Essay on The Strength of Dilsey in The Sound and the Fury

Falling apart and little hope left, the Bundren family travels together and only weakens their connections with one another. Attaining family love and appreciation,Faulkner alleges, can only occur when the members

Since Caddy eventually grew up and left home, assumedly there is no longer a female figure to care for the “children.” Moreover, in the South, the death of a Mother would result in the finding of a new woman to be in charge of the children and the home (Haynes 122). The loss of Caddy’s innocence marked her “death” and therefore started the end of the Compson legacy. Without Caddy, Benjy’s ability to function diminished causing him to “sexually assault” a girl walking by him home whom he thought was his sister (Faulkner 35). Caddy’s push for the future, complete with having her daughter, is very progressive and diminishes the notion of a stable South. Caddy is a representation of right of moving forward, however, now that she left she cannot come back. Her mother and brother Jason banish her from the family (Faulkner 131). Slowly the Southern ways are dying, and as more and more individuals leave, are forbidden from re-entering. Upon leaving, many do not want to return causing a shrinking population. Faulkner used the Compson family as a metaphor for what he perceived to be currently happening in the South.

Dilsey is not at all scared of him and even when Mrs. Compson says he is the head of the house, with a tart reply Dilsey responds that there is no use in waking Miss. Quentin up just to suit him. Dilsey knows that the house will not run smoothly if not for her and how heavily they all depend upon her to keep things in order at the Compson household. Going further back in the novel to Jason’s section, there is a situation where Jason is about to strike Miss. Quentin with his belt for misbehaving (not going to school, lying to her grandmother, not listening to anyone). Dilsey cuts right in and interferes Jason before he is about to strike her. She is not a bit scared at all and stands right in front Jason looking him in the eye and challenging him to hit her [p.98]. The fact that she could do that and get away with it is a sure sign of some sort of cultural change and boundary breaking between ‘Blacks’ and ‘Whites’. Dilsey takes her duty very seriously and regardless of being ill treated she stays loyal to the Compson family. This shows a cultural breach because Dilsey is black and during that time period, they were considered inferior.

In this short excerpt from The Scarlet Letter describing the meeting of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, the author—without the use of any dialogue—details their mental states and his attitudes towards them. Mainly through the use of literary devices such as metaphor, simile, and antithesis, the author successfully compares the mental states of the two characters and subtly includes his own attitudes towards them.

The emotions of the trial are running high for everyone. Jem, Scout and Dill are sitting in the balcony with the black people of the town. When it was the prosecutors turn Mr.Gilmer started to drill Tom hard. Dill’s emotions took over and he broke into emotional tears knowing that something was wrong. For the first time Scout realizes a change in Dill and tries to comfort him outside. The children are sitting with the blacks who hear Dill’s crys showing that he is full of compassion for the guiltless man.

1. As the story opens a throng is gathered.  Who are these people?  Where and why are they gathered?

Dee?s character in the story is a direct relation to any number of people in society that do not know or are confused about their heritage. She is struggling to create an identity for herself, and is confused as to what it encompasses. She grasps at African tradition and culture, yet fails to acknowledge her own African American culture. This happened all over America, particularly in the North, in the 1960?s, following the civil rights movement. Dee is misconstruing her heritage as material goods, as opposed to her ancestor?s habits and way of life. This may be due in part to her leaving her hometown and becoming an educated, sophisticated young woman. Dee?s direct heritage is that of African Americans.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s book, The Scarlet Letter, we see the theme of guilt portrayed in the life of Reverend Dimmesdale in three different ways. In this essay we will talk about those three different ways. Reverend Dimmesdale’s guilt began when Hester was put into prison for the sin they both committed. When the child was born, all of the people of the Puritan town marked Hester with an “A” for adulter and condemned her only for their sin. Unlike Hester who beautifully embroidered her “A”, Reverend Dimmesdale wore his “A” in silence.

The theme of William Faulkner's Barn Burning is Colonel Sartoris Snope's desire to break away from the oppressive conditions of his family life. He is pulled between his family and his morality. In this essay, I will discuss Sarty's struggle between the two sides of his conflict and the point at which it becomes resolved.

Not only is “Barn Burning” about the in the hereditary sense of "blood ties," but it is also about how a young boy's conscience dictates his actions. It is through Faulkner's use of stream-of-consciousness narration that the reader is aware of Sarty's innermost thoughts and feelings.

In William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury one character unifies the story, Caddy Compson. She is central to the story and Faulkner himself said that Caddy was what he “wrote the book about” (“Class Conference” 236). However many of the criticism’s of the novel find Caddy less interesting than Faulkner’s other characters: Quentin, Jason, and Benjy, and there are less critical analyses that deal primarily with Caddy because as Eric Sundquist is quoted in Minrose Gwin’s criticism “Hearing Caddy’s Voice” she is a “major character in literature about whom we know so little in proportion to the amount of attention she receives” (407). There is little question however that Caddy is a

Edith Wharton’s Atrophy is a centred around protagonist Nora Frenway, who is faced with several difficulties on her journey to see her ill, clandestine lover Christopher at Westover. The story is written in third person narration, where it was first published in 1927. The Sound and the Fury (1929) by William Faulkner is a novel told in four sections about the affairs regarding the Compson family. In this novel the first three sections focus on the consciousness of each of the brothers in the novel; Benjy, Quentin and Jason. The fourth section is told in third person narration highlighting the experiences of the family servant Dilsey. In each section of this novel each person has some fragment of their own version of the truth, while Caddy, the sister and daughter of the Compson family is a central female figure in the novel. Thus, in both texts there are issues that arise such as race relations and gender inequality, due to this, there is always an effect on relationships and events in the novel. During the time these texts were written there were issues regarding women and equality, and the society was governed by patriarchal thought and influence. Women were seen as lesser to men and they had to attend to household duties and obey the societal rules. Other issues such as class and status were also factors in regard to how women were expected to behave. Both authors effectively capture gender differently showing how the effect of gender ideologies impacted relationships and

“Desire at Work” reveals the shared attention paid to both death and sex in The Sound and the Fury, and especially in Faulkner’s (supposed) initial image of the story: Caddy, in dirtied underwear, climbing a pear tree to catch a glimpse of her dead grandmother. While the boys yearn to know more about her “muddy” drawers, Caddy yearns to know more about the death of “Damuddy.” I’m not sure if this correlation in phonetics is a stretch, though I must admit I find it interesting. The main point of

Likewise, Quentin's most elaborate internal fabrication is his belief that he has committed incest with Caddy.  It is his most elaborate internal fiction and the one which causes him the most conflict and pain. Quentin is actually separated from human activity externally.  He

Dee's character is used to symbolize the population who are trying to escape their poverty-stricken culture. People who thought lowly of the African American race, so many African Americans wanted to escape the prejudice. The story was set in the nineteen sixties while the African American civil rights movement was in full swing. Dee represents the population of African Americans who are trying to create a culture that sets them equal to white Americans. She also is a woman who is fighting for her education and rights; there is even a feminist view point since she is double the minority. Nearing the end of the novel she tries to encourage her sister to not be ignorant and continue with the culture that has racist and sexist undertones. Dee states, “You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for