An Analysis Of The Sound And The Fury From The Perspective Of Narrative Techniques

William Faulkner, the author of The Sound and the Fury, has won Nobel prize in1949. As a literary giant, his masterpiece has enjoyed heated discussions during thepast few decades. Scholarly investigations have been mainly focusing on the contentand themes of the novel, and the character analyses of mainly Quentin and Caddy.Critics’ views concerning reasons for the deterioration of the Southern aristocraticfamily are also in great abundance. Based on a solid theoretical foundation, this thesis,however, makes a point that an analysis on narrative techniques of the work is morepractical and meaningful. Human beings are born inveterate storytellers, thus thenarrative forms a writer chooses to narrate his story are more fascinating to all.As a well reputed narrative experimentalist, Faulkner refuses to be bound bytraditional structures and tries to narrate the story of the Compson family innon-chronological orders and from multiple voices. Also, repetitive narration andstream of consciousness are utilized as narrative techniques in the novel. With thehelp of the above narrative techniques, The Sound and the Fury will be, to the largestextent, appreciated and memorized by the reader.The introduction part of this thesis mainly covers a brief description of the theorynarrative techniques and an overview of the novel The Sound and the Fury. Also, thethemes of the thesis and relative literary reviews both at home and abroad arediscussed in this section. Chapter One analyzes chronological disorders and theirinfluences on the reader, with the Benjy section as an example and this chapter alsomakes a comparison between chronological disordered novels and commonchronological novels. Chapter Two concentrates on multi-faceted views of literaryfigures including internal focalization of Benjy, Quentin and Jason, zero focalizationon Dilsey as well as Faulkner’s own external point of view. Chapter Three details the use of repetition as a narrative technique such as the images and symbols frequentlymentioned in the novel and on a deeper level, focuses on Caddy as a metaphoricalrepetition of her father. Chapter Four presents stream of consciousness as a narrativetechnique in presenting Quentin’s monologue including paragraphs of his narrationwithout punctuations. Chapter Five tries to appreciate aestheticism achievedespecially to appreciate Faulkner’s narration on Quentin’s tranquil death, his humancaring and to discuss the impact Faulkner might have made on readers and Chinesewriters. Afinal conclusion gives a summary of the above content.The construction of narratives or stories influences readers’perception of a novel,shapes our experience, structures our life and further, changes our comprehension ofthe world. This thesis will come to well-grounded conclusion that the novel TheSound and the Fury is not all about techniques and skills. Stories narrated in differentangles will have a deep aesthetic impression on readers and thus each and everyscene/event will stay in readers’ memory instead of only the end of the story. Thisthesis may direct academic and social attention to narrative and more importantly toenlighten writers to tell their stories in the most unforgettable way, to require moreproducers to break their conventions when shooting movies and to encourage peopleincluding kids to change their old thinking patterns and narrative styles. Hopefully,the focalization of Faulkner’s writing skills will probably make a change in Chineseold writing patterns.