Reflections on the Sound and the Fury

Reflections of the 1920s in
The Sound and the Fury
Nancy D. Hargrove
Mississippi State University
The decade of the 19208was an exciting, turbulent, and contradictory
period in American history, during which the nation felt the aftershocks of
disillusionment resulting from World War I, experienced undreamed-of
material prosperity as well as new freedoms in the moral and spiritual
spheres, and witnessed tremendous technological advances from radio
broadcasting to solo air flight across the Atlantic. In terms of its literature,
the decade was no less amazing; indeed, it was one of the most incredible in
the history of literature because of the stature of its greatest writers, the
number of major works produced, and the strong showing of all of the
genres. Many of America's most enduring literary figures sprang into real
prominence in the 19208,and their creations share similarities in content,
technique, imagery, and allusions. Works such as Eliot's The Waste Land
(1922), O'Neill's The Hairy Ape (1922) and Desire Under the Elms (1924),
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925), and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
(1926) and A Farewell to Anns (1929) have long been recognized and
analyzed as classic examples of American literature of the 19208;however,
Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929), while acknowledged as one of the
greatest novels of the twentieth century, has rarely been considered in the
context of the 19208.1 Yet close examination clearly reveals that it too
manifests the characteristics closely associated with those other supreme
productions of this extraordinary decade; in addition, this approach to the
text contributes new insights into Faulkner's brilliance in creating a sense of
reality, developing character, and obliquely criticizing the excesses of the
time.
One of the most striking characteristics of the literature of the 20s is its
dedication to innovation both in subject matter and in style, perhaps best
expressed in that cry which resounded through the anistic world of the time,
"Make it new'" A prime example of the former is the frank and daring
treatment of sexual concerns, particularly in areas which had heretofore
been considered taboo, revealing the obvious influence of Freud which
permeated the decade. It is seen in the torrid love scenes with their
Freudian ovenones between Abbie and Eben in Desire Under the Elms, in
Brett Ashley's casual and not-so-casualliaisons in The Sun Also Rises, and in
the meaningless sexual encounters and in the reference to abortion in The
Waste Land.
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Like other major writers of the 208, Faulkner also ventures into sexual
and psychological territory previously unexplored. The promiscuity first of
Caddy and later of her daughter Quentin is presented bluntly and directly.
As a result ~f numerous sexual encounters with various young men, Caddy
becomes pregnant but has no idea who the father is. When her response to
Quentin's question, "Have there been very many: is "too many: he realizes,
"Youdon't know whose it is then" (143). Further, she confides to him, "There
was something terriblein me sometimes at night 1 could see it grinningat me 1
could see it through them grinning at me throughtheirfaces" (138). Eighteen
years later, her daughter Quentin is also promiscuous, climbing down the
pear tree at night to have sex with various young men. When Luster finds a
discarded metal container of condoms with the trade name "Agnes Mabel
Becky" under a bush near the house, the man with the red tie indicates
directly what it means: "'Who come to see her last night,' he said. 'I don't
know.' Luster said. 'They comes every night she can climb down that tree. I
don't keep no track of them.' 'Damn if one of them didn't leave a track.' he
said" (61). Quentin herself acknowledges her immorality, "'I'm bad and I'm
going to hell, and I don't care'" (235), ironically echoing Caddy's words to
her brother, "'don't cry I'm bad'" (196).
Even more daring in 1929 than this direct portrayal of promiscuity is
Faulkner's introduction of the forbidden subject of incest, an obvious
influence of Freudian psychology. Quentin I loves Caddy so intensely that
he wishes that he, not Dalton Ames, were her lover, and he even tells his
father they have committed incest: "I have committed incest 1 said father it
was 1 it was not Dalton Ames" (97-8). And the startling suicide-pact scene
between Quentin I and Caddy in which she lies seductively in the water of
the branch with the sweet smell of honeysuckle and rain permeating the air
is one of the most intensely sensual in modern literature.
Further, although it has only been pointed out by two scholars (Longley
147; Bleikasten, Failure 159-60), Faulkner implies in a subtle, understated
manner that Jason is sexually attracted to and aroused by his niece, although
he never acknowledges these feelings even to himself; indeed, Longley
proposes that "part of his hatred is transference of his deeply repressed
incestuous attraction toward Quentin" (147). Jason's sexual response to her
is evident in the details on which he focuses as he describes her on the
morning of April 6: "She brushed her hair back from her face, her kimono
slipping off her shoulder" (227); "Her kimono came unfastened, flapping
about her, damn near naked" (228). In addition, even though he condemns
her seductive dress and actions, he is titillated by them; for example, while
his language is general and impersonal ("every man"), he indirectly reveals
his own sexual response to her scanty clothing when he notes that she is
wearing "a dress that if a woman had come out doors even on Gayoso or
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Beale street [in Memphis] when I was a young fellow with no more than that
to cover her legs and behind, she'd been thrown in jail. I'll be damned if
they don't dress like they were trying to make every man they passed on the
street want to reach out and clap his hand on it" (289). His frantic efforts to
prevent her from sleeping with the carnival man stem as much from jealousy
as from a desire to protect the family name and to avoid personal
humiliation. Finally, at the dinner table that evening, he makes a taunting,
wlgar, sexual pun whose double meaning is obvious only to Quentin: "I
helped the plates and she begun to eaL 'Did you get a good piece of meat?' I
says, 'If you didn't, I'll try to find you a better one'" (321), possibly referring
to himself.
Experimentation with style as well as with subject matter marks all the
decade's great works. The wide range of technical experiments can be seen
in Eliot's disjunctive form, various styles (particulary in Part II), and
innovations in meter, rhyme, language, and obscure allusions in The Waste
Land; in O'Neill's use of dialects, his portrayal of the human consciousness
through spoken asides, and his mastery of styles as disparate as
expressionism and naturalism in his plays of the 208'; and in Hemingway's
introduction of wlgarities and of sparse, journalistic prose. Many of the
decade's writers, including Eliot, O'Neill (see E. Murray 16-35), and
Fitzgerald (see E. Murray 179-205), employ cinematic techniques, and all of
them experiment in some way with time, stream of consciousness, diction
(especially heretofore taboo words such as "bitch" and "slut"), and the
mechanics of conventional English.
Like his contemporaries in the 208, Faulkner too makes radical
innovations in technique in The Sound and the Fury;as Evelyn Scott noted in
her famous 1929 review, "The method of presentation is, as far as I know,
unique" (7). While his extensive experiments with multiple view points,
jumbled and abruptly shifting time sequences, and stream-of-consciousness
have been well-documented, the influence of silent films of the 20s on his
style has been less often acknowledged.2 However, as Edward Murray
suggests, The Sound and the Fury is a "highly cinematic novel" (157).
According to Faulkner's brothers Murry and John, Faulkner went regularly
to the movies at Oxford's Lyric Theatre from about 1913 on (M. Faulkner
49-52; J. Faulkner 93), and he undoubtedly saw some of the great
contemporary Russian and European films during his travels in the United
States and Europe in the mid-twenties. His familiarity with the experiments
in cinematic techniques undertaken in the teens and the twenties by such
filmmakers as D.W. Griffith, Abel Gance, Fritz Lang, and Sergei Eisenstein
is evident in The Sound and the Fury. Most obvious is his use of montage, a
technique of film editing highly developed in the 20s in which separate
pieces of film are mounted (hence the French term "montage") or put
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together in a sequence whose significance the viewer must deduce. Its
foremost proponent Eisenstein emphasizes its reliance on dynamic
juxtap9sition in defining it as "collision,
the conflict of two pieces in
opposition 10 each other" (37). An excellent example occurs in Eisenstein's
1924 classic "Strike,"in which a "scene of workers being cut down by cavalry
is followed by a shot of cattle being slaughtered" ("Montage"). The kinds of
things that can be juxtaposed include time periods, characters, settings,
actions, or objects. Faulkner, not surprisingly, uses montage in a variety of
ways in the novel: in the overall structure with its four different versions of
the same story, in specific passages in the first three chapters in which scenes
from the past and the present "collide,"and in individual contrasting images
such as Caddy's muddy drawers and her shining veil or the smell of
honeysuckle and that of roses.
Other filmic techniques appear as well. Cross-cutting is evident in the
quick shifts back and forth between past and present in Chapter I's scene at
the dinner table into which are interspersed moments from the namechange scene. The fade-in and the fade-out influence the way in which a
particular memory comes into Quentin's consciousness almost
imperceptibly, takes center stage, and then dissolves as another takes over in
the following passage: "the rust car in town a girl Girl that's what Jason
couldn't bear smell of gasoline making him sick then got madder than ever
because a girl Girl had no sister but Benjamin Benjamin the child of my
sorrowfulif I'd just had a mother so I could say Mother Mother- (213). Here
Quentin first remembers Jason's jealousy when Caddy was given a car by
Herbert Head just before their wedding, then thinks of his own relationship
with his sister, then shifts to his brother Benjy, hearing in memory
Caroline's whining complaint about having an idiot, and finally feels the
anguish of never having had the love of his cold-hearted mother. The closeup can be seen in the intent, exclusiye focus on Quentin's hand on Caddy's
throat feeling "the first surge of blood there. . . in strong accelerating beats"
(202-3) when he says Dalton Ames's name, while the flashback appears in
the retracing midway through Chapter IV of Jason's activities on Easter
morning: "He was twenty miles away at that time [i.e., when Benjy and
Luster are eating lunch]. When he left the house [about 9 a.m.], he drove
rapidly to town . . ." (376). Finally,as Murraysuggests,Faulkner's"timesense, his concern with simultaneity, is very much filmic" (157). One of the
best examples is found in Chapter IV's narrative of two separate actions
which occur simultaneously. Although the narrator must tell first one and
then the other, they are happening at the same time. On Easter Sunday
during the period between 9 a.m. and early afternoon, Dilsey cleans up the
kitchen, attends church, and then fixes lunch for Benjy and Luster, while
Jason makes his futile visit to the sheriff, drives twenty miles to Mottson,
...
and, after finding someone to drive his car, returns to Jefferson. The two
separate but simultaneous actions then converge in the novel's climactic
finale in the square.
Many of the decade's great works share similar themes which reflect in
stunning fashion the emotional climate of the 208, a climate which, beneath
the veneer of frivolity and exuberance, was sombre and melancholy. Its
writers strikingly capture the mood of disillusionment and despair,
stemming largely from the negative experience of the Great War, that
haunted not only the artists and writers but also the general populace. Thus
the theme of disillusionment runs in a variety of forms through many works:
in bleak scenes such as the swarms of lost souls going to dull jobs in the
offices of London's City district in The Waste Land, in dissillusioned
characters like Nick Carraway, Jake Barnes, Frederic Henry, and Yank, and
in experiences without order or meaning like the fiesta in The Sun Also Rises
or the colossal parties in The Great Gatsby.
The Sound and the Fury also echoes this contemporary sense of malaise
and despair in the many losses that fill the novel--from Luster's relatively
insignificant loss of his quarter to Jason's losses on the cotton market, from
Quentin's and Benjy's loss of Caddy to Caddy's loss of her baby, and so on.
Further, many of the characters are disillusioned. Mr. Compson's profound
pessimism about life in general is expressed in his philosophy that human
experience is meaningless and man is doomed to failure: "... no battle is
ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man
his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and
fools" (93), while Quentin is so disillusioned by his father's nihilism, by
Caddy's fall from the ideal, by his loss of her when she marries, and by his
sense of his own imperfection and weakness that he ultimately commits
suicide.
Closely linked to the theme of disillusionment is the indictment, either
stated or implied, of the spiritual and emotional sterility of the modern
world. The absence of the spiritual is echoed in works such asA Farewellto
Anns, in which Catherine tells Frederic, "I haven't any religion. You're my
religion. You're all I've got" (116), and The Waste Land, in which the gods
are dead ("The Burial of the Dead") and the church of St. Mary Woolnoth
has no function other than keeping the hours. Likewise, in The Sound and
the Fury true spiritual values are utterly absent from the lives of all the
major characters except Dilsey, whose faith and commitment make her a foil
to the others. Mr. Compson and the children seem either to have totally
lost or never to have had religious beliefs,3 and, while Mrs. Compson
professes to be a devoted Christian ("I've tried so hard to raise them
Christians," 351), in fact her faith is shallow and superficial; that her Bible
has lain "face down" on the floor "among the shadows beneath the edgeof
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[the be(W (374-5) all Easter morning is symbolic of her lack of sincere
religious commitment. Further, Faulkner sets the present action at the
Easter season to reveal that this religious holiday celebrating resurrection
and renewed life has no meaning at all for most of the characters. For Jason
and Mrs. Compson it is an annoying inconvenience in that, because the
"darkies" must be allowed to go to church, they will have only a cold lunch
(348).
Not only has religion lost its ability to give value to human experience,
but so also has human love. One of the most striking aspects of the
literature of the 20s is the constant emphasis on the inability to love, to
establish or maintain meaningful human commitments. It is seen in
numerous unsuccessful or sterile relationships: those of Gatsby and Daisy,
of Jake and Brett, of Sweeney and Mrs. Porter, of the typist and the young
man carbuncular. And it is no coincidence that characters as different as
Benjy, the Fisher King, and Jake Barnes are actually impotent. Similarly, in
Faulkner's novel, neither family love nor romantic/sexual love provides
emotional fulfillment or support. Concerning the former, Mrs. Compson's
cold, unloving personality infects the entire family group, so that the
children grow up in what is basically a loveless environment. Concerning
the latter, none of the main characters experience fulfilling love
relationships on the romantic/sexual level; Quentin I is trapped in a
paralyzing virginity, Caddy and her daughter have promiscuous sexual
encounters with faceless young men, and Jason has a cold and uncommitted
liaison with a Memphis prostitute. In place of love, compassion, and simple
human solidarity are their opposites, hatred, cruelty, and isolation, best
illustrated in the relationship of .Jason and his niece; indeed, Quentin II is
the end result of the absence of love: "'Whatever I do, it's your fault,' she
says [to Jason]. 'If I'm bad, it's because I had to be. You made me. I wish I
was dead. I wish we were all dead'" (324).
Reflecting the rise of business and industry, of "easy money: of mass
advertising and consumer credit that occurred in the decade, writers in the
20s, almost without exception, deplore and attack the excessiveemphasis on
materialism which has taken the place of spiritual and emotional values.
Condemnations of the material are seen in the portrayal of the financial and
industrial sections of London as barren or polluted in The Waste Land, in
the direct attacks on the "damned Capitalist clarss" in The HairyApe (171),
and in the destructive end result of the belief in the power of money in The
Great Gatsby. Like his counterparts, Faulkner also criticizes the decade's
rampant materialism, largely through Jason's devotion to money. Jason's
empty and bitter life is built around money in two ways: first, for years he
has angrily resented not getting the bank job he had been promised by
Herbert Head, and, second, he has dedicated himself to acquiring money by
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various methods, including stealing money from his niece and playing the
cotton market. Qearly Faulkner suggests that such obsession results in a
terrifying sterility.
Despite the dominance of these negative and despairing themes, most
works of the 20s contain a few hopeful or positive elements: characters such
as Jake Barnes, Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, and even Brett- Ashley have
some redeeming or admirable qualities, and The Waste Land concludes with
the commands of the Thunder and the benediction "Shantib shantib
sbantib." Again, Faulkner's novel is no exception. Among all the weak,
victimi7.ed,and despicable characters, there is Di1sey,the strong, loving, and
stable black cook who endures. It is she who gives the Compson ,children
what little love they have, who buys Benjy a birthday cake with her own
money and consoles him when he moans in anguish, who stands up to Jason
and protects Quentin from him. Yet for all her goodness and strength she is
basically powerless to counteract in any significant way the destructive
effects of such figures as Jason and Mrs. Compson. Two other positive
features are that Caddy as a child is loving and spirited and that her
daughter gives Luster a quarter to go to the carnival, suggesting that at least
one good quality has survived the devastating and soul-destroying effects of
her upbringing.
In addition to sharing similarities in innovations and in themes, The
Sound and the Fury also contains a number of the images and symbols which
pervade the literature of the 20s and reinforce its major themes; however,
they are used less obviously and extensively in Faulkner's novel than in
other works. The waste land is the decade's dominant image, conveying the
sterility and waste of the modem world. It is found not only in the desert of
Eliot's great poem but also in the valley of ashes in The Great Gatsby and in
the rocky New England farm of Desire Under the Elms, among others. In
Faulkner's novel it appears, though only fleetingly, in scattered fragments
such as the following: "a broad flat dotted with small cabins. . .[which]were
set in small grassless "plots littered with broken things, bricks, planks,
crockery. . . . What growth there was consisted of rank weeds, and. . . trees
that partook also of the foul dessication which surrounded the houses"
(363). The details of this passage evoke Eliot's lines describing the waste
land:
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images. . . .(11. 19-22)
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The journey is another major 20s motif, although its traditional positive
symbolism of a meaningful quest with a definite, usually attained destination
or goal is ironically reversed. In works such as The Waste Land, The Sun
Also Rises, and The Hairy Ape either the journey lacks a specific or
significant goal or that goal is never attained; while the characters are
constantly on the move, making both short and long term journeys (the
numerous taxi rides in Paris and the long train trip to Spain in The Sun Also
Rises, for example), they are in a very real sense going nowhere. Thus in 20s
literature the image of the journey suggests the aimlessness, rootlessness,
and futility of modem existence. In Faulkner's novel it appears with these
meanings in every chapter in various forms: in Luster and Benjy's search
around the Compson property for the lost quarter (Chapter I); in Quentin's
walks and short rides on trolley and tram in the environs of Boston (Chapter
II); in Jason's numerous trips on foot and in his car to the hardware store,
the house, the bank, the drugstore, and the telegraph office (Chapter III);
and in Dilsey's walk to church, Jason's futile pursuit of Quentin, and Luster
and Benjy's carriage ride into town with which the novel closes (Chapter
IV).
The nightmare, conveying the chaos and terror of human experience and
reflecting the influence of Freudian psychology, is a common 205 metaphor
appearing, for example, in the nightmare vision of the destruction of
modem civilization in Part V of The Waste Land and in comparisons of the
fiesta and of Jake's relationship with Brett to a nightmare in The Sun Also
Rises: Bill calls the fiesta a "wonderful nightmare" (222), and, upon
encountering Brett again after a long absence, Jake comments, "I had the
feeling as in a nightmare of it all being something repeated, something I had
been through and that I must now go through again" (64). In Faulkner's
novel, the nightmare is evident not only in its fragmented structure but also
in such images as the evil faces leering at Caddy out of the dark (138) and
the shadowy figures floating underwater in Quentin I's memory of the black
superstition that a "drowned man's shadow was watching for him in the
water all the time" (111).
However, three major images in 205literature, the metropolis, the party,
and World War I, play no significant role in Faulkner's novel. Although the
Boston area is the actual locale of Chapter II and Memphis is mentioned on
several occasions, neither bears the symbolic weight which the city has in
other works, and the party and the war are entirely absent.
A final way in which The Sound and the Fury is similar to its counterparts
is in its focus on the 205 themselves, an aspect of the novel which has been
largely overlooked. As E. C. Wagenknecht notes, the 205 was a "here-andnow-minded period" (425); while to its writers the past seemed empty and
the future hopeless, the present was disturbing and exciting. Thus, many of
their works are actually set in the 20s (The Great Gatsby takes place in 1922
and The Sun Also Rises in 1925, for example) and are filled with specific
allusions to the times which serve a variety of purposes. Most obviously,
they create a sense of reality, giving an accurate, fascinating, and sometimes
critical reflection of the lifestyle, the morals and manners, and the mood as
well as of the events, issues, and well-known figures of the decade. In
addition, they aid in developing characters and provide unifying images and
dominant symbols. The supreme example, of course, is The Great Gatsby
with its descriptions of flappers such as Daisy and Jordan, of clothing (the
women's tight metallic cloche hats, Oatsby's pastel suits and white trousers),
of cars (Oatsby's "circus wagon," Daisy's white roadster), of actual songs
("Ain't We Oot Fun" and "The Sheik of Araby"), and of speculation,
prohibition, racial prejudice, jazz orchestras, and fabulous homes. The Sun
Also Rises contains references to prohibition, to boxing matches, to the
Scopes trial, and to women's fashions (Brett's wearing a man's felt hat,
sleeveless dresses, and no stockings as well as having a bobbed hairdo),
while The Waste Land refers to taxis and closed cars, demobilization from
World War I, and books published in the year 1920 (Hermann Hesse's Blick
Ins Chaos and Jessie L. Weston's From Ritual to Romance).
Once again, The Sound and the Fury is no exception, although allusions
to the time are less frequent and, therefore, less prominent than in other
works of the decade. As Millgate points out, "The notation of manners in
the novel is not especially rich, nor is any particular attention given to the
detailed creation of scene and setting" (88); he even suggests gently that "it is
possible to think that The Sound and the Fury would have been strengthened
by
. . . a richer
notation of setting and social context" (100). Nevertheless,
Faulkner does make use of a number of allusions to actual contemporary
conditions, issues, events, and people.
Like many of its counterparts, the novel is set, for the most part, in the
205; three of the four chapters take place in 1928, on the actual dates of
Oood Friday, Easter Saturday, and Easter Sunday in that year. Even the
weather of the novel's Easter day is an accurate recreation of the conditions
reported in the Memphis Commercial Appeal for April 8, 1928--partly
cloudy and cold:4 "The day dawned bleak and chill, a moving wall of grey
light out of the northeast" (370), and Luster comments, "Alwayscold Easter"
(342). However, by mid-morning "the rain had stopped. The air now drove
out of the southeast, broken overhead into blue patches. Upon the crest of
a hill beyond the trees and roofs and spires of town sunlight lay like a pale
scrap of cloth, was blotted away" (358). And the rest of the day alternates
between sun and clouds; as Dilsey and Benjy leave for church, "the sky was
broken into scudding patches" (350), and, as they return, they walk through
"the bright noon" (371).
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Faulkner concentrates the majority of allusions to the decade in Chapter
III, where he employs them brilliantly to create the reality of the present
world in which Jason lives, to define Jason's character, and to criticize
obliquely.the decade's rampant materialism.S Chapter III is, in the words of
Volpe, "a bitter invective against modem society, its commercialism, its
inhumanity, its superficial social and moral codes, its devotion to
mechanical contrivances" (124), and Brooks asserts that Faulkner "does
more in these 80 pages to indict the shabby small-town businessman's view
of life than Sinclair Lewis was able to achieve in several novels on the
subject" (67; see also MitIgate 1(0).
Perhaps most obvious are the references to the cotton market. In an
attempt to make money quickly and easily, Jason plays the cotton market,
reflecting the widespread participation in securities and commodities
speculation by all classes ofsociety in the 20s (Allen 241-265; Mowry 33-42)
as well as his own personal materialistic bent. In this case, while the details
about the market give a realistic sense of what speculation was like in the
20s and convey Jason's foolishness and ineptitude as a speculator, they are
not entirely accurate. In fact, all security and commodity markets in the
United States were closed on April 6, 1928, in observance of Good Friday
and thus no activity at all took place, although on AprilS the cotton market
showed some fluctuation and the Stock Exchange in general was described
as "boiling and turbulent" (Commercial Appeal, April 6, 1928, 25). Further,
Cobau argues that the extent of the fluctuation described in the novel is
"much too large for a single day of trading," concluding that Faulkner did
not know a great deal about cotton speculation and thus was not attempting
to be historically accurate but only to reveal Jason's character (260-1).
In Chapter III, the market gyrates wildly throughout the day, and Jason,
who has sold short with the expectation that the market will go down, loses
an unspecified amount of money because his account is closed when the
price of cotton shoots upward in the early afternoon. However, when the
market closes, "The price of cotton has reversed itself drastically and has
closed down for the day" (Cobau 259). A double irony is at work here; not
only does Jason lose the money he has invested, but, since the market does
indeed go down, he could have made a profit of $200 if his account had not
been closed. He loses his money because he does not carefully watch this
dangerously fluctuating market as he should, but instead goes on various
wild goose chases all day. Nor does he learn a lesson from this experience,
for in a fit of rage and frustration he rushes home for more money and
perversely places an order to buy. Apparently, this irrational and
unbusinesslike behavior is typical, suggesting that he has had many such
losses on the cotton market, losses that would explain at least in part what
has happened to all but $4,000 of the $36,000 ($200 per month for fifteen
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years) that Caddy has been sending to Quentin II (Volpe 121). As Longley
suggests, Jason is far from the "financial wizard" he fancies himself, for "in
his ignorance and arrogance he makes many business errors" (147).
Faulkner also uses Jason's car, his most prized possession, as a means of
conveying his materialism. The 20s has been called, among other things, the
Age of the Automobile; widely advertised and readily available on the new
instant-credit, easy-payment plans, the car was the decade's most desired
product (Allen 134-6; Mowry 26-32, 47-53). Its popularity can be seen in
the ten-page section entitled "The Auto World" in the Commercial Appeal
for April 8, 1928, in which enormous ads for the latest creations alternate
with various articles and pictures on every aspect of owning, driving, and
caring for cars. There is even one ad urgently insisting that families really
should have two cars! The prices reveal that $1,000, the amount Jason spent
(284, 294), could buy a very nice car indeed, although not the absolute top of
the line; 1928 models of the Dodge Victory Six sold for $1,095, of the
Willys-Knight Six for $995, of the Oakland two-door sedan for $1,045, and
of the Jordan 8 for $985 (CommercialAppeal, April 8, 1928, IV,3-12). That
Jason bought a car with the money which his mother gave him to invest in
Earl's business suggests the extent of his materialistic nature. His car
represents power and prestige to him. He describes it in monetary terms, "a
thousand dollars' worth of delicate machinery" (294), and he looks down on
cheaper, more ordinary makes such as Fords, although he never reveals
which make of car he owns: "I think too much of my car [to drive it on a bad
road]; I'm not going to hammer it to pieces like a ford" (297).6 Owning his
own fine car is also a means by which he gets revenge on Caddy, at least in
his own mind, for having owned the first car in town in 1910, a gift from
Herbert Head: "the first car in town a girl Girl that's what Jason couldn't
bear" (213). Ironically, it is also the source of enormous pain as the smell of
gasoline gives him excruciating headaches. Thus, although it is never
described in any detail, as is Gatsby's, for example, it functions as a forceful
symbol of Jason's worship of the material as well as reflecting accurately a
dominant element of the 20s; as Hagopian notes, this "power-driven
machine [is] symbolic of the money-drives ofthe industrial age" (109).
Further, Jason's hatred of foreigners and minorities, particularly Jews
and blacks, reveals both his own personal animosities and the intense and
accepted (indeed even popular) prejudice so prevalent at the time (Allen
38-62; Mowry 121-53). Indicative of the current emphasis on 100%
Americanism and the attendant dislike of foreigners, especially immigrants,
which followed World War I is Jason's comment, "I'll be damned if it hasn't
come to a pretty pass when any damn foreigner that can't make a living in
the country where God put him, can come to this one and take money right
out of an American's pockets" (239). When he loses money on the cotton
67
66
market, he vents his anger on the "eastern jews" who he believes control it:
"I don't want a killing. . .. I just want my money back that these damn jews
have gotten with all their guaranteed inside dope" (292). His prejudice
agains.tblacks is ironic in that he himself possesses the vel}' traits for which
he criticizes them: laziness ("What this country needs is white labor. Let
these trifling niggers starve for a couple of years, then they'd see what a soft
thing they have," 237); dishonesty ("I never found a nigger yet that didn't
have an airtight alibi for whatever he did," 271); and sheer worthlessness
("Did you ever have one [servant] that was worth killing?" 347).
Faulkner also employs the love of sports which characterized the decade
(Allen 66; Mowry 82-5), specifically the popularity of the New York
Yankees and Babe Ruth, to add to the atmosphere of reality and, more
important, to characterize Jason as a man whose hatred is so comprehensive
and whose jealousy of anyone who attains success so intense that he even
despises the most admired team and the most beloved sports hero of the
time:
"Well,"Mac says, "I reckon you've got your money on the
Yankees this year."
"What for?" I says.
"'The Pennant," he says. "Not anything in the League can beat
them. "
"Like hell there's not . . .. I wouldn't bet on any team that
fellow Ruth played on," I says. "Even if I knew it was going to win. "
"Yes?" Mac says.
"I can name you a dozen men in either League who're more
valuable than he is," I says.
"What have you got against Ruth?" Mac says.
"Nothing," I says. "I haven't got anything against him. I don't
even like to look at his picture." (314)
In this instance Faulkner's details are entirely accurate. In 1927 the
Yankees finished the season with a "phenomenal.714 winning average" and
won the World Series in four straight games; Babe Ruth hit .356, had 164
runs batted in, and hit "his record 60 homeruns, a greater number than was
hit by any other team in the American League that season" (Seymour 24).
They were expected to win the 1928 season also, but, since they had not
done particularly well in the pre-season games, baseball fans were
wondering, but did not really doubt the Yankees' ability to repeat. On
Easter weekend in 1928, speculation was intense and excitement high since
the pennant races would officiallybegin on April 11,when both leagues had
scheduled their opening games (CommercialAppeal, April 9, 12). Headlines
in the sports sections of the CommercialAppeal for April 6, 7, and 8, 1928
reflect the growing excitement and convey the high esteem in which both
Babe Ruth and the Yankees were held: "No One Seems to Be Worried at
Yankees' Early Failures" (April 6, 22); "Babe and Lou Finally Put on Home
Run Act" (April 7, 17); "Yankees Loom Large [to win American League
race] in Eyes of Experts" (April 8, See. I, 20). Indeed, the last article reports
that 85% of writers and sports editors polled "are convinced that Babe Ruth
and his mates will repeaL" That Jason perversely and obnoxiously sets
himself against logic, against the group, against a beloved hero reveals a
man determined to be an outsider, to evince a totally negative response to
even the most lighthearted and trivial aspects of life.
Certain elements of Jason's vocabulal}' also reflect the 205 and help to
characterize him further. That he freely uses words such as "slut," "bitch,"
"damn," and "hell" indicates the new openness in language typical of the
time. Further, he employs a popular slang term to refer disparagingly to
Quentin II's boyfriends: "Are you hiding out in the woods with one of those
damn slick-headed jellybeans?" (229; see also 298). "Jellybean"was an old
Southern expression for a loafer, but it was popularized in the twenties by F.
Scott Fitzgerald's short stol}' "'The Jelly-Bean," published first in The
Metropolitan in 1920 and again in Tales of the JazzAge in 1922. As the story
opens, Fitzgerald introduces his main character and defines the term "Jellybean": "Jim Powell. . . was a bred-in-the-bone, dyed-in-the wood, ninetynine three quarters per cent Jelly-bean and grew lazily all during Jelly-bean
season, which is every season, down in the land of the Jelly-beans well below
'Jelly-bean' is the name throughout the
the Mason-Dixon line
undissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life conjugating the verb to
idle in the first person singular--I am idling, I have idled, I will idle" (3-4). A
song in the story describing a young flapper as "the Queen of the Queens of
the Jelly-beans" (7) may also be echoed in Jason's criticism of his niece's
relationships with young men. Further, that her jellybeans are "slickheaded" may reflect the fad of using pomade on the hair popularized by the
movie idol Valentino.
A final, significant element of the decade7 is seen in Quentin herself,
who typifies the flapper in her rebelliousness, her sexual freedom, her crude
language ("You damn old goddamn," 225), her heavy use of cosmetics, and
her skimpy clothing: "'You don't look all the way naked,' [Jason tells her],
'even if that stuff on your face does hide more of you than anything else
you've got on'" (232). These characteristics accurately convey traits of the
flapper, thus giving a sense of the time; furthermore, they provide Faulkner
with another means of revealing Jason's character through his interactions
with her in the present and through his responsibility for the kind of person
she is. However, their major function is to develop Quentin's own character
. . ..
68
69
and to convey the horrible results of her loveless environment and
upbringing. Thus their use here is more thematic than historicaL
Although it has rarely been pointed out, it is clear that The Sound and
thi Fury.is very much a product of its time, reflecting its issues, concerns, and
attitudes; thus it is in the mainstream of the literature produced during this
decade and shares with those other great works radical experimentation
with subject matter and style as weD as similar themes, images, and
contemporary allusions. In addition to establishing its similarities with its
counterparts, an examination of the novel in the context of the 205 reveals
yet another facet of Faulkner's brilliant technique, his- use of certain
dominant 20s images to reinforce his themes and his use of 20s allusions to
create a sense of reality, to condemn the over-emphasis on materialism, and
to develop the character of Jason and Quentin II. Reading The Sound and
the Fury in the context of its times thus yields additional insights into the
novel's complexities, suggesting that a similar approach to Faulkner's other
works, particularly Mosquitos, Sartoris, Sanctuary, and Light in August, might
prove equally valuable.
NOTES
IThere
has been no full examination
and only a few aitics consider
of The Sound ond 1M Fury in the context of the 205,
the topic at all. In his study on American literature
in the 205,
Hoffman devotes less than three pages to the novel and limits his comments to Faulkner's
the subconscious
(213-14).
Cowan briefly comments
appears" and plac:a it in "the line of major European
only other attempts
similarities
on i~ reflection
are limited to discussions of its
by Miner, Volpe, FaseI, and Gordon.
exclusively to easays on the novel, such as those edited by Bleilwten,
contain no information
20n Faulkner
~.
of "the age In which it
works appearing after the war" (2-3). The
to relate it to the decade or its literature
to The Waste Lond
use of
Even books devoted
Cowan, and Meriwether,
on the topic.
Since references
and her daughter,
into IOme kind of Stoicism," which is a version of his
to religion are totally absent from descriptions
of both Caddy
one may deduce that it is equally absent from their lives.
41 have chosen the Memphis Commerit;a1 Appeal because it was one of the newspaperl
Faulkner
regularly
read.
The Oxford £ogk
was a weekiy newspaper
The issues for April 5 and 12, 1928 contain little that is pertinent
have a weather
II takes a place in 1910, and Chapter
IV, although set in the
focused 10 intensely on their own concerns and relationships within
the family/lerYant Itructure
that the e:xtema1 modem world illiteta11y c:xc1uded.
~aulkner
("ford").
indicates J8IOD'llow opinion of the Ford make of car by using a lower case letter
Of coune,
part of Jason'l
negative response
issues from the fact that Quentin
II's
camIvaI man apparently OWDIa Ford.
7Other minor aIIusiODl to the decade include Prohibition
(305), golf, and coca-cola.
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Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Y~ert/Qy. New York: Harper, 1931.
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-, ed. WdJiamFouJ1cner'sThe Sound and the Fury: A Critical Casebook. New York: Garland,
1982
Brooks, Ceanth. WdJiamFauJIcner:The YoknopaJawphaCountry. New Haven: Yale UP, 1963.
Cobau, William W. "Jason Compaon and the Costs of Speculation." Mississippi Qumterly 22
(Summer 1969): 257-61.
CommercialAppeal 6, 7, 8, 9 April 1928.
Cowan, Michael H. "Introduction." Tweruielh~CenlU1y
111lerpretalions
of The Sound and the
Fury. Englewood Ciffs, N. J.: Prentice, 1968.
Eliot, T. S. "The Waste Land." The Complete Poems ond Plays: 1909-1950. New York:
Harcourt, 1962
Fase1, Ida. "A 'Conversation' between Faulkner and Eliot." Mississippi Qumterly 20 (1967):
195-206.
Faulkner, William. The Sound ond 1M Fury. New York: Vintage, 1929.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The GreoJGalSby. New York: Saibner's, 1925.
-. TaksoflMlazzAge.
New York: Saibner's,l922.
82
Stoic. Brooks points out that Jason worships only money and that Quentin, although referring
to Jesus and St. Francis, "has retreated
contempot'llJ)' realities, Chapter
present, portrays clwactera
Folks, Jc:fIiey J. "William Faulkner and Silent Film." SoUlhem Qumterly 19 (Spring 1981): 171-
and film, see Folks, Kawin, D. M. Murray, and E. Murray.
Compaon appears to be an atheist, having rejected all religious belief; at beat, he is a
father's (70).
Chapter I doea not contain referenc:a to the period because Benjy has no sense of
that
published on Thursdays.
to this study; they do not even
report for Easter weekend.
5Jason,s chapter is the only one to reOect the 205 because he alone truly lives in the present
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Twentiu: Fiction, Poetry,Drama. Ed. Warren French. Deland, F1a: Everett, 1975.
Hagopian, John V. "Nihilism in Faulkner's The Sound ond 1M Fury." The Merrill Studies in The
Sound ond 1M Fury. Ed. James B. Meriwether. Columbus: Merrill, 1970.
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-. TheSunAlsoRbes. New York: Saibner's,I926.
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The Twenties. New York: Viking, 1955.
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Longley, John 1.. The Tragic Mask: A StUdy of FouJ1cner's Heroes.
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world of aocial, economic, and political issues. AI Millgate notes, Jason is "wholly in the world,
Millgate, Michael.
acutely sensitive
Miner, Ward 1.. The World ofWdJiam FouJ1cner. New York: Cooper Square, 1963.
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commercial
current" (99).
The Achievement
ofWdJiam FouJ1cner. New York: Random,
U of North
1966.
0:
~_~~.h."..~'
.~".
_.".Ar~..
70
Mowry, George B., ed. The 1'wenIks: Fords, Flappers,and FtlIIIllks. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.:
Prentice, 1963.
MUrray,.D. M. "Faulkner, the Silent Comedies, and the Animated Cartoon." Southml
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Murray, Edward. The Cinemolic lmagituuion. New York: Ungar, 1972
O'NeiU, Eugene. "Desire Under the Elms." '1'1ITee
Plap of Eugene O'Neill. New York: Vintage,
1959.
-.
"The H3iry Ape." The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie,The HairyApe. New York: Vintage,
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Seymour, 'Ibom. "Faulkner's The Sound and tM Fwy." Explicalor 39 (Fall 1980): 24-5.
Volpe, Edmond L. A Readq's Guide to WdJiamFaulkner. New York: Farrar, 1964.
Wagenknecht, B. C. CavaJcadeoftMAmmconNovd.
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