William Faulkner "The Sound and the Fury". The Corruption of Southern Aristocratic Values (PDF)

Literature Review from the year 2013 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 5.00, , course: American literature, language: English, abstract: "The Sound and the Fury" is a novel written by the celebrated American novelist William Faulkner. It was first published in 1929 and was soon recognized as one of the greatest Southern novels ever written. Praised for its complexity and subtlety, the novel challenges the reader until the last page with its stream of consciousness narratives which require a significant amount of attention from the reader, given the fact that Faulkner changes both the narrative and the style of writing with each chapter.

Through the narratives of three characters: mentally disabled Benjamin, his oldest brother Quentin III and their cold-hearted brother Jason IV., Faulkner tells the story of the tragic decline of the Compson family in a town of Jefferson in the northern Mississippi.

Each of these characters, in their own special way, describe the final stages of the downfall of their once wealthy and acknowledged family which started after the Civil war and with the beginning of the Reconstruction.

The fourth chapter is written in the narrative voice of the author himself but the main focus is put on Dilsey, a black woman who practically raised all the Compson children on her own and serves as the central moral figure of the novel until it reaches its defeating end.