山西省晋中市 刘雨蓉
William Faulkner, a prestigious South American writer，won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. Among his more than 120 works, The Sound and the Fury is the first novel in American history that employed the technique known as stream of consciousness. This thesis studies William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury on the basis of the compound stream of consciousness technique.
“The Sound and the Fury is a typical compound d stream-of-consciousness novel.” (Tong Zhen, 1996: 34) By applying the “compound” stream of consciousness technique, different characters with different nature in different periods are able to narrate the same story. In the Sound and the Fury, the relationship of Benjy, Quentin, Jason and Dilsey is juxtaposed. We discover that their narrations are all about the degeneration of the Compson family as well as Caddy. Faulkner applies the compound stream of consciousness in the Sound and the Fury in order to outline the central figure Caddy, who doesn’t appear as a narrative character. By combining four narrators’ narrations, readers come to realize Caddy’s story and imagine explicitly.
First of all, through Benjy’s narration, Benjy and Caddy’s childhood appears before readers’ eyes. He just tells the story according to his unbiased personal comments because of his idiocy. We can have a vague idea of Caddy’s degeneration as well as decline of the Compson family through a retarded character from this section.
Secondly, according to Quentin, Readers get to know the reason for his suicide and Caddy’s degeneration is depicted more clearly. In Quentin’s opinion, Caddy represents for the loyal inheritor of Southern ethics, he is troubled by her loss of virginity as well as glories of the Old South. After reading these two parts, we can only vaguely feel that Benjy is sad owing to losing his sister; “Quentin commits suicide and feels guilty because he is not capable of maintaining the reputation of his family”. (Chen Lijuan,2013:90)
The third section tells the consciousness of Jason. Compared with Benjy and Quentin, his consciousness is logical and bright, which helps readers contain the story of Caddy and Compson family clearly. However, in the fourth chapter, which is narrated by the black slave---Dilsey, readers are in a position to think about Caddy reasonably. Her detailed narration enables readers to achieve a comprehensive perspective on the lives of Compsons.
All in all, the narration of Benjy, Quentin, Jason and Dilsey forms a juxtaposed relationship. On the basis of their juxtaposed relationship, we set the model as below.
Just as Faulkner said that the Sound and the Fury was “a tragedy of Compsons”. Although each of these four characters tells some fragments of the Compson family, readers can piece together their narrations and understand the process of the family’s decline. And it is evident that their narrations are all surround the Compsons. Readers cannot understand the story only by reading one section and each section is complementary with each other.
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作者姓名 刘雨蓉 出生年 1998 性别 女 学历 本科 研究方向 英美文学