A Psychoanalytic Approach to Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury

Loyalty should be considered a quality that is supposed to keep family ties together and use the shield of bravery to protect it. It is proven that devotion in families of today, are lost and bravery shows no character in a person. It is a personality that each individual has in them only to be used in the most courteous way and should not be used selfishly. Loyalty cannot be purchased and must be earned. If it used in the wrong way, it can climax to a disaster.

The characters in The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner, are psychologically complex, haunted, prone to spells of vanity and desires, and ultimately tragic. Always one to play the role of the noble Southern gentleman, Quentin Compson III is passionate and neurotic, consumed with the ideal Southern values of chivalry and honor. Quentin is tormented by his father’s nihilistic philosophy and degradation of women and African Americans, as Jason Compson III provides no moral compass to steer Quentin away from the storms of his chaotic thoughts. Rational, cold, and calculating, Jason Compson IV is a cruel and racist man who will stop at nothing to ensure financial success. Caddy Compson, unlike her hypochondriac Mother,

     William Faulkner is one of America's most talked about writers and his work should be included in any literary canon for several reasons. After reading a few of his short stories, it becomes clear that Faulkner's works have uniqueness to them. One of the qualities that make William Faulkner's writings different is his close connection with the South. Gwendolyn Charbnier states, 'Besides the sociological factors that influence Faulkner's work, biographical factors are of great importance…'; (20). Faulkner's magnificent imagination led him to create a fictional Mississippi county named Yoknapatawpha, which includes every detail from square mileage of the county to the break down of

William Faulkner uses imagery to represent Miss Grierson’s confrontation to change by vividly describing her appearance. With the description given of Emily, readers might conclude that it symbolizes her inability to change. He describes

    Analyzing character in a Faulkner novel is like trying to reach the bottom of a bottomless pit because Faulkner's characters often lack ration, speak in telegraphed stream-of-consciousness, and rarely if ever lend themselves to ready analysis.  This is particularly true in As I Lay Dying, a novel of a fragmented and dysfunctional family told through fragmented chapters.  Each character reveals their perspective in different chapters, but the perspectives are true to life in that though they all reveal information

Faulkner grew up in Mississippi in the beginning of the twentieth century ('William Faulkner'; 699). He was the son to Murray C. and Maud Butler Faulkner (Hoffman 13). Growing up in the South in the early 1900's meant being exposed to harsh racism. He watched the blacks endure unbelievable amounts of cruelty and was amazed at how the blacks conducted themselves with such dignity. He witnessed, first hand, what discrimination is and could not comprehend why this goes on. In many of Faulkner's works I found that he portrayed blacks as quite,easy-going, well-tempered people. He attempted to show them as heroes. It is my belief that Faulkner writes about the south because that is the subject that has affected his life most.

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner presents yet another example of a woman who possesses feelings of adoration and hatred but is constantly in despair and isolation because of the male influences in her life. Like the woman, Delia, in “Sweat”, she holds these hateful and even fearful feelings held up inside of herself until she acts out and does something drastic, for example, murdering Homer Barron (913). In “A Rose for Emily”, like in “Sweat”, the male figures are characterized as being very authoritative and controlling, in the case of Emily, her father is this male figure. The narrator provides a detailed description of him next to Emily as others pictured them, as a “tableau”. “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the backflung front door.”(909). The imagery of the father clutching the whip next to the fragile Emily against a such a pure white background brings one to see and acknowledge the dominating and controlling nature of their relationship, better than any passage of conversation ever could

William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” describes a typical relationship between wealthy people and poor people during the Civil War.

William Faulkner, recognized as one of the greatest writers of all time, once made a speech as he accepted his Nobel prize for writing in which he stated that a great piece of writing should contain the truths of the heart and the conflicts that arise over these truths. These truths were love, honor, pity, pride, compassion and sacrifice. Truly it would be hard to argue that a story without these truths would be considered even a good story let alone a great one. So the question brought forward is whether Faulkner uses his own truths of the heart to make his story "Barn Burning." Clearly the answer to this question is yes; his use of the truths of the heart are prevalent

actions to show that no one will own or control him. He has no regard

William Faulkner’s novel, The Sound and the Fury, exemplifies the very meaning of an internal conflict between order and chaos through the forlorn and tragic character, Quentin Compson. Although Quentin is displayed with an outward appearance that can be described as orderly, it is apparent through his chaotic thoughts that he is overwhelmed by his ardent views on the Compson family’s honor, which was destroyed when Caddy lost her virginity.

Faulkner’s use of southern gothic writing style helps the reader build a mental depiction of Miss Emily. When the town sent their ambassadors to discuss the taxes that were owed, Faulkner described Miss Emily as “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water” (2182). This description gives the reader the sense that the character is not well. Faulkner’s description that Miss Emily looked bloated achieves the desired effect on the reader to show how hideous she appears. This graphic description, combined with the author’s depressing description of the parlor (2182), makes the reader think of death. The reader gets the sense of being in a funeral parlor which helps to strengthen Faulkner’s narrative.

There are several ways in which William Faulkner's short story "Barn Burning" is indicative of literary modernism. It depicts a relevant historical period and is part of the frontiersman literary tradition (Gleeson-White, 2009, p. 389). The author utilizes a number of purely literary approaches that were innovative for the time period in which the tale was originally published (in 1932), such as employing a young child as a narrator complete with misspelled words and broken, puerile thoughts. However, the most eminent way in which this story embraces the tradition of literary modernism is in the author's rendition of dynamic social conventions that were in a state of flux at the time of the writing. Specifically, his treatment of race is the inverse of how race is generally portrayed in American literature prior to the early part of the 20th century. An analysis of this integral component of "Barn Burning" reveals that Faulkner's unconventional rendering of African American characters in a desirable social status particularly as compared to that of the Snopes clan is crucial to this tale's inclusion as part of the tradition of literary modernism.

The story of "Barn Burning" was "first published in the June of 1939 in the Harper's Magazine and later awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award for the best short story of the year." The author, William Faulkner, "was one of America's most innovative novelists". The way he describes the smells, sites and sounds of the rural late 1800's make you feel as if you are there with the characters in this story. Through the use of symbolism, Faulkner tells the story about a relationship of a father and son. Fire was the most vital symbol used and describes the way, Abner, the main character in the story faces all of his challenges. He lived his life like a flaming inferno destroying

“A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, focuses on many different literary criticisms. A psychological criticism expresses literature through personality, state of mind, feelings, and emotions. “The psychological approach is a unique form of criticism in that it draws upon psychological theories in its interpretation of a text” (George). In this story psychological criticism is shown greatly through Emily, the main character of the book. Do you know why Emily acts and behaves the way that she does? Emily is in a denial, and the situation is making her delusional.