Faulkner, William,--1897-1962--Sound and the fury

In the reading of William Faulkner's The Sound and the
Fury and As I Lay Dying, the reader's preconceived ideas
about sanity and insanity change through identification
with each character. Both novels are told from multiple
points of view. The reader's transition from one section
of the novel into the next reflects crossing a threshold
beyond which definitions of sanity must be reformulated.
This creative process, mimetic of the writer-text relationship,
leads to acceptance of all states of consciousness,
which are represented by sections of the novel, as
part of the whole. Insanity becomes the fragmen t ation
between each section, or state of consciousness, and the
whole. This fragmentation appears in characters as hate,
despair, and rage. Sanity emerges as wholeness and
integration, represented in the novel and actualized in
the reader as acceptance and love.

William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929) and
As I Lay Dying (1930) have often been considered as related
works. It is my contention that As I Lay Dying is
indeed a direct outgrowth of the earlier book and that it
restates certain themes and exhibits several of the same
personality types. A basic theme of the two books is the
antithetical opposition of passive and active elements.
Lesser themes are the opposition of words and deeds and
the closely related opposition of individual freedom and
the inability to achieve that freedom. Faulkner illustrates
these themes through his characters. Parallel characters
in the two novels are Caroline Compson and Anse Bundren,
Caddy Compson and Addie Bundren, Miss Quentin and Jewel,
and Quentin and Darl. In his presentation of the tension
operating between these antithetical elements, Faulkner
does not necessarily provide a resolution of that tension,
but leaves conclusions to the reader.