Absent love for the Compsons

William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is both complex and simple. The text is hard to read; from the beginning, and without warning, there is constant switching from past to present confusing the reader. In addition this constant switching, at first glance it leads the reader to think that there is no real plot and meaning to the story. However, there is meaning and it comes in the embodiment of Candace Compson.

Faulkner is one of the South’s most influential writers because he redefines southern literature in two ways—first, in keeping with the southern tradition, he employs realism in his work. Second, he questions the southerner’s mind set for motivation by giving his audience, who may be southerners, a rare opportunity to reflect on who they are and how they came to be. Todd’s posting about, “The truly interesting question is how do we as readers look at the idea of audience in this novel” gave way to most of my reaction to the text. The Sound and the Fury answered many questions I had when I first read Absalom, Absalom! The two novels reinforce each other. This maybe an answer to Todd’s question: the intended audience of this book, I believe, was geared initially toward southerner’s. I think Faulkner’s purpose for writing this book was to force southerner’s to take a look into their backyard. Candace Compson is the motivation for all the Compson’s brothers. Benjamin, Quentin, and Jason are obsessed with Caddy because she gives them what their mother neglected to—love. Caddy is a substitute mother figure for the boys, and maybe for herself, which is why she ends the way she does. Candace did not have a positive female role model to teach her the ways of the world, particularly when it came men. Now, one can argue that Dilsey may have been that positive role model for Candace, but let’s not forget that Dilsey is black. Therefore, under southern standards socially deemed inferior. So Candace may have not look at Dilsey pre se as a positive female role model to learn from, and Dilsey may have thought it not to be her place to tell Caddy what she should and should not do.

Nevertheless, Candace mistake love for other things such as sex. It is the same for the Compson brothers; they mistake their love for Caddy as something more than what it should be. Love is one of the forces that hold families together. The Compson family does not have it therefore its falling apart. Faulkner’s uses his characters as representation for what the old south had and what it longs for. Starting with Quentin, he wants to continue on the family’s past greatness, but he has not nurtured from birth to do so.