Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Welcome to AP Literature Period 3!
This will be our virtual classroom of sorts! It will serve as an extension of class discussion and be a forum to debate, inquire, and posit. I look forward to your contributions on this blog! So, let's get started. Please do some research this weekend on William Faulkner and post your responses by 11 pm on Sunday night! See you Monday!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
William Faulkner was born on September 25th, 1897 in Mississippi (hence his reason for setting his stories in Yoknapatawpha County, which is supposed to reflect the cultural background of Mississippi). He was one of those writers’s whose works were admired during his time but became more fully appreciated after his death in 1962. He is mostly known as the writer who narrated the decline and decay of the South (the aristocratic South to be more specific), but after researching him I don't think that's what I'll personally remember him for. When accepting his Nobel Prize for literature in 1949, Faulkner said the fundamental theme of his fiction is "the human heart in conflict with itself". For some reason, I thought this was, honestly, the most beautiful thing I had ever heard (I'm not exaggerating here, I really did think it was beautiful, but now I'm kind of over it). I feel like when most writers write about conflict or man vs. man it’s usually perceived as man vs. his mind or something dealing with conflict of the mind, but Faulkner focused on the human heart in conflict with itself, which is what I think I'll remember him for. If he was still alive I'd definitely get lunch with him, even though his mustache would probably leave me speechless.
ReplyDeleteSomething I found interesting about William Faulkner was that his stories were all based on true historical drama in the south, and they all contribute to one whole, which represents Yoknapatawpha County as Alexia mentioned. He may have briefly visited Europe and Asia during his time in the British Air force, but he settled down in Oxford, Mississippi to write his books. Faulkner was the stylistic rival to Ernest Hemmingway because of Faulkner's prolific writing verses Hemmingway's laconic writing. He was born with the name "Falkner" with no "u", but an early editor misspelled the name, and Faulkner decided to keep it. Faulkner eventually moved to Hollywood to be a screenwriter, then moved on to the university of Virginia where he died as a "Writer-in-Residence."
ReplyDeleteFaulker had quite the dramatic love life. When he was a teenage in Mississippi, Faulkner was basically a stud. He dated the pretty, popular, and wealthy Estelle Oldham. But Estelle was a little bit of a minx, she consistently dated other men outside her relationship with William. And one of them, Cornell Franklin, asked her to marry him. She agreed (after pressure from her parents) only to divorce him ten years later. And two months after her divorce, she married Faulkner! After years of pining for her affection, Estelle was finally his! Of course, that couldn't keep him happy. Faulkner had a number of affairs including ones with Meta Carpenter, Jean Stein, and Joan Willaims.
ReplyDeleteFaulkner really wanted to be in the U.S Air Force during World War I, but was rejected because he was too short. He then tried to join the RAF and was accepted. Although his real name was Falkner, he wrote his name as "Faulkner" on his RAF forms because it sounded more British, and the name apparently stuck. He also put on a fake British accent, which must have been pretty funny when combined with a Southern drawl.
ReplyDeleteWorld War I ended before Faulkner finished training, but he bought an officer's uniform and wings anyway. He bragged about his nonexistent combat experience, and he pretended he was wounded and had a silver plate in his head. Faulkner, who never graduated from high school, used his status as a "war veteran" to secure enrollment at the University of Mississippi.
Also, it turns out Faulkner was quite a drunk, which is another reason why he is often compared to Hemingway. They say his drinking experiences influenced his novels, short stories and screenplays BUT he never drank while he wrote.
ReplyDeleteFaulkner's not his real last name allegedly. He grew up in a Southern family, and his true last name was spelled "Falkner". After he published his first book titled "The Marble Faun", he changed it to Faulkner. I never knew that before and I found that quite interesting. By the way this is Sara Alpert, I do not know if this will show up for my name. :)
ReplyDeleteI find Faulkner’s background really remarkable. He had hardly any schooling (didn’t graduate high school or college) and was in a bad financial situation during the Great Depression, yet was able to write novels that would later be considered some of the greatest. He showed a leaning towards the arts all throughout his childhood- he wrote poetry and drew. He faced rejection when he tried to publish, and his first published books were considered to be weak, but eventually he found success in The Sound and the Fury. Looking at reviews and other information about this novel, I am very interested in finding out he was able to pull off changing his narrative and in general, reading about his “most splendid failure.”
ReplyDeleteIt should also be noted that his writings were heavily influenced by his family and Mississippi. Mississippi shaped Faulkner's style. He was also influenced by the southern culture and history. The main reason that caused Faulkner to write was driven by the fact that he needed money. Faulkner is known for his extreme usage of diction and cadence.
ReplyDeleteAlso Faulkner drank on many occasions when he wrote. declaring that it helped to bring out his creativeness for his writing. William Faulkner died of a heart attack at the age of 64 on July 6, 1962.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn 1942 Faulkner began (for financial reasons) his contract with Warner Bros. He was initially put to work writing a screenplay for The De Gaulle Story, which was intended as a film celebrating the achievements of General de Gaulle, a project supported by President Roosevelt and the Free French Forces. Faulkner produced a draft less propagandistic than the concept, mainly concerning the condition of the French people which influenced de Gaulle's actions. Due to numerous disagreements concerning the content of the script, additional harsh criticism about factual inaccuracy (not uncommon to Faulkner's writing concerning pedantic subjects in which he was uninterested), and, expectedly, financial shortcomings, the project was halted and the film was never produced.
ReplyDeleteFAULKNER IS AWESOME. this quote kind of says it all. When he was asked what technique he used to arrive at his standard he said..."Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him."
ReplyDeleteTo Heikon's comment-I found that while Faulkner was an alcoholic he did not drink while he wrote because he did not feel it aided in the creative process.
Faulkner totally took ideas from some of the greatest American fictionalists. Faulkner has a laid back adventure style kind of parallel to Mark Twain's novels. Common themes in Faulkner's works are tragedy (yay!) the south, and creation of many characters to emphasize the difficulty of determining the truth. (He just wants to confuse us!)Faulkner has been criticized for his (awesome) gruesomness but he says he was just trying to emphasize the "eternal verities" of man.
Interesting Fact: Faulkner used to write his thoughts for his projects on the walls of his home office
The title for Faulkner's fourth novel, The Sound and the Fury, comes from Shakespeare's Macbeth, act 5. scene 5. and it is as follows:
ReplyDeleteTomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Even with this badass quote backing the title up, Faulkner's Fourth did not become popular until Faulkner's Fifth (entitled Sanctuary) was released and got tremendous attention. Everyone loved it so much, that they went back and gave The Sound and the Fury another go. Now it is considered a literary classic, helping him win the Nobel Prize in literature. Faulkner's Fourth is most noted for its authenticity when exploring human thought, and the ever so popular stream-of-conciousness style.
It is interesting to note that Sanctuary was released specifically to make money, yet in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, he states the following:
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.
Jean-Paul Sartre had this to say on Faulkner and on The Sound and the Fury:
Faulkner's despair seems to me to precede his metaphysics. For him, as for all of us, the future is closed. Everything we see and experience impels us to say, "This can't last." And yet change is not even conceivable, except in the form of a cataclysm. We are living in a time of impossible revolutions, and Faulkner uses his extraordinary art to describe our suffocation and a world dying of old age. I like his art, but I do not believe in his metaphysics. A closed future is still a future.
I don't much care for any kind of metaphysics. Pessimism, sure. Metaphysics, no.
ReplyDeleteHi everyone!
ReplyDeleteAs most of you have mentioned, Mississippi was extremely important to Faulkner. His home state influenced most of the themes and conflicts in his works. He explored issues related to the decay of the old south and the tragic position of blacks and whites; he based most of his settings of real places in Mississippi. It seems that Faulkner wrote about what he knew, which is probably why he yielded such successful results.
In fact, Faulkner loved Mississippi so much that he barely left. One funny story regarding his homebody tendencies happened while he was in Hollywood. He had a serious case of writers block, and he told his boss that he thought he would be more successful at home. His boss thought that Faulkner meant his hotel, and was surprised to find, a few days later, that Faulkner had literally traveled back to Oxford Mississippi to finish the screenplay.
I think that Faulkner’s love for the place where grew up can only be a good thing. Although he did do some traveling, it seemed that he always ended up back in Mississippi (as illustrated by the anecdote above). Thus Faulkner did not lack worldly experiences because of ignorance or lack of opportunity, but because of his deep connection to his home. I am sure that his insights on southern society will be extremely accurate and intriguing.
Alexia- kudos for mentioning his mustache in your response, that thing is incredible!
Hi - sorry I am a bit late in posting this!
ReplyDeleteAs Alexia and Jake mentioned, William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949, and delivered his acceptance speech in 1950 in Stockholm, Sweden. He was awarded this prize "for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel." Many were interested in what he would say in his speech because of his well-known avoidance of making formal speeches.
I thought his speech was beautifully written, and I agreed with it. I liked the line "He writes not of the heart but of the glands" in describing his belief that writers must write about the universal truths of the heart. I really admire his respect and dedication for his own work, and I look forward to reading it in class.
I found this song by Ingrid Michealson, that I feel really describes Quentin Compson’s section.The song is called “The Chain.” The lyrics are below:
ReplyDeleteThe sky looks pissed.
The wind talks back.
My bones are shifting in my skin
And you my love are gone.
My room feels wrong.
The bed won't fit.
I can not seem to operate
And you my love are gone
(Chorus)
So glide away on soapy heels
And promise not to promise anymore
And if you come around again
Then I will take, then I will take the chain from off the door
I'll never say,
That I'll never love.
But I dont say a lot of things
And you my love are gone.
(Chorus X6)
The first verses of this song show that Quentin has lost control of his life. The phrase “His room feels wrong,” is obviously representative of his displacement to Harvard. Quentin is a southerner forced into a New England town. This geography makes it impossible for Quentin to save his south. The line, “His bed doesn’t fit,” is representative of Quentin’s issue with his own sexuality. Coming from the south, Quentin is afraid of sexuality because of the idea of southern honor. Throughout his chapter, Quentin is also extremely obsessed with virginity. He does not understand the whole virgin not virgin thing that Caddy represents. He also tries to protect her honor even though this is hopeless. “He cannot seem to operate” because his Southern Society is destroyed; he has lost control of his life.
ReplyDeleteThe line “promise not to promise anymore” represents the paradoxical nature of Quentin’s section. Faulkner’s objective and Quentin’s personality contradict one another. Faulkner wants Quentin to destroy the code of order in the North so that he can reinstate the south, but Quentin is a southern gentleman and must abide by the code. In order for him to ignore his conflicted nature, he focuses on time, and the meaninglessness of time. Quentin counts the hours, the minutes, the days. But the time for the south is up. Quentin’s south is “gliding away on soapy heels.” It is slipping away, and he is desperately trying to grasp onto it. If it were to come around again (his south) Quentin would take the chain (clock) off the door. But the clock keeps ticking. The south’s time is up. The very beliefs of Quentin have been created by the southern system and Mr. Compson’s ideas. The chain with the clock that Mr. Compson gives his son, represents this. But Quentin will never take this chain off the door. He has only been given knowledge from his father and from Southern Beliefs. His father said "Man the sum of his climactic experiences. Man the sum of what have you. A problem in impure properties carried tediously to an unvarying nil: stalemate of dust and desire"(78).Thus Quentin will have to commit suicide to escape these beliefs with honor. The dust represents death. Through this, Faulkner represents the flawed nature of southern beliefs.
Going back to the beginning verse, there is the whole thing about “the sky looks pissed. The wind talks back.” In a way this represents the same thing the shadows represent in Quentin’s section. The wind and sky are not very cohesive entities. Neither is the Compson family. The Compson family will amount to the nothingness just like wind and sky is just air. This explains the diminished lives of the Compson family. The family will be a former “breeze” of itself. The wind is also representative of the large force that tears apart things. In this case, the wind represents the movement that transforms society.
The end verse is very important. “But I don’t say a lot of things…” represents the major flaw of Quentin. Quentin’s voice remains internal. He cannot explain the internal conflicts within his family, and within his heart. Because there are not many people willing to listen and understand Quentin, Quentin will not speak out against the society he is product of.
I like the connection between the song A.J. posted and Quentin's section. I agree with a lot of what A.J. said, although I'm not sure that Faulkner's objective was for Quentin to destroy and replace the North's code of honor with the South's. It seems to me that he is more just trying to portray the decay of the Southern way of life and analyze its effects on the Southern people at the time.
ReplyDeleteQuentin's section was at times just as confusing as Benjy's, but the overall narration of the day of his suicide made it easier to understand. Quentin is kind of a tragic hero, maybe even the tragic hero of the book. He has many characteristics of a tragic hero, such as being born into an aristocratic family. His flaw is that he wants to protect the Southern honor and traditions, and the people around him who are a part of that Southern lifestyle. However, readers and later Quentin himself (which leads to his suicide) realize that it is impossible for him to protect these ideals. His suffering is largely a result of circumstances that he cannot control or change. Caddy's promiscuity and running away, his father's indifferent attitude toward virginity, the constant ticking of clocks and presence of time and shadows all drive Quentin toward his downfall. His ways of dealing with these situations, such as by trying to kill Caddy and then himself together, getting into fights with Dalton Ames or Gerald, and falsely confessing to incest to his father, all fail to fix anything. Time is always on, haunting him; he cannot stop time, and he is always aware of it, even after he breaks the watch his father gave him. He cannot stop the progression of the South's decay or the rise of the Northern ways and a modernized world no matter what he does. Since he is unable to deal with this new world and refuses to let go of the fading Southern ideals, his only solution is suicide.
Quentin’s section really develops what the reader learns about his relationships with his family. During this section, he constantly recalls emotion-filled conversations with Caddy and his father, and they cause the desire for his suicide to surface. When his mother’s voice becomes the point of view, the reader sees how her selfishness, possibly representing human nature, undermines and overshadows his values. His values and obsessions with virginity and time show him how, like AJ said, he is losing control of his world.
ReplyDeleteThe section with the little girl was interesting. It represents Quentin’s path to the end of his life; he acknowledges her, tries to escape, but eventually accepts death as his only option. His unstoppable laughter and lightheartedness at his arrest depicts the irony of being captured by the girl’s brother, when he is already metaphorically captured by death.
I think that the punctuation and style changes in Quentin's section are interesting and symbolic. The section begins with relatively normal punctuation, lapses into stream of consciousness, and goes back and forth several more times. The changes in style seem to represent the changes of Quentin's emotional state. Most of the time when he is with other people in the "present" (at Harvard) the punctuation is normal, but when he thinks about his family, especially Caddy, it disappears altogether. When this happens, Quentin's narration seems rapid and panicked.
ReplyDeleteAt the end, when Quentin's death is near, the punctuation returns to normal, which I found very interesting. It indicates that, although Quentin's suicide is obviously a result of suffering, it is essentially a calculated, rational decision.
I actually found Quentin's section to be more difficult to read than Benjy's. Some of his thoughts are so intricate and abstract that it takes a lot of effort to analyze them and figure out what he is trying to say. I was not able to figure it all out. The fact that his thoughts skipped around and drifted into other thoughts made it even more of a challenge.
ReplyDeleteIn a large part of Quentin's section, Faulkner's writing style reminded me of poetry. Around pages 150-164, his writing loses all punctuation and he does not even use capital letters to break up the sentences. Everything runs together. The purpose seems to be to give off a certain emotion, or string of emotions, rather than portray events the way they happened. He sometimes repeats words or parts of dialogue, which give off the feeling that the voices are echoing and spinning around in his head. It is in this section that he seems to be losing control of himself.
The smell and sensation of honeysuckle is brought of a lot by Quentin in these parts of his section. It takes him over, almost to the point where he can't even breathe. At one point, he shoves his face into the ground to block out the smell. He is distraught by Caddy's loss of her virginity, and it seems like the honeysuckle represents her sexuality in some way to him.
I know I said in class that I didn't like Quentin's section. I re-read what we were assigned prior to that again as well as the whole section and I thought I would like it more, but I didn't.
ReplyDeleteBUT here's what I have to comment on.
For starters, reading wise, I found Quentin's section to be more difficult than Benjy's. Part of the reason why I thought this was the lack of punctuation, as most of you mentioned, and the time shifts...in Benjy's section I could kind of tell when he was shifting to different memories and like how those memories connected but I couldnt really do that with Quentin.
The one thing I did like about Quentin's section, or the one point where I actually perked up and found it interesting to read was the whole scenario with Little Sister Death (I think thats what she was called). I felt that in a way, since she was so often referred to as a foriegner, her and Quentin were similar. At Harvard, or in the north, Quentin is an outsider/foriegner because he's trying so hard to get back to this world/restore this place that doesn't exist anymore, and hes lost because of that. Likewise, Little Sister Death, also seems to be confused/lost in a way. So I found that interesting.
I don't think Quentin's character is boring, because I find his fascination with time and how his sucide was like Louis sad a rational decision, but I did not like the section. Needless to say, that doesn't mean Faulkner isn't a beast at writing. He's incredible. I think its because of his mustache...
I agree with others that Quentin section was the hardest to read. AS we all know, Quentin is the smart kind in the Compson family. As such, his language and description are abstract and figurative. His lack of punctuation and sentences that stretch on and on, only helps to increase the complexity of Quentin. While this causes confusion for me, it also establishes the inner turmoil that Quentin faces. As a student in Harvard, he faces customs that differ from his southern values. As i read on, i could feel the tension as Quentin recollected of his inability to "save" his sister from marriage, the guilt of Benjy's pastor sold for his college money, his mother's hatred of the Compson and her love for Jason and his father's values. As i progressed near the end, his train of thoughts became increasingly jumbled with many quick and abrupt time shifts. This showed the break down of Quentin mentally. When he meets a little foreign girl. he becomes attached to her and tries to help her. He sees her as the possible redemption after his unsuccessful attempt to save Caddy from marriage. The little girl is the innocent Caddy that he had lost. But in the end he gets subjected to getting arrested and his ill fated attempt gets backfired.
ReplyDeleteThe one part i did not understand was at the last part when Quentin is back in hsi dorm.
I love Quentin as a character. I find him interesting, brilliant (in a crazy kind of way), and extremely intriguing. His entire section is leading us through the last day of his life, a day he has meticulously planned out, one that he plans to end with his own suicide. And yet, all of his emotion throughout the passage is directed at the memories and thoughts of his family, most specifically his sister. While Ms. Siegel warned us that all of the Compson boys are obsessed with their sister, Quentin's obsession is by far the most disturbing and interesting. As the good child, the "intelligent" Harvard- bound child, the reader would assume that Quentin would understand how unhealthy this fascination is, and yet, his every thought leads back to Caddy, no matter what the situation.
ReplyDeleteWhile both Benjy's section and Quentin's are told with time playing the role of a fluid construct, one scene taking place at a completely different time from the previous one; I found it interesting that it was more difficult to understand Quentin's time skips then Benjy's. Benjy, being the mentally challenged character, one would assume that his tale would be much more incoherent, and yet Quentin's shifts were much more difficult to distinguish, as one scene almost seamlessly flowed into the next. All together I like this section a lot, while parts of it were difficult to understand, it helps the reader to learn even more about the Compson family, and to better understand Faulkner's story.
Sorry I'm posting so late...I passed out when I as reading but not because i was bored! Quentin's character is definitely a big change from Benjy's. In the beginning of Quentin's section, this is apparent. He may not use correct punctuation, but his thoughts and ideas are easy to follow. Then towards the middle of the section, he begins to add more italics to his narration to represent his memories of Caddy. They mix into his Harvard life until Caddy becomes the main topic. At this point, he begins to narrate like Benjy. His thoughts are very confusing and he switches between a few memories at once. Every few lines was something about Caddy and what happened to her, then there was the smell of honeysuckle every five seconds, which I would really like to smell now by the way. His sentences became phrases, which then became their own lines. I think this part of his section was written to speed up the narration, and kind of create a sense of suspense for the reader. We already knew he was going to kill himself, it was just a matter of when.
ReplyDeleteAside from the structure of the section, I don't know if I'm the only one but I was freaked out by the little girl from the beginning. She seems innocent, but Ms. Siegel already told us that she represents death. I really wish I hadn't known that because the image of this little Italian girl to me seemed like a character from a horror movie. All I kept thinking was "seven days" but in the end I don't think she even served a purpose. She just follows him as his own conscience because they both know what he is going to do. I was scared for nothing!
Ah!!!! I'm so Sorry this is so late! I thought I posted last night but for some reason this morning my blog post wasn't there!!! I hate technology! Life in Faulkner's time was so much simpler. Anyway sorry for the freak out.
ReplyDeleteI think Faulkner's craft is revealed in his ability to reveal throughout the section the kind of pressure that Quentin is under. By the end of the section, I could understand why he wouldn't want to live any longer. Between his parents, his sexuality, his obsession with protecting Caddy, and his schooling, there was simply too much weight on him. The fight scene towards the end of the section with Gerald seems to be the first time that Quentin lost himself...The next time will be his suicide. Faulkner uses the broken up sentence structure and lack of punctutation to show how someone as intelligent and composed as Quentin can be reduced to the same level of thinking and process of thought as someone like Benjy. This comparison makes the writing richer and more interesting.
Thought it was difficult to read, there were still things I loved about this section. The writing in this portion is simply beautiful.This section is riddled with stylistic elements and figurative flourishes that Faulkner had to forgo in the Benjy section to set the mood. I think it's also amazing how distinct the voices are. You could read just one line out of each section and know exactly who was speaking, without context or plot clues, based on the voice alone. That's pretty powerful.
I really like Alice in Wonderland, and I think that Quentin as a "distraught Alice in a haunted Wonderland" is a very apt description.
ReplyDeleteThe overall mood in Alice in Wonderland is crazy, dreamlike and confusing. As Quentin's mental breakdown progresses, his thoughts and surrounding also descend into madness like Alice's world. Alice and Quentin are both curious, in a way; Alice's curiosity leads her down the rabbit hole and Quentin's intellectual curiosity leads him to Harvard. When they arrive at the new "world," both feel displaced and experience a loss of identity. Both characters are constantly questioning themselves and others, and trying but failing to understand or adapt to their surroundings.
Quentin is a "distaught Alice" because of the suffering he feels in the "haunted Wonderland" that is the modern world in which Southern ideals no longer play a role. Unlike Alice, Quentin cannot simply wake up from a daydream - suicide is his escape.
Unfortunately, this great society we live in destroyed my childhood by telling me about Disney's sexual and drug-related references in their movies. Apparently Alice and Wonderland was written by an author under the influence of crystal meth, therefore the movie creates an uncomfortable loss of control. The plot line is loose and changes often to confuse viewers. In the beginning of Quentin's section, he narrates normally. There is no punctuation, but readers can easily follow his ideas. Quentin then becomes the "distraught Alice" when he literally loses his mind. I recalling a memory about Caddy, his writing is composed of a bunch of phrases and his thoughts are scattered. Readers get the same confusion and dizziness as they do in watching Alice and Wonderland. He is the "distraught Alice in a haunted Wonderland" because he is stuck in a place he does not belong. He tries so hard to hold on to the southern life, but he fails. Harvard is his "haunted Wonderland" because it contains no Caddy nor any reminder of his previous life.
ReplyDeleteQuentin is like Alice in that he is exploring an unfamiliar world (the North) and encountering strange characters. The three boys he meets are argumentative, Julio is pointlessly enraged, and the police are inept and corrupt. These characters remind me of the comical characters from Alice and Wonderland because of the extreme nature of their foolishness. The little girl creates the haunted aspect of "Wonderland" by being creepy and puzzling. Quentin is suicidal, so I think that it is pretty obvious why he can be called a "distraught Alice".
ReplyDeleteSo I went on Wikipedia because I was starved in my youth and I never was read Alice in Wonderland. I found it really interesting that "Alice in Wonderland" was written with "literary nonsense." This refers to a motif in literature that messes with the rules of logic and language through sensical and nonsensical elements. It includes various techniques but specifically having unclear causes and effects, portmanteau, neologism, reversals and inversions, imprecision, simultaneity, picture/text incongruity, arbitrariness, infinite repetition, negativity or mirroring, and misappropriation (got this definition from WIKIPEDIA BTWS). I know the question asked was about Quentin being a "distraught Alice" but his entire section (diction/literary wise) is kind of representative of the distraught Alice. And Im wondering if this means that it is part of the literary nonsense genre?
ReplyDeleteThe physical place of "Wonderland" connects with Quentin. In the north, he finds himself in unfamiliar surroundings, and is constantly thinking about the south, his values, home, and his family, especially Caddy. Alice, after some time, also wishes to return home. The "haunted" Wonderland is the north, and their values are just as unfamiliar to Quentin as the customs of the inhabitants of Wonderland are to Alice. Alice in Wonderland is a fantasy tale, and Quentin, "distraught" as he is, is unable to find his way out simply by waking up, and turns to suicide.
ReplyDeleteThis comparison is accurate; some could argue that Quentin, as his section progresses, the pace increases, and the punctuation and style become more broken-down, is like Alice, getting tangled in the fantasies of her story. It is possible that Quentin believed he was in a fantasy, unable to believe Caddy's pregnancy, loveless marriage, and the loss of his ideals, and simply went along with the idea that none of it was real, and he just needed to get out of the story somehow.
Since I seem to be one of the few people here who's actually read Alice in Wonderland, I just want to say that I have a strong love for Alice in Wonderland (drug/pedophilia suspicions and all) because of the sense of childhood wonder and innocence. Again, drug/pedophilia aside. Also "The Walrus and the Carpenter" is an awesome poem.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Quentin as a distraught Alice is an interesting concept. To me it implies that Quentin is an innocent wandering in a world of corruption and confusion. In that respect, Quentin is very much a distraught Alice. He is incapable of growing up and disturbed by the things around him that are anything short of innocent. When faced with sexuality in any form, especially in regards to Caddy, he immediately shuts down, as in his world is full of nonsensical creatures.
By moving to the North, Quentin has also fallen down the rabbit hole into a completely new world he doesn't understand. He speaks differently, acts differently, and most importantly has different values. And much like Alice, he is desperate to find his way home. Unfortunately for Quentin, His Wonderland isn't just a dream.
It might be redundant to refer to a "distraught Alice in a haunted Wonderland," as both of these descriptors already accurately describe their subjects; it might be more literal in reference to Quentin's state, where his Wonderland is more traditionally "haunted," by the ghosts of his past experiences. While the origin of Alice's and Quentin's fantasies are separate, their function is the same, to serve as a limbo between responsibility and action. Quentin's obligation belongs to both the preservation of traditional Southern aristocracy as established by the Compson family and to the well-being of his sister, two ultimately dissonant goals, which Quentin can only reconcile in the action of death. His obligations and his actions are kept separate by his movement and actions from the start of his narration to the point of his death and the memories that reverberate throughout. Alice's obligation is not a personal one, but it is established upon entry into Wonderland: the constantly late rabbit represents a responsibility for Alice, and Wonderland is the space between an objective and its culmination.
ReplyDeleteThe way that Alice and Quentin manipulate time and their own understandings of time prior to being removed from their respective dreams illustrates their desire to delay their fates. In Alice's Wonderland, at the Mad Tea-Party, it is always tea-time. The party represents Alice's desire to separate the intrinsic link between her fate and time. By not acknowledging time and choosing to ignore its bearing on her reality, Alice hopes to delay the eventuality of wakefulness. Similarly, it is viscerally apparent in Quentin's syntax the acceleration of his thoughts and statements. Sections that eject associative memories into text move without punctuation or any signs of an intended halt. By inserting so much content so rapidly into his experience, Quentin hopes to dilate his perception of time to stave off his inevitable death longer.
The most literal parallel between the experiences of Quentin and Alice is that of the innocent being put on trial. The crimes which they are respectively accused of are not those which their consciences are being tried for; the trial indicates a self-judgment of resolving long-delayed obligations. It happens that Alice's are more fanciful where Quentin's are surrounded by dire circumstance: Quentin's Wonderland is only as haunted as his Alice is distraught.
In "Alice in Wonderland," Alice enters a strange, confusing, unfamiliar world. Quentin does this too when he goes to Harvard in the North. Quentin's wonderland just happens to be haunted with the death of his values, and the memories of his mistakes. (Well, his values are not exactly dead. They still exist in his mind, but they are difficult to carry out in the changing society around him--especially in the North, as his views are old and Southern.)
ReplyDeleteQuentin tries to save these southern values and this life he expected to live, by literally attempting to revive and return home little miss walking death (aka the Italian girl). He obviously fails, and then he really starts to lose it.
It was mentioned before that the author wrote "Alice in Wonderland" under the influence of drugs. Whether or not this is true, the story is extremely odd and at times nonsensical. When Quentin's thoughts get out of control, in the sections where words and sentence fragments are blurred and repeated, his emotions are overwhelming and it is hard to understand where they are coming from.
The difference between the world Quentin lives in, and Wonderland, is that his wonderland is reality. He cannot wake up from this truth.
This idea can also be reversed. Maybe Quentin's wonderland is not reality. Instead, perhaps it is the world he wishes to live in, and which he still trying to exist in (a nonexistent world in which his old southern morals are still commonly accepted). It is haunted, however, because most others have left this former world, and are living by new standards. He is now alone, living in a lonely fantasy.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard this quote, I almost laughed it was so perfect. Indeed, his narrative, mental state and conflicts all weirdly reflect those present in Alice In Wonderland. Quentin is chasing time in the same way that Alice chases the white rabbit, who is perpetually late for some mysterious appointment (and thus obsessed with his stopwatch). In his chase to understand, catch, and ultimately rewind time, Quentin falls deeper and deeper into the dark holes of his own imagination. Alice’s hole may be in the ground, but it still could symbolize a sort of mental disintegration. The strange events and weird people encountered in Alice’s Wonderland really are a lot like Quentin’s. Except when Alice shrinks and grows, gets accused of being a weed, and ultimately faces beheading from the queen of hearts she is able to return to reality. When Quentin’s guilt and sense of self shrink and grow, when he feels alienated at Harvard, or when he faces constant “off with your head” type nagging from his mother, he can not escape; ultimately he shoots, or “beheads” himself.
ReplyDeleteWhoever said this didn’t really have to say distraught or haunted. Alice distraught is distraught as it is and Wonderland is already really creepy. But it does sound better that way, if they just said Quentin is Alice in Wonderland people may get all confused.
Quentin's journey throughout the story reflects the distraught Alice in the wonderland. Physically displaced into northern region where southern values does not exist, Quentin is lost as Alice was lost in the wonderland. His southern values are gone and he lives through his haunting memory. The wonderland that he lives is the journey of redemption of the past faults and mistakes that he had made. The unsuccessful attempt in getting Caddy not marrying Herbert clearly haunts him as at the present he helps protecting the little sister death. He gives her bread and ice cream, he protects her and tries to help find her house in order to reenact in his wonderland what he wanted and should have done. His wonderland is the fantasy, the dream world in which he sees him redeeming everything and fixing the past. however this is not the case.
ReplyDeletethats supposed to say Alice is distraught as it is..
ReplyDeleteResponding to "would the book be better if it was in chronological order?"
ReplyDelete"The Sound and the Fury" is a book about time, but not in the way that most people would think. There is an obsession with time, but of how it does not actually exist. Therefore, the book would definitely not be better in chronological order. Faulker creates his own chronology. He begins with Benjy because it is the introduction of Caddy. Then Quentin introduces the decline of Caddy. Jason's section discusses the aftermath of Caddy's decline, and what it has done to Compson family. Dilsey's section is kind of the outside view of everything previously mentioned, but mostly Jason's section. Each section in the book explained one brother's view of his sister, nad then everything was tied up with Dilsey's truth. This is Faulker's time line. It does not matter when it happened.
I agree with Katie that the book is definitely better with the out-of-order chronology of events. It helps illustrate Faulkner's idea that there is no time, and how the human invention of time is meaningless. If the book had been written in traditional chronological order, this idea would not have as much impact.
ReplyDeleteI believe it was necessary for the book to begin with Benjy's section because he has absolutely no concept of time. Since in his section we are completely free from the constraints of time, we can see the different important events that the book revolves around and get an overall idea of what has and what will happen. As we move from each section to the next, it is significant that the story becomes more real and more in the present. In this way, Faulkner's chronology makes perfect sense: we start off submerged in memories of the past, move on to a more recent event also in the past, and then move to the present. I think the most important reason for the book's success is because of the way it was written, and it would not be the same without it.
I agree with Caroline and Katie in that the book is better in a non-chronological order. Time plays a pivotal role in the novel, and affects each character in a variety of ways.
ReplyDeleteFaulkner truly believes there is no such thing as time, as Caroline said. Time plays no real part in the Compson's lives, yet the events themselves play important roles. I agree with Katie, who said that it is not when the event happened, but what happened to make it something that the characters remember throughout their lives. The book would not carry the same essence, the same deeper meaning, if the events were in chronological order. We would not be able to see the direct characterization that we are left to after reading the jumbled events. We truly get a sense of the character's point of view by reading these out of order
events. Sorry, my computer went crazy, and would not let me separate paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteJean Paul Sartre wrote, "Faulkner is a lost man, and it is because he feels lost that he takes risks and pursues his thought to its uttermost consequences. " Well, Faulkner certainly did take a risk with "The Sound and the Fury."
ReplyDeleteThe non-chronological order of the book adds to the plot. The entire story is about this disfuntional, uncertain, unstable, Compson family that really isnt a family. Thus the narration is not stable.
The non-chronological narration also reflects many existential themes, critical to this novel. We get a first hand feel for this, and feel more "in touch" with the characters when Faulkner narrates nonchronologically. The existential issues crucial to this book are the transience and futility of life, the uncertainty of what comes next, and the anxiety that comes with not knowing. By setting up the novel in a nonchronological way, we feel like the story is just a dream, we are uncertain of what will come next, and we are (in a way) anxious because we have NO IDEA what is going on. Faulkner started with Benjy not because he wanted to mess with us, but because he wanted to prove these existential themes.
Furthermore, I can relate this whole non-chronological order idea back to the Macbeth quote. Macbeth speaks his whole "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" speech when he has realized that he has gotten to a point where no matter what he does, the future is going to lead to death and nothing else. There is no future for him. By writing this novel in a nonchronological order, Faulkner is able to have his characters reflect on the past and the whole issue of time everybody above explained well. There really is no present in this novel, nor a future. It is hopeless and destructive. No matter what these characters do, their names will never be remembered.
ReplyDeleteI think that what AJ said with relating the Macbeth quote back to the non-chronological order of the novel is important.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone else has said, I too believe that the only way the novel could really function is in non-chronological order. It does not matter when the events took place, it is the outcome of everything and the general decline of the Compson family that is most pertinent. I think that because it is not the events that matter, but the outcome, is why Benjy and Quentin do not distinguish the changes in their different memories in their sections. Although Benjy is mentally challanged and this is another reason why he doesnt distinguish differences in time, I also think it just doesnt matter to him. What he knows is that his sister, who he truly loved and cared for, is gone, and he misses her and is constantly reminded of the fact that she is not there.
If the book was written in chronological order, it wouldn't have had the same effect on me. I felt for these characters as I would feel for my family or a friend if they were going through any of the same things, and I don't think I would have reacted the same way if it didn't open with Benjy and end with Dilsey.
Reading "The Sound and the Fury," is like assembling a giant puzzle. If the book was in chronological order, the puzzle would already be put together for us. However, we are simply given a pile of pieces, which we must really study and think about in order to put together. The fact that the events are out of order forces you to really analyze every bit of information, and try to guess where and how it might fit into the overall story of the Compson family. In breaking down the scambled bits of conversation, thoughts, events, and information, you think deeper about them. Every little thing becomes meaningful. Everything exists alone, instead of in a series of events in a chronological plot. Nothing can be overlooked as simply something that had to happen to advance to the next stage in the plot. In looking at individual parts of the life of the Compsons, Faulkner sets us up to study his work on an extremely deep level (if you don't, you probably won't understand much of anything, and you'll walk away from the book very confused. There's no real middle ground.) Not only are we able to look at some things with a clear mind (since a lot of times we don't know exactly everything that happened before it), but by the time we have completed the puzzle, we have a better understanding for the big picture, since we have analyzed every piece separately. We might have gone a little insane on the way, but this completed puzzle has more profound meaning to us than if it were written in logical order (sometimes the deepest thinkers are the ones who get the most messed up (take Quentin, for example) ).
ReplyDeleteI think that way the book is structured (that is, without time) contributes enormously to its success. This is because, combined with the multiple viewpoints, the lack of time makes reading "The Sound and the Fury" like looking at the same events through a window in different stages of transparency. At first, the window is translucent and hard to see through (Benjy's section), then grows more and more transparent as you continue to read. Reading about early April 1928 from Benjy's, Jason's, and Dilsey's (third person) point of view allows the reader to gain a growing understanding of the Compsons. This understanding would not be complete, however, without the journeys to the past that occur so frequently throughout the novel. These journeys create such an effective understanding of the Compsons because they are placed right next to the "present"; if they were divided into their own chapters the reader would not be able to understand them as readily.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the order of the sections is beneficial to the overall book. If Faulkner had placed the sections in chronological order, we would lose connection with the characters. If Quentin’s section was first, I think that many of the readers wouldn’t understand the relationship between Caddy and Quentin, but since Benjy’s section is first, we can see the dependence that many of the characters place on her. The portrayal of Caddy in Quentin’s section is more of a troublemaker than the misguided motherly figure that she is portrayed as in Benjy’s section.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the question of the book’s universality, I believe that it is very relatable. Countless families must deal with death of a close family member, and many people experience the same kinds of stress that were put on Quentin, such as the attempt to adapt to unfamiliar conditions and people and feeling no control over one’s life. Rebellion is also a common theme in teenage households, and Miss Quentin definitively highlights this. The book has some kind of aspect that reflects a part of the reader’s life or experiences.
Like everyone else has already, said, I agree that the non-chronological order of the novel is important to the book. But I still think Faulkner's being a bit pretentious.
ReplyDeleteI think the shifting trend towards non-chronological narrations is a growing problem. From Steven Soderbergh movies to Toni Morrison novels (yes Ms. Sigel, I am going there), modern storytellers have circumvented the boredom of telling the same story over and over again by splicing up narratives and retelling them in a different way. It's interesting, but it also detracts from the purity of the story. Whatever medium, non continuous narration is a cheap pretentious ploy used by post-modern writers to make their stories more entertaining.
That being said, I think Faulkner is the exception. He used time as a device in both his story and his narration. The form of the novel followed the function of it as a novel about time.
I agree with everyone else... I mean, there's really not much left to say on this topic. By starting the novel with Benjy, Faulkner circumvented the confusion any reader would feel by being thrown head-long into Quentin's section. He introduced all of the main characters, gave background on all of them, and began to develop all of the important plot-lines. Everyone who has responded has made excellent points that I agree with, from Jamie' comments on the increase in novels that have this disordered story-line, to Alexia and AJ's discussion of the effect of Shakespeare's quote.
ReplyDeleteI just want to throw out there that I would definitely agree with Faulkner's assertion that The Sound and the Fury is at least in part a story about two lost women: Caddy and Miss Quentin. The book can be divided into two halves, the first focusing almost exclusively on Caddy and her effect on here family while the second half is definitely more about Miss Quentin's story. However, both women are included throughout the opposing narrative, demonstrating their importance to each and every character. While Quentin and Benjy are obviously more focused on Caddy, they do consider Quentin to be important to them, and through this to the decline of the Compson family. However, Jason and the omniscient third person narrative of the fourth section focus on Miss Quentin, and how her disappearance marks the true end of their family and everything they have known.
(I know I was supposed to stick with everyone else's topic, but I didn't have anything to add and I felt strongly about this question, so I hope that's alright.)