Essay Comparing Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury

In William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, the writer explores the complicated relationship between members the Compson family, an aristocratic Southern family, and puts them against the backdrop of post-Civil War America, a time when concepts of politics, economics, and social order were rapidly changing. The novel itself it unique in its prose, which relies heavily on the first person stream-of-consciousness narration from its characters, but it’s also a story that heavily relies on its setting and time period as the story is as much about the characters themselves as well as the environment in which they live.
In order to fully understand the novel, it is necessary to understand the historical context that permeates the novels most important themes and interpretations because William
According to Arlin Turner, many Southern texts before Faulkner’s time were ripe with “the thoroughgoing idealization of the planter society”, especially after the Civil War as Southern writers were quick “to defend their way of life which had been destroyed. As they looked with nostalgia to a society which had been swept away” (Turner 126). While these aspects are played with in Faulkner’s novel, it is played with more in the characterizations he makes, particularly with the Compson matriarch, Mrs. Compson. Mrs. Compson is one of the most prominent non-narrating characters in the novel, she plays a large role in setting up the Southern themes that underlie the novel—this is particularly true because she is of an older generation than those narrating the story (each chapter is individually narrated by each of her three sons). Her prominence in the novel is important because, while she does not have a narrative voice within the novel, her presence within it have a strong effect on the actions and mental processes of the characters that do have narrative voice. This