![]() Hey, that’s why we offered them to you.Perspective writing is an aspect of narration many writers struggle with. Dilsey doesn’t need a strong "I." She’s more concerned with building a sense of community.Īny of these readings are plausible. Maybe she just doesn’t need to process all of the stuff that a Benjy or a Quentin feels compelled to think about all the time. See, she spends so much time thinking about and caring about the fates of others around her that she actually does have a greater critical distance from her own self-perception than the other characters do. In a way, the third-person narration more accurately reflects her perspective than a first-person voice could. Dilsey’s the only character who’s not completely absorbed by her own world.Either way, the fact that Dilsey’s section is narrated in third person distances us from the mindset of the most central black characters in the novel. Perhaps he felt that it would be dishonest to try to imagine himself into Dilsey’s world. Perhaps Faulkner just didn’t want to assume the responsibility of thinking about another perspective. For a novel that’s steeped in racial meditations, The Sound and the Fury is still essentially offering a white perspective on racial relations. The logic for this theory runs something like the logic of the last one. Faulkner wasn’t comfortable inhabiting (and narrating) the experiences of a black character.It’s more about men’s experiences of women. Nonetheless, it’s not about women’s experiences. After all, it’s Caddy who gets married and leaves. In a lot of ways, this is a novel about women. Compson’s lecture to Quentin, but that’s nothing compared to the looong time we get to spend in the boys’ heads. Compson, Dilsey, Frony) are talked about. Think about it: all the women in the novel (Caddy, Mrs. Faulkner didn’t want to inhabit (and narrate) the experiences of a woman.We’ve got a couple of theories to toss your way, however: What’s with the fourth section, then? Why don’t we get to hear Dilsey’s voice? It’s a pretty big question for this novel (and we have to tell you, it has stumped critics far older and deader than we are now). Plus, when we’re reading first-person narration, we really get to get inside characters’ heads and see what it’s really like to be Quentin (or Benjy or Jason). And they all have to deal with the legacy of emotional manipulation that their parents leave them. They all meditate on their childhood at some point in their sections. ![]() By combining all of these perspectives, Faulkner allows us to see just how much siblings share. They’ve all got unique perspectives on their family lives and their individual sorrows. In this case, though, we sort of think that it’s true. Why the switch-up between narrative voices? Well, for one thing, it helps us to see that all of the Compson kids are special in their own way. Critics tend to refer to this section as Dilsey’s section, because it follows her actions the most closely, but the narrative voice just isn’t Dilsey’s own. Actually, the Voice in the Sky is just what we’re calling the omniscient narrator of the final section. ![]() Unlike other four-part novels, however, it’s also got four different narrators: Benjy, Quentin, Jason, and the Voice in the Sky. As you’ve probably noticed by now, The Sound and the Fury is actually a four-part novel.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |