The Sound and the Fury

The Sound and the Fury is a novel written by William Faulkner and published in 1929.

Fast Facts

1. Author: William Faulkner
2. Genre: Fiction
3. Publication Date: 1929
4. Publisher: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith
5. Pages: 336
6. ISBN 0-679-73224-1

Plot Synopsis

The Sound and the Fury is broken into four parts and told by four different narrators, three of which are sons of the Compson family and the fourth is a third person observer. The first part is told by Benjy, a mentally disabled boy, who tells his side of the story in a semi-random disordered manner. The third portion is told by Quentin, who is intelligent and a student at Harvard University. Jason narrates the third part of story, he is the youngest of the boys and not very likeable. The narrators tell many of the same story but each offering a different perspective. The once proud family experiences financial hardship, loss of religious faith and ruination of their reputation.

Critical Reception

• "Faulkner performed a labor of imagination that has not been equaled in our time... first, to invent a Mississippi county that was like a mythical kindgom, but was complete and living in all its details; second, to make his story of Yoknapatawpha County stand as a parable or legend of all the Deep South." - Malcolm Cowley
• "For all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must return to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics." - Ralph Ellison

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