Fury, the thesis expounds Faulkner’s agreement withNew Historicist’s views of literature text. That is The Sound and the Fury is functionalcomponent of historical formations. Next, by exploring of the representational form ofthis historical consciousness, it reveals Faulkner’s tendency to resolve the monistic andbig history into plural and small histories. Then, by in-depth examining the narrativestrategies which Faulkner has used in this novel to practice his new historicalconsciousness, the thesis illustrates Faulkner’s assertion of New Historicist focus on themarginalized historical narratives and the fates of marginalized people. Finally, wecome to conclusion that The Sound and the Fury demonstrates clearly Faulkner’shistorical consciousness of reconstructing the South’s history, but his version does notrepresent the authority in the narrative. He just aims to provide another way of writing history to dispel the blind trust in the monistic and master narrative and restore a moreauthentic history of the American South．...