Comment on special art techniques
in The Sound and the Fury.
The Sound and
the Fury is one of the most celebrated novels of the Twentieth
Century, written by American author William Faulkner, which mainly makes use
of the stream of consciousness narrative technique pioneered by European
authors such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.
The Sound and the Fury is a masterpiece of
stream-of-consciousness. But there are also some other special techniques of
art expression in this novel, such as Jigsaw puzzle, time shifts and
multi-angle narration and the use of “myth and arthtyepe”.
1 The
Use of Stream-of-Consciousness Technique
No doubt that The Sound and the Fury is a
representative masterpiece of stream
of consciousness. Faulkner
sometimes uses the stream-of-consciousness technique in the first three
chapters. In stream of consciousness, a term coined by American psychologist
William James (1842-1910), an author portrays a character’s continuing
“stream” of thoughts as they occur, regardless of whether they make sense or whether
the next thought in a sequence relates to the previous thought. The novel's
appreciation has in large part been due to the technique of its construction:
Faulkner's ability to recreate the thought patterns of the human mind, even
the disabled one. In this sense, it was an essential development in the
stream-of-consciousness narrative technique. The reason Faulkner expresses
stream-of-conscious so frequently is that he thinks the method can provide
the readers with more real fragment of life. Besides there is another main
reason: fulfilling the need of describing particular characters-----The
characters in the first three parts are unhealthy mentally: Benjy is an
idiot; Quentin has decided to commit suicide on June 2.it is no wonder that
he is disorder mentally, his mental state is extremely delirious; Jason is
also abnormal, he is a monomania.
2 The
Use of “Myth and Arthetype”
“Myth”
in its most ordinary meaning refers to stories of gods or other supernatural
beings handed down from ancient time. A collect of traditional myths in a
culture or nation reflects, allegorically, its cultural or national history.
The stories of Bible, for instance, are part of the constitution of Jewish
nation or culture. “Archetype” refers to the recurring literary phenomena such
as motifs, theme and narrative designs. When a writer creates a literary
work, he consciously make his work’s story, character, structure parallel
with a familiar myth story, he apparently uses the myth and arthetype model.
Such as James Joyce’s Ulysses whose
basic structure is fashioned after that of the Homeric epic, Odyssey, which is used by
Joyce to universalize Dublin life and to serve as a heroic counterpart to its
anti-heroic protagonist, Leopold Bloom. In The Sound and the Fury, there is a Biblical
correspondence to the novel: the dates entitled when incidents happened in
the Compson have something to do with
the dates of Christ’s sufferings. Just as Joyce uses Odyssey’s heroic
achievements to counterpart its anti-heroic protagonist, Leopold Bloom.
Faulkner also uses Christ’s solemness and sacredness to set off humble of
descendants of the Compson’s. This
use of arthetype model ,apart from adding his work color of irony, enables
his story break from the trifles described in the southern family, becoming
an allegory which inquires into the fate of human.
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