A Southern Tale

Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is a interesting book. It gives background on aspects of virtually every Southern family through the tragic tale of one family, the Compsons. The way the family's tale is told helps to demonstrate the helplessness of every person in the world. While writing in a stream of consciousness, Faulkner uses each character's individual feelings towards one character in particular to develop individual stories and one main tragedy of the family that spans over many years. By starting with Benjy, who has no fixed time or place, Faulkner gives a basic overview of what all has happened in the story, and therefore a foreshadowing of what may come to pass through the next generation of Miss Quentin. In Quentin's chapter, the reader gets a more personal and detailed look at events that had led up to Quentin committing suicide, and his relationships with various other people in his family, particularly that with his sister Caddy. In Jason's chapter, the reader is exposed to the new head of house, one who is quick to be angered and has various views of others that are less than nice. In his chapter, Jason sets up the last tragic act that a member of the Compsons commits, and shows how life has changed and things may be too late for the Compsons. The final chapter is told through a person similar to Benjy; while Dilsey sees the fall of the family, and knows what is to come, she herself is powerless to do anything to prevent it as an aging servant.
While hard to read or understand at moments, The Sound and the Fury utilizes its complexities to help the reader relate to the tale and people within its covers. Because of this, it is surly a great book on how acts of the past will affect the future, how history repeats its self, and how we as merely men, even if we see the repetition, are powerless to take any actions to prevent it.