English Literature

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN     William Cuthbert Faulkner , an American writer, worked in a variety of media; he wrote   novels ,   short stories, a   play ,   poetry ,   essays   and   screenplays during his career. He is primarily known and acclaimed for his novels and short stories. He was awarded the 1949   Nobel Prize   for Literature. Some of his great works are �The Sound and the Fury�, �As I Lay Dying�, �Sanctuary�, �Light in August�, �The Hamlet�, �The Wild Palms�, �Absalom Absalom�. William was the eldest of the four children but he did not get on very well with his brothers, and these early disparities between him and his brothers caused his some anxieties which were aggravated by his father�s strange hostility to him. In the meantime, William�s father started drinking more heavily than before, with the result that William�s mother felt miserable though she did ...

SHUAIB ASGHAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH GOVT. RAZVIA ISLAMIA COLLEGE HAROONABAD, PAKISTAN Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. (Macbeth,   Act V, Scene 5) When Macbeth learns of his wife's death, he cries out the above lines, which can be used as a clue to the meaning of the novel or to the structure of the novel. Certainly Faulkner plays with the idea that life is nothing but a shadow. The word   shadow   appears continually throughout Quentin's section, and it also occurs frequently throughout the rest of the novel. The implication of life is used by Faulkner to suggest that the actions performed by modern man are only shadows when compared with the greater actions performed by men of the past � that modern man is only a shadow of a being, imperfectly formed and inadequate to cope with the problem...

Complex subjects like the one in "The Sound and the Fury" cannot find their full expression in simple narration. They need illustration and that can be made only through symbolism. The theme of "The Sound and the Fury", the decadence of Compson family is largely clarified through symbolization of its central characters and their actions. Faulkner has worked out the whole pattern of the novel symbolically. The very title has symbolical implication. The motif of the novel has been conceived by Faulkner in a conflict between the order and chaos producing forces in symbolic terms. Mr. Compson nihilistic view that victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools, that virginity is myth invented by men and women are not conscious of it, that time is a mausoleum of all hopes and desires, Mrs. Compson's self-pity and isolation, Benjy's idiocy, Quentin's emasculation, Jason's pragmatic commercialism and Caddy's promiscuity symbolize it. The symb...

Basically the novel presents the story of the decline of a family. The family shown in the novel has traits which can be perceived as signs of decadence resulting from regional history. Compson's family comprises of long line of men full of decency and pride. But after civil war in America the family's fortunes and abilities declined rapidly. The Compson family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Compson, their four children Quentin, Caddy, Jason and Benjy. Mr. Compson is the first clear sign of decay in the family oppressed by the traditions. His self-pitying wife is a terrifying example of the functionless southern lady. Their children depict different degrees of degeneracy. Benjy is an idiot, Caddy is promiscuous and her daughter afterwards takes her path. Quentin drives himself to suicide by an obsession with his sister's dishonour. Jason is villainous. Faulkner thus identifies the sources of destruction of the family in their individual character, which are full of self-dest...