A Study On The Postmodern Features In William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury

William Faulkner is widely regarded not only as the greatest American novelist but also as one of the great novelists of world literature.His work is most noted for its complex narrative structure and its dazzling use of language and voice.Faulkner spent most of his life in Oxford,Mississippi,the small town that provided inspiration for his literary writing.During his lifetime,he didn't cut himself from his roots;instead he attempted to penetrate and fully utilize those aspects of life presented him by heritage and circumstances.In almost all of his works,Faulkner chronicled the decline and decay of the aristocrats in the South.As a postmodernist,Faulkner extensively uses postmodern ideas and techniques in his literary works.The present thesis focuses on the question how the postmodern features are reflected in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.Through a close reading of the text,it's not difficult to find Faulkner spares no effort to utilize postmodern characterization in the process of the creation of the novel.By the application of various narration techniques,such as fragmentation,metafiction,indeterminacy,and intertextuality,Faulkner underscores a kind of incomplete and fragmentized sense through the structural arrangement of novel to reveal the living condition and spiritual life of the modern people.He makes the novel decentered and deconstructs the fiction form by disrupting the narrative structure of the conventional novel,which makes the readers' reading from a passive reception of texts to an active production of meaning.The Sound and the Fury allows the reader not only to observe the textual and linguistic construction of literary fiction,but also to enjoy and engage with the world within the fiction by concentrating on the creative process as well as the novel itself.In conclusion,we can generally get a postmodern image of The Sound and the Fury.As one of the most famous American writers,William Faulkner is no doubt a successful postmodernist.He breaks the traditional novel model and creates a complex fiction by the use of postmodernism writing skills.