ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ АВТОНОМНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
«БЕЛГОРОДСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ
ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»
( Н И У
« Б е л Г У » )
ИНСТИТУТ МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНОЙ КОММУНИКАЦИИ И
МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ
КАФЕДРА АНГЛИЙСКОЙ ФИЛОЛОГИИ И МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНОЙ
КОММУНИКАЦИИ
ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ ЗВУКА ТИШИНЫ: «ПОПЫТКА БЕНЖДИ
УМОЛЧАТЬ»
Выпускная квалификационная работа
обучающегося по направлению подготовки
45.04.01 ФИЛОЛОГИЯ
очной формы обучения,
группы 04001522
Раюшкиной Марии Евгеньевны
Научный руководитель
д.ф.н. Прохорова О.Н.
Рецензент
к.п.н., доцент Чернявская Н. Э.
БЕЛГОРОД 2017
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 3
THE FAILURE OF VERBAL LANGUAGE IN BENJY’S SECTION ................ 8
I.1
Benjy’s way of developing voice into silence through sounds ................. 8
I.2
The prevalence of “hushing” ................................................................... 22
Conclusions for chapter I ...................................................................................... 27
II. EXPLORING BENJY’S MIND ..................................................................... 28
II.1
Deciphering interior monologue ............................................................. 28
II.2
Benjy’s shift from memory to memories ................................................ 39
II.3
The use of italics ...................................................................................... 47
Conclusions for chapter II ..................................................................................... 52
III. EXPOSITION THROUGH THE SENSES .................................................... 53
III.1 Benjy’s dependence on his senses: touch, sound and sight .................... 53
III.2 Benjy’s dependence on his senses: smell ................................................ 58
Conclusions for chapter III.................................................................................... 63
CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 64
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................. 66
3
INTRODUCTION
William Faulkner’s writing was closely related to the gradual break with
literary traditions of the nineteenth century. The iconoclastic style of his
contemporaries rejected the traditional attitudes of the twentieth century, notably
realism. The subsequent consequences are still being scrutinized and investigated
by many writers and critics in literature. However, many readers and reviewers
appeared to be unprepared for such changes. They considered the novel “The
Sound and the Fury” by an American writer as a chaotic collection of words and
phrases. Reading the book, we go into one of the most complicated fantasies in
American literature.
William Faulkner considered most of his novels as attempts to attain ideals
he had already envisioned. The ideal had a special place in his novels. The author’s
affection for “The Sound and the Fury” is conveyed by the degree of complexity in
the novel and the extent to which he managed to achieve it. We can consider his
novel as an experiment with risk-taking subjects, unattainable ideals and difficult
technical problems. He is believed to have the most radical and courageous
imaginations among the American authors of that time. Faulkner highlighted the
importance of the following subjects in his novels: the relations of blacks to whites
4
in the South, the power of language and the nature of family as a destructive and
degenerative social force.
“The Sound and the Fury” is a riveting, virtuoso and technical novel. From
the beginning to the end the story alludes to the Compson family, who became
degraded and disappeared altogether. All the characters are trapped in the decline
of the Compson family. For Faulkner, it was very significant to depict the family
not as a whole, but as a group of individuals.
The family consists of the father and the mother, the grandmother, an uncle
on the mother’s side, four children (Jason, Quentin, Caddy, and Benjy) and
Dilsey’s family. The three brothers tell us the story of their siblings, indicating the
place of Caddy in their life. First Benjy is exposed, then Quentin and then Jason.
The first section of the novel is told by Benjy Compson, “an idiot”, and,
mainly, through his eyes the reader is immersed into one of Faulkner’s densest
stories. This disoriented narrative contains Faulkner’s intentions of the novel.
Reading the first section is intensely difficult because Benjy’s language is based on
a continual exchange between the past and the present. The voice of the narration
is problematic to follow and it is considered to be a real challenge for the readers.
Benjy’s bellowing and moaning shows his anguish of loss and his continual
yearning for his sister Caddy.
Therefore, the relevance of the research topic: “Benjy’s try not to say”: the
Sound of Silence in “The Sound and the Fury” determines the ways of
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interpretation the sound of silence in the first section of the novel through the use
of risky subjects, unattainable ideals and difficult technical problems.
The object of the research is the first section of the novel “The Sound and the
Fury” by William Faulkner.
The Subject of the investigation is to analyze Benjy’s attempts not to say.
The aim of our research is to scrutinize the character’s language, as well as to
show the ways which William Faulkner uses to reveal and to depict that language
in the narration. Moreover, our target is to discover the depth of Benjy’s sound of
silence that is hidden beyond his underdeveloped speech, interior monologue,
memory, sounds and senses.
According to afore mentioned aims, we need to tackle the following tasks of
the study:
1. To scrutinize the failure of verbal language in Benjy’s section.
2. To explore Benjy’s mind.
3. To demonstrate an exposition through the senses.
The scientific and practical significance of our research helps the scholar in
literature studies to pay special attention to seemingly unimportant features of the
narration such us: silence, sounds, punctuation marks, syntax and grammar, the
character’s vocabulary and inner thoughts, and what is most significant – the
character’s senses. We hope that our studies will help the researcher to think
deeply and to tackle difficulties in exploring innovative works of writers.
6
The sources of information of the study were the books of such scholars as
André Bleikasten, Cohn Dorrit and Stephen Ross; the articles of Moffitt Cecil,
Stacy Burton and Noel Polk and the theses of Josephine Adams, Eleanor Gray and
Lynn Ramsey.
According to the research methods we summarized the approaches of the
scientific research and literary sources and scrutinized the text in terms of literary
peculiarities.
The key statements presented for the defense:
1. Benjy is the narrator of the first section of the novel “The Sound and the
Fury” by William Faulkner. He demonstrates the significant problems of the
Compson family.
2. The use of interior monologue represents the flow of Benjy’s inner thought
processes. The shift of memories ties together moments in Benjy’s mind.
3. Benjy’s way of creating his world of sensation helps him to perceive the
events happening around him.
Approbation of the work was represented in the following articles:
“Challenges of translating repetitions into the Russian language in William
Faulkner’s novel “The Sound and the Fury”, which was published in the collection
of student scientific articles “Problems of studying of foreign language, history and
culture”. The second article “The prevalence of “hushing”” was published in the
journal “Problems of modern science and education”.
7
The structure of the thesis includes: the introduction, three chapters,
conclusion and bibliography. The introduction is devoted to the relevance of
research topic in terms of scientific research and literary understanding of mental
health. We formulate the object, the subject, the aims, the tasks of the thesis and
research methods. In the first chapter we scrutinize the failure of verbal language
in Benjy’s section and the characters way of developing voice into silence through
sounds. We highlight the importance of “hushing” in Benjy’s section. In the
second chapter, we explore Benjy’s mind, deciphering his interior monologue. We
tackle the crucial issues of the character’s way of developing his internal voice
through his own memories. We disclose that the time shifts are demonstrated in the
first section through the use of italics. In the third chapter, we examine Benjy’s
dependence on his senses. In the conclusion we summarize the main points and
ideas of our research.
8
THE FAILURE OF VERBAL LANGUAGE IN BENJY’S SECTION
I.1 Benjy’s way of developing voice into silence through sounds
William Faulkner unifies the narration of the novel “The Sound and the
Fury” with the sound of silence in the constant, ironic and pervasive phrase “There
was no sound”, which appears on the pages of the text “There was no sound in the
house” (Faulkner, 1995: 299). Silence acts as a sound, with the sound imagery that
follows it: “Father turned toward the steps."You must be quiet, though." he
said."Why must we be quiet, Father." Caddy said. "Have we got company."Hush."
Father said. They hushed and Father opened the door and we crossed the back
porch and went in to the kitchen. Dilsey was there, and Father put me in the chair
and closed the apron down and pushed it to the table, where supper was. It was
steaming up” (Faulkner, 1995: 22).
In the given example, we see every character hushed. It helps the reader to
hear another sound, existing in the family and to create the whole atmosphere in
the house. While reading this extract, we hear the sound of the door, we see the
porch, kitchen and table. We follow the characters as if we are on the same stage
with them. Another example shows how silence is broken by Benjy’s cries:
“Shhhhhh." Dilsey said. "Didn't Mr Jason say for you all to be quiet. Eat your
supper, now. Here, Versh. Git his spoon." Versh's hand came with the spoon, into
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the bowl. The spoon came up to my mouth. The steam tickled into my mouth.
Then we quit eating and we looked at each other and we were quiet, and then we
heard it again and I began to cry” (Faulkner, 1995: 23).
We can state that this juxtaposition of silence and sound plays a significant
role in the first section of the novel. Silence makes the sounds distinct and clear,
thereby the reader thoroughly comprehends a literary context.
William Faulkner starts the narration of the novel “The Sound and the Fury”
with Benjy’s section “April Seventh 1928”. It is told by a thirty-three-year-old man,
who turns out to be a grown person with the mental characteristics of a child. The
author’s intention is that the reader sees and reads the novel through Benjy’s eyes
and his mute language.
Henri Bergson describes this kind of character in the following way: “pure”
(perception), a “brute” (consciousness) which perceives reality as “an
uninterrupted series of instantaneous visions, which would be a part of things
rather than of ourselves” (Bergson 67). As Donald M. Kartiganer in “The Sound
and the Fury” and Faulkner's Quest for Form”” asserts that: “being an idiot, he is
actually perception prior to consciousness, prior to the “intelligent” view of
experience which, seeing reality as a succession of objects, is never content to
allow it to exist in that state, but must render it immediately – in the very act of
vision – into schematic form” (Kartiganer, 1970: 621).
Benjy’s lack of language appears to be another traditional characteristic used
to debate in favour of Benjy’s idiocy. Bleikasten maintains that “Benjy’s speech is
10
indeed Faulkner’s attempt to … verbalize the non-verbal” (Price, 2005: 14). This
quotation shows a real misunderstanding of Benjy’s nature. The reader considers
Benjy to be silent in the narration, but his bellowings, sobs and moans illustrate
something completely different. They are considered to replace the speech a
normal person would have.
Stacy Burton, in turn, scrutinizes the misconceptions of Benjy’s concept of
time and language in an argument against the idea of Benjy’s idiocy. She assumes:
“Criticism to date has tended to slight or even dismiss the dialogic context in
which Benjy Compson lives and tries to speak” (Burton, 2001: 208) and
specifically she states “critics have tended to respond to the challenge of his
[Benjy’s] puzzling discourse by seeing it as Faulkner’s formal experiment rather
than Benjy’s narrative” (Burton, 2001: 214).
Professor George Steiner states that William Faulkner was concerned with
“the density of silence” and with the use of silence related to sound. In an
interview, where Faulkner expressed his preference for prose over music, he said
“music would express better and simpler, but I prefer to use words as I prefer to
read rather than listen. I prefer silence to sound, and the image produced by words
occurs in silence. That is, the thunder and the music of the prose take place in
silence” (Zender, 1984: 97).
Therefore, the author opts for silence, trying to find privacy from the reality
and to contrive an innovative way of writing. In doing so, the author completely
11
changes established notions of ideas and images that have been used in literature
for a long time. Now silence plays a significant role in his fiction.
We must note the fact that in his early career he saw silence tightly
connected to speech. In the 1920s William Faulkner took from the French
symbolists the idea that all artistic statements are transmitted into speech by
inexpressible emotions. He considered silence to be an ideal state out of which a
person can feel the defectiveness of language. Silence appears to play a key role in
the narrative. An absent or a silent character plays a leading part in the narration.
Additionally, William Faulkner moved his attention away from silence as a way of
speech into silence as the main target of his writing “and he threatens, halfhumorously and yet half-seriously, to “break the pencil” and to lapse into silence”
(Zender, 1984: 101). By imposing silence on his books, William Faulkner made a
kind of “boundary art” (Zender, 1984: 101), giving in this way an opportunity to
finely tune our senses.
Stephen M. Ross considers voice to be “a mimetic concept” (Ross, 1989: 12),
regarding speech as literature’s primary representation. Voice is without fail a
mimetic concept in that it presumes speech as literature’s primary representation.
Moreover, voice is tightly linked to speech in literature. Nevertheless, William
Faulkner constantly states that speech is not above voice and Benjy is living proof
of that because in his narration, voice prevails over speech. Critical theory helps us
to read the text and to find an authentic speech that the text provides us with.
According to Ross, voice as a literary term “names the intangible relationship
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among quite tangible phenomena of reading the speech we hear, the writing we see,
the origins we discover” (Ross, 1989: 12). The reader cannot understand a literary
text if there is no voice in it. Therefore, Faulkner’s novel “The Sound and the
Fury” requires readers to pay special attention to voice. Benjy’s ears are full of
voices, which produce different sounds and can be identified by the character. The
voices are undiscriminating, the question of race does not occur to Benjy, instead
the pure essence of the action is portrayed. We can state that Benjy’s unspoken
voice unites all the characters’ voices in the text, by acting as a leveler and giving
the characters equal status.
The choice he makes in his reproduction of narrative is key to his
interpretation. He acts as an unwitting editor.
In addition, Benjy’s way of developing voice reveals and fills the missing
and significant parts in the novel. Paul Lilly states that the aim of Faulkner was to
reach “the impossibility of an impeccable language” (Adams, 2014: 40), that
appeared to be wordless.
According to Mikhail Bakhtin, the theory of heteroglossia does not enable
the author, Faulkner, to depict different narrators. Bakhtin’s theories concerning
man's relationship to language in daily life are represented through the characters
in the book. As Bakhtin expresses: “the word in language is half someone else's. It
becomes “one's own” only when the speaker populates it with his own intention,
his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic
and expressive intention” (Adams, 2014: 10).
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Some critics have disputed Bakhtin’s theory in relation to Benjy because of
the inclusion of silence in the novel and the lack of spoken language. The Russian
scholar explained his findings on this issue declaring that: “Only by remaining in a
closed environment, one without writing or thought, completely off the maps of
socio-ideological becoming, could a man fail to sense this activity of selecting a
language and rest assured in the inviolability of his own language, the conviction
that his language is predetermined” (Adams, 2014: 11).
Bakhtin’s analysis relates to the real world, while Benjy’s world was entirely
created to match Faulkner’s narrative purpose. The relevance is that Benjy does
exist in a closed environment; one that is within his own head. The language he
produces is merely the reproduction of others’ dialogues and has no purpose “of
selecting a language” as Bakhtin states it.
Andre Bleikasten names Benjy’s language an “idiolect” that “forms a closed
system, a strictly private code, designed to suggest the functioning of an
abnormally limited consciousness” (Gray, 2013: 8).
Benjy holds a tremendous sway with his voice and the reader can feel its
power throughout the novel. This power has built up from the accumulation of life,
events, his environment and his absorption of daily occurrences. Benjy’s language
is indiscriminate and has no “filter” (Gray, 2013: 11) for his family’s voices. His
senses cannot be separated from his language, because smelling, seeing and feeling
act as a key aspect in his description of events.
14
Michel Gresset in his book “The Ordeal of Consciousness: Psychological
Aspects of Evil in “The Sound and the Fury”” highlights the importance of Benjy’s
close interaction with nature and associates it with the character’s self-awareness:
“The fact of being alive in the world is not problematic for him, for he is on a level
with the world” (Gray, 2013: 11).
Ted Roggenbuck maintains that Benjy has a real voice in the novel, seen
through his crying and moaning: “crying involves [Benjy’s] intentions and relates
closely to saying” (Roggenbuck, 2005: 583). The character’s crying and moaning
reveal to the reader the tragedy and the pain of his family. What is more, in doing
so, Benjy’s voice (sounds) serves as the expression of disorder. Benjy’s obsession
with waiting for Caddy, the only person in the family who loves him, is expressed
without words, only sounds, such as bellowing, roaring, moaning and many others:
“his animal-like utterances reinforce the visceral nature of his memory of love, and
his need to love and be loved by the absent Caddy” (Ramsey, 2010: 7).
Additionally, the character’s animal-like sounds intensify his desires, his need to
love and be loved. His bellowing shows “the grave hopeless sound of all voiceless
misery under the sun” (Ramsey, 2010: 7). These sounds also reveal the events
happening to Benjy and others in the present; moreover, through the sounds we can
see the existing relationships between the characters. His uncontrolled bellowing
and sobbing serve as a way to demonstrate his thoughts. Consequently, it is the
only method to express his feelings, because he cannot use normal language.
15
His voice is nonsensical to the other family members; moreover, in most
cases, his voice is misunderstood and rejected. No one is going to listen to an idiot:
“what actually occurs here embodies the exchange between the sense fragment and
the sense cue, as the chaotic elements of his internal voice accumulate in the sound
of these moans and screams and represent the absence of a standard, word-object,
perspective” (Gray, 2013: 16).
Benjy’s mental problem does not allow language to emerge into social life,
while his cries and moans depict the edge between body and voice. The screams
help to reveal the chaotic situations which are expressed through his voice,
erupting from his body.
Despite Benjy’s living in his own world, his capability to reflect upon the
things happening around him keeps his world alive and in this way allows Benjy to
reproduce his limited language. Benjy lives silently in the language “surrounded by
words he cannot use, he is used by words” (Weinstein, 2008: 119).
Benjy’s words show the undeniable power of his mind. It means that he can
choose the words, sounds and actions for every situation in his narration and the
things happening to him. “As readers, we get our own vision of his world and this
vision is foremost Benjy's truth.
Cecil Moffitt in A Rhetoric for Benjy points out that Faulkner gave Benjy a
vocabulary of almost 500 words: over 210 nouns, 175 verbs, 61 adjectives, 37
adverbs, 25 prepositions and 13 conjunctions. The character also uses pronouns in
16
his section. On the face of it comes the question: How can a mentally challenged
person know so many words and employ them?
Benjy's nouns include the names of the Compson’s family: “Mother”,
“Quentin”, “Dilsey”, “Queenie”, “Dan”, “Fancy”, “Caddy”, “Uncle Maury” and
“Luster”. The character names and makes out the natural world: moon, sun, stars,
wind, sky, grass and trees. He can differentiate things related to the rooms inside
the house and to the household: pasture, fence, yard, garden, bedroom, dining
room, kitchen, chair, mirror, stove, sink and clock. He knows where nose, eyes,
chest, mouth, arms, shoulder and all the parts of the body are.
Consequently, all the nouns used by Benjy are specific, giving names to the
concrete objects, which exist in the real world. At the same time, we notice that
despite the vast amount of nouns in Benjy’s vocabulary, there are no nouns related
to pain, pleasure, despair and hope, desire, love or belief. Basically, abstract nouns
describe a person’s attitude, opinion and evaluation. In the first section, we cannot
perceive Benjy’s moral, cognitive and social qualities since only abstract nouns
have a possibility to do so. It means that Benjy’s power to generalize, to think and
to reflect is denied to him. What is more, the absence of these nouns confirms
Benjy’s peculiarity and renders his being an average person more than
questionable. Furthermore, we can point out that there are no people around him
who can make him happy, except initially Caddy, who can bring hope for a better
future and simply treat him in a decent way. That is why he remains silent when he
appears to be suffering. His pain relates to the pain of anyone else “just pain, a
17
blind discharge of impersonal emotion” (Bleikasten, 1976: 72).The most recurring
collocation in Benjy’s repertoire is “bright shapes”. These words represent a visual
image to the reader. “Benjy is represented as responding with this image
indiscriminately to designate feelings and yearnings which he cannot differentiate
and for which therefore he can have no words” (Cecil, 1970: 39). A vivid example
of the use of “bright shapes” can be found in the sentence “I could hear Queenie's
feet and the bright shapes went smooth and steady on both sides, the shadows of
them flowing across Queenie's back” (Faulkner, 1995: 9), thereby the given shapes
are the effect on the landscape of the movement. In doing so, the “bright shapes”
help the reader to draw in his head a bright picture of what is happening, to see
bright images and to perceive the world through Benjy’s eyes. As Cecil Moffitt
points out: “on this occasion Benjy is experiencing a feeling of mild pleasure, of
contentment, of momentary happiness” (Cecil, 1970: 39). He is sitting in the
carriage, holding a flower in his hand, which is essential for peace of mind and
happiness. No need to moan and to cry, because he has everything he needs.
In another example, when Benjy is sitting with Caddy next to the fire, the
given phrase means stronger emotions: “It's still raining, Caddy said. I hate rain. I
hate everything. And then her head came into my lap and she was crying, holding
me, and I began to cry. Then I looked at the fire again and the bright smooth
shapes went again” (Faulkner, 1995: 55). In the given example, the vision of
“bright shapes” gives Benjy the feeling of safety and warmth, coming from
Caddy’s love towards him. Another use of the phrase is linked to Benjy’s sleep:
18
“Then the dark began to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it always does, even
when Caddy says that I have been asleep” (Faulkner, 1995: 73). This time the
image comes from Benjy’s inner peace and contentment. Therefore, the vision of
“bright shapes” acts as a way of revealing Benjy’s mental limitations. As Cecil
Moffitt explains: “It, together with his uncontrollable moaning or bellowing, must
serve him in place of the myriad abstract nouns which intelligent men use freely to
distinguish their feelings and their thoughts” (Cecil, 1970: 40).
The reader cannot find the character’s own speech in the novel because all
the spoken phrases, which resonate from his body, are someone else’s. As
Bleikasten notes: “His body is not any more his own than his mind” (Bleikasten,
1976: 72). Each part of his body acts on its own. The following examples are
certainly proof of that: “But when I tried to climb onto it it jumped away and hit
me on the back of the head and my throat made a sound” (Faulkner, 1995: 38),
“My hand jerked back and I put it in my mouth” (Faulkner, 1995: 57). As the
reader can see, his throat makes sounds on its own and his hand acts by itself. This
suggests that Benjy is no better than an uncomprehending and passive observer of
the things and events happening to him. As Donald M. Kartiganer notes: “this
novel is about the very agony of seeing and creating encompassing order”
(Kartiganer, 1970: 623). Moreover, the key aspect of the first section is the
discovery of who the real Benjy is. Despite the absence of speech, the language is
readable, innocent and simple. Sometimes an impression the reader perceives is
quite subtle and difficult to seize. As Michael Millgate points out: “Benjy is a first
19
person narrator…but his observations do not pass through an intelligence which is
capable of ordering, and hence distorting them; he reports the events of which he is
a spectator and even those in which he himself is a participator, with a camera-like
fidelity” (Blythe, 1990: 34).
Additionally, the verbs instigate his sensory knowledge of objects, actions
and things happening around him, which drives the narrative. The variety of verbs
helps him to observe the world, for example, as well as walking, he waddles,
tiptoes, staggers and scuffles. All the given verbs above depict a level of perception,
marking Benjy’s monologues from others: “The carriage jolted and crunched on
the drive” (Faulkner, 1995: 8), “She [Dilsey] wadded the drawers and scrubbed
Caddy behind with them” (Faulkner, 1995: 72).
Despite being a proficient narrator of actions, he has no power to make
suggestions or draw conclusions from the information he perceives. Sometimes, he
cannot seize the manner or condition by which a person behaves or by which the
action takes place. For example, turning on and off the lights at night seems to be a
hard process for the character. On one hand he understands the things happening
around him, because he describes them in his section “So I hushed and Caddy got
up and we went into the kitchen and turned the light on” (Faulkner, 1995: 46); on
the other hand, he depicts sudden changes in the events “The room went away”
(Faulkner, 1995: 42), “The room came black” (Faulkner, 1995: 42). Therefore,
Benjy lacks the power of thinking and consideration.
20
What is more, the verb forms, used by him, are given in the past tenses:
“they took”, “we stopped”, “Luster was hunting” and “I could see them hunting”.
This suggests his inability to use the present and future tenses. We can state that
this is because of his close link to the past events (his memories), correlating with
his narration. Benjy pojects events from the past, as if he is still living there. He is
trapped in the past, he cannot see ahead. He lost his Caddy in the past, so he wants
to reconstruct the events related to his sister. He cannot find and see himself in the
present and the future life.
Besides, the use of adjectives in his speech intensifies the desperate scream
of the Compson family. He differentiates the colours – white, green, blue, black,
yellow and many others while illustrating other characteristics through the
adjectives – bright, dark, smooth, muddy, empty and others.
Therefore, we can maintain that by the simplicity of lexical features in
Benjy’s section, we regard the story being told by a mentally challenged person.
His language causes “a laid-back effect” (Anggraheni, 2017: 109) as if we are
listening to a child’s speech or reading his story full of innocence. Benjy “is
limited forever to the nearly helpless condition of the small child for whom the
world is a great buzz” (Rueckert, 2004: 25).
What is more, the family treats Benjy as less than human, as if his presence
was regarded at best as animal or at worst as furniture: “Shut up that moarning”
(Faulkner, 1995: 2), “T.P. pulled me up and he put on my clothes fast” (Faulkner,
1995: 32) and “Can you take him out of the house” (Faulkner, 1995: 32). The
21
characters ignore him moving through the house, watching and listening, “in effect
mapping the boundaries of his text and organizing the relationship between
people” (Price, 2005: 18), while other characters do not see him at all. The talk
between Dilsey and Roskus, in Benjy’s presence, “They ain’t no luck on this place.
I seen it at first but when they changed his name I knowed it” (Faulkner, 1995: 27),
shows us the renaming of Benjy. No one asks him if he wants a new name or not.
They change the name and treat Benjy the way they want. Therefore, we can point
out Benjy’s insignificance for the other characters, except Caddy.
Benjy’s “ubiquitous presence” (Price, 2005: 18) shows the readers his
influence on certain issues of the Compson family. Benjy is the only one to notice
the hierarchical shift in the family, for example Dilsey takes control of Mrs
Compson, which “supports a servant/master dichotomy shift” (Price, 2005: 18).
Benjy burns his hand and Mother tells about her sad fate, so Dilsey states: “You
hush that now … You come on back up stairs” (Faulkner, 1995: 58). Dilsey
considers Mrs Compson as another child in the family. This scene vividly shows
how Dilsey takes over the control in the house.
Therefore, we can consider Benjy to be a narrator of the first section,
because the novel stems from his narration: he is the first one who introduces the
reader to the novel’s world. William Faulkner gives him this opportunity, because
of all the characters, Benjy is the one that cannot lie. He reproduces only the things
and the situations, happening around him and reflects on them on his level, adding
bright images. He can feel everything, but he cannot explain the reasons.
22
I.2
The prevalence of “hushing”
We cannot omit the significant usage of the word “hush” throughout the
novel. It is considered to be one of the most constant sounds in “The Sound and the
Fury”. The continual command to “hush” ties the narratives of the novel together,
depicting “the primeval cry of a disintegrating family” (Ramsey, 2010: 8). It seems
that by “hushing” Benjy, in other words quieting him, the nature of the family
could be changed for the better.
The first command of “hush” is used by Luster to Benjy “hush up that
moaning” (Faulkner, 1995: 1) and is repeated more than twice on the two first
pages of the novel “if you do not hush up, mammy ain’t going to have” (Faulkner,
1995: 2), and “if you do not hush, you know what I going to do” (Faulkner, 1995:
2). Luster’s first words “listen at you, now” (Faulkner, 1995: 1) are not only
related to Benjy, they are as well related to the reader, he must “hush” too, if he
wants to get involved in the narration of the Compson family and have an
opportunity to hear and to listen.
Lynn Ramsey states that the “hush” functions in the novel on several levels:
“at the linguistic level it functions as a regionalism, and aurally, as an
onomatopoeic representation of the spoken word” (Ramsey, 2010: 8). Besides, the
frequent use of the word “hush” in Benjy’s section is defined as a voiceless current,
“it is what the voice does as it reads” (Ramsey, 2010: 8).
23
The sound “hush” occurs throughout Benjy’s section as the expression of
irritation, trying to avert the growing angst of the Compson family, which can be
pushed to breaking point. For instance, Caddy’s way of living proves it: she leads a
riotous life “a symbol of social disruption” (Millgate, 1966: 97), thereby
blackening the family’s good name; the family is living with the anxiety of setting
tongues wagging about them. Mr Compson dies not because he drinks himself to
death; his unbearable life leads to his demise. Jason takes Caddy’s money instead
of giving it to Quentin. He does so because Caddy prevented him from getting the
job in the bank he was aspiring to, projecting his anger and angst on the family.
Consequently, it seems that the word “hush” is used as a tool to indicate the
deterioration of the family but also as a signpost to direct the characters and the
reader to hear.
All the characters of the novel get into the act of “hushing”. They hush each
other, but Benjy is shown to be a victim whom all the protagonists try to hush, he
is a physical representation of what other characters in the novel cannot say and
have no desire to say. For instance, when Mother and Caddy quarrel with each
other about Benjy: “Bring him here. Mother said. He's too big for you to carry.
You must stop trying…“He's not too heavy. Caddy said. I can carry him”…“If
you'll hold him, he'll stop. Caddy said. Hush. She said”… “Let him look at it and
he'll be quiet. Caddy said. "Hold up just a minute while I slip it out. There, Benjy.
Look. I looked at it and hushed”…“Take that cushion away, like I told you.
24
Mother said. He must learn to mind”…“Hush, Benjy. Caddy said” (Faulkner, 1995:
61).
In the given example, we can discover the maternal instinct in Caddy, she
“exerts a rival authority against her mother” (Cline, 2010: 321). We can suggest
that she is another mother figure for Benjy, as a competitor to Mrs. Compson.
Caddy orders Benjy to hush, allowing in that way one of the characters to
dominate the other one “his disability enables the conflict for the rivalry between
mother and daughter to be expressed” (Cline, 2010: 321). Besides, we can suggest
that Caddy’s maternal care for Benjy heightens and demonstrates her tragedy of
not seeing and visiting her own daughter.
We can illustrate another glaring example of “hushing”, seen in the
relationships between Benjy and Caddy. When we find Benjy next to his sister “the
cause of his tears is usually revealed by her removing the cause” (Toker, 1988:
116). “I'll run away and never come back,” Caddy said. I began to cry. Caddy
turned around and said “Hush.” So I hushed. Then they played in the branch. […]
Caddy was all wet and muddy behind, and I started to cry and she came and
squatted in the water. “Hush now.” she said. “I'm not going to run away.” So I
hushed. Caddy smelled like trees in the rain” (Faulkner, 1995: 17).
As we can see in the given example, Benjy starts crying, because he is afraid
of losing his beloved sister Caddy, who makes him hush and cry. Benjy is haunted
by this thought: the fear of being left alone. We can point out here one of the major
themes of the novel – the need of love. As Leona Toker expressly states “Mrs.
25
Compson does not satisfy her children's need for affection” (Toker, 1988: 117), so
Caddy “Caddy fills the void that her coldness leaves in Benjy's life” (Toker, 1988:
117).
Caddy is the only one who responds, speaks and listens to Benjy, as if the
character had an ability to be involved in verbal dialogue, or at least a way of
“trying to say”. She usually “attempts to bring him to the speech by showing him
what specific words mean, repeating key phrases, and encouraging him to
understand and respond” (Burton, 2001: 219). In the scene, where Benjy finds
Caddy with Charlie, Caddy talks to him and walks him to the house herself until he
hushes: “She put her arms around me and I hushed and held to her dress and tried
to pull her away … “Hush, Benjy.” Caddy said. “Go away, Charlie. He doesn't like
you.” Charlie went away and I hushed. I pulled at Caddy's dress … Charlie came
and put his hands on Caddy and I cried more. I cried loud … “Hush.” Caddy said.
“He's gone.” I hushed. I could hear her and feel her chest going … Caddy and I
ran” (Faulkner, 1995: 45).
Benjy does not want to see anyone next to Caddy, she belongs only to him.
By crying, he wants to be noticed. As soon as his sister is next to him, he stops his
moaning and hushes. Caddy’s role in Benjy’s life is regarded as a “creator and
conveyor of language” (Wagner 50).
“Caddy offers herself up for repentance to Benjy, as he berates her with his
bellow, beseeches his forgiveness” (Price, 2005: 28) and she says: “Hush. I won’t
anymore” (Faulkner, 1995: 46). The following sentence is of utmost important for
26
Benjy: “So I hushed and Caddy got up and we went into the kitchen and turned the
light on and Caddy took the kitchen soap and washed her mouth at the sink, hard.
Caddy smelled like trees” (Faulkner, 1995: 46). Benjy was outraged to see Caddy
with Charlie, so he hushed only when his sister washed her mouth to show
repentance for what had happened. He accepts her cleaned mouth as a sign of her
penitence. As we find out Benjy’s bellows throughout his section are hushed and
hushed every once in a while. We can state that “hushing” gives the rhythm of the
whole first section, giving an onomatopoeic quality to the text.
Benjy’s interaction with other family members provides him with limited
vocabulary. In that case, the word “hush” shows it in detail. Everyone from the
family orders Benjy to “hush”. He understands their command and, what is more,
he uses it himself: “Caddy said, “Hush, Maury” putting her hand on me. So I
stayed hushed” (Faulkner, 1995: 73). Moreover, as we can state, he understands
the context of the conversation, even if the word is not said: “Caddy said. “Let me
carry him up, Dilsey.” “Go on, Minute.” Dilsey said. “You ain’t big enough to tote
a flea. You go on and be quiet, like Mr. Jason said.” There was a light at the top of
the stairs. Father was there, in his shirt sleeves. The way he looked said Hush.
Caddy whispered, “Is Mother sick” (Faulkner, 1995: 59).
As we can see in the example above, Dilsey's words “You go on and be
quiet, like Mr. Jason said” (Faulkner, 1995: 59) make Benjy immediately calm
down and become obedient.
27
Consequently, we can state that the act of “hushing”, repeated throughout
the first section, heightens the decay of the Compson family.
Conclusions for chapter I
By scrutinizing this chapter, we can arrive at the conclusion that being
mentally challenged, Benjy Compson is regarded by us as one of the narrators of
the novel “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner. He manages to involve
the readers in his narration of the first section by the use of his own vocabulary,
sounds and voice. He reveals significant problems of the Compson family: the
desire to love and to be loved, the dimension of an unfulfilled person, a generation
gap, angst, resentment and fear of being forgotten and left alone. All these are
perceived by the reader through Benjy’s own peculiar way of narrating.
Moreover, the prevalence of the word “hush” throughout Benjy’s narration
is regarded by us as a command used by the characters relating to Benjy. The act of
“hushing” heightens the decay of the Compson family and gives the rhythm of the
whole first section of the novel, demonstrating an onomatopoeic quality to the text.
28
EXPLORING BENJY’S MIND
II.1 Deciphering interior monologue
In “The Sound and the Fury” William Faulkner combines the use of firstperson narration with the significant use of interior monologue. The first-person
narration allows Benjy to reveal himself to the readers, “thereby eliminating the
possibility of inarticulateness” (Groden, 1975: 266), and at the same time the
interior monologue allows William Faulkner to show Benjy’s mind far beyond his
ability to demonstrate his own conscious processes.
Nicholas Fargnoli defines an interior monologue as “A narrative technique
that presents to the reader the flow of a character’s inner thought processes and
impressions” (Fargnoli, 2008: 408). It is similar to the stream-of-consciousness
technique in that it demonstrates discursiveness and fluency of memories,
sensations and ideas that include one’s conscious thoughts. Besides, the interior
monologue does not have to respect basic syntactical and grammatical rules. In his
narration Benjy uses simple sentences, consisting of subject and verb: “Mother
said” (Faulkner, 1995: 3), “Versh said” (Faulkner, 1995: 3) or subject, verb and
complement “The gate was cold” (Faulkner, 1995: 4). Through the use of the
coordinating conjunction “and”, Benjy constructs his sentences together to form
29
loose compound sentences: “Then we quit eating and we looked at each other and
we were quiet, and then we heard it again and I began to cry” (Faulkner, 1995: 23).
As we can see, the sentence above illustrates the events in a chronological order.
Benjy perceives the changes, but he cannot understand the whole sense.
The interior monologue is regarded by Robert Humphrey in his book
“Stream of Consciousness in the Modern Novel” as “an expression of the most
intimate thought that lies nearest the unconsciousness” (Humphrey, 1954: 25).
The interior monologue tends to break down three key elements traditionally
regarded as fundamental in narrative fiction: exposition, plot, and chronological
order. “The monologue does not have to be coextensive with the complete work …
it happens on its own” (Genette, 1983: 174).
Generally, we consider every novel to start with a certain amount of
exposition, moving into the main plot, and following the event in chronological
order to the solution to the conflict. As Lawrence Edward Bowling maintains, and
we are of the same opinion as he is: “this is not Faulkner's method in “The Sound
and the Fury””. He begins at the end and works backward” (Bowling, 1948: 555).
Therefore, the events from Benjy's past are shown not in the chronological
order in which they should be demonstrated, but in the order in which chance
associations cause Benjy to recollect them. What is more, many of the recalled
events are merely a few lines in length and usually are not closely related to each
other. William Faulkner guides his readers with Benjy's mental processes only
through the use of italics to demonstrate the moment when the character’s mind
30
shifts from one event to another. As Faulkner says himself: “Here's an idiot; it's
you and him for it” (Bowling, 1948: 556).
While reading “The Sound and the Fury” we discover ourselves being on the
same stage as Benjy. To ask the character to explain the idea and thoughts which
his mind possesses is “like expecting a phonograph to comment upon a recording”
(Bowling, 1948: 556). Benjy’s mind represents what it perceives through the
physical senses.
Nowadays we wholly acknowledge the cinematic influence in art. “Consider
its perspectivalism (each narrative tied to a single focal consciousness); its quick
cuts, fades, and flashbacks; its uncanny voice-over narrations” (Price, 2005: 88).
Today, the readers see the true value of Faulkner and the revolution he sparked in
literature. In that case, Benjy Compson could be regarded as a filmmaker,
projecting events from the past.
We can consider Faulkner’s experiments upon the novel as being radical and
risky. His art was so modern and innovative, that the publisher told him that the
text: “might not be published for a hundred years” (Price, 2005: 88).
We can suggest that the most remarkable change, expressed by modern art,
takes place in the “referential system of the text” (Prince, 1982: 138). One of such
changes in narratives is the use of many different names to reveal and to describe
the same character, but they do not show it openly. William Faulkner applied this
double-naming to Benjy: he was born Benjy Compson (named after Uncle Maury)
and then changed to Benjamin, when he was discovered as a mentally challenged.
31
We can point out that a person’s name functions like a summary of his vivid
characteristics. In Benjy’s case: emotional, suffering and sensitive. Additionally,
we can add that originally, from the Hebrew, name Benjamin means “son of the
sorrow”, which correlates with the nature of Faulkner’s character. His Mother
always expresses sorrow for having Benjy as a son, whereas the key aspect is that
Benjy reflects deep sorrow of the Compson family.
Most writers who use the stream of consciousness are faced with the
problem raised by Lawrence and Flaubert “of the limitation of verbal patterns as
conveyors of thought and characterization through thought” (Scholes, 2006: 199).
They solve the problem in this way: if the character is sensitive and clever, then he
is allowed to speak and to have a power on his own mental process (Quentin
Compson), but if the character is subnormal, he is regarded in another way (Benjy
Compson). However, the level of Benjy’s uniqueness has been argued by many
critics as not possible in real life. By the use of mental limitations, William
Faulkner introduces in “The Sound and the Fury” a more poetical verbal system in
Benjy’s monologue. As a result, the character attains a power over his mind, which
allows him to interject his thoughts into real life.
We can point out that the first and last paragraphs of Benjy’s monologue
demonstrate the character’s speech at its best, showing and describing its power
and its distinctive limitations: “Through the fence, between the curling flower
spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and
I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They
32
took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went
to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the
fence. Luster came away from the flower tree and we went along the fence and
they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence” (Faulkner, 1995: 1).
The first sentence of the first section “curling flower spaces” (Faulkner,
1995: 1) is regarded as the most dazzling phrase coming from Benjy's mouth and
opening the novel. The second sentence with its dependent clause and the third and
fourth sentences are unremarkable. Only a few sentences later, is Benjy’s
strangeness revealed in his speech. “The absence of antecedents for the pronouns
they, he, and other and the omission of direct objects for the transitive verbs hitting
and hunting (in short, the absence of any awareness on his part of purpose in the
golfers or in Luster)” (Cecil, 1970: 45) shows Benjy's as being mentally challenged.
The idiot’s monologue finishes at the end of his section in emotional and mental
strain: “Father went to the door and looked at us again. Then the dark came back,
and he stood black in the door, and then the door turned black again. Caddy held
me and I could hear us all, and the darkness, and something I could smell. And
then I could see the windows, where the trees were buzzing. Then the dark began
to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it always does even when Caddy says that I
have been asleep” (Faulkner, 1995: 73).
The given passage represents the most vivid images for Benjy and the way
of perceiving it through the senses: the sense of touch “Caddy held me”, sound
senses “I could hear us all”, smell “something I could smell” and sight “I could see
33
the windows”. This is his own way of narrating the first section, using and
mastering his senses. As L. Moffitt Cecil states: “The final reference in the last
sentence to “bright shapes” and “sleep” produces the effect of a refrain, a
benediction” (Cecil, 1970: 46).
What is more, the use of modality in Benjy’s monologue serves as
“capability instead of obligation” (Anggraheni, 2017: 58) and indicates Benjy’s
specific ways of using his senses. “I couldn't feel the gate at all, but I could smell
the bright cold” (Faulkner, 1995: 4) and “I couldn't see the spot” (Faulkner, 1995:
68). It is his attempt to express his feelings and emotions and to describe the events,
happening in his life, because he cannot do it through distinct speech.
We can suggest that the first section of “The Sound and the Fury” presents
the illusion of a mind, which is observing what is happening and shifting between
past and present. For example: “The kitchen was dark. The trees were black on the
sky. Dan came waddling out from under the steps and chewed my ankle. I went
around the kitchen, where the moon was. Dan came scuffling along, into the
moon” (Faulkner, 1995: 44). “Jason threw into the fire. It hissed, uncurled, turning
black. Then it was grey. Then it was gone … Caddy's head was on Father's
shoulder. Her hair was like fire, and little points of fire were in her eyes, and I went
and Father lifted me into the chair too, and Caddy held me. She smelled like trees”
(Faulkner, 1995: 70).
Therefore, we can see that Benjy’s monologues convey his interpretation of
the world. “Idiocy” means “simple”, as philosopher C. Rosset says: “The real
34
[designates] existence as a singular fact, without reflection or double: an idiocy
therefore, in the primary sense of the term”. 1The key aspect is Benjy’s childish
impression of the world, as if he was painting it in bright colours. Children always
try to create their image of the world, comparing the incomparable. The same
happens to Benjy, as a kid he describes what he sees: “the trees were black on the
sky” and a reflection of fire in Caddy’s eye, but he is unable to understand is it
only a reflection. All these statements show what does not really exist in life, but
rather how Benjy sees the world.
Moreover, we noticed that among the words the character uses frequently
are “while”, “then”, “back”, “again” presenting degrees of temporal consciousness.
Benjy does not use “so” or “because” to describe causality, he assumes the sense of
it by recollecting the events one after another: “They held my head. It was hot
inside me, and I began again. I was crying now, and something was happening
inside me and I cried more, and they held me until it stopped happening. Then I
hushed. It was still going around, and then the shapes began” (Faulkner, 1995:
20).Therefore, we can see how Benjy by the use of the words “then” and “now”
indicates time in his narrative.
Moreover, Benjy uses connectors in his monologue, such as “and”, “where”,
“but” and “when”. The frequent use of “where” and “when” focuses our attention
on Benjy’s locations and the events around him. The connectors in his monologue
Rosset Clément. Le Réel: Traité de l’idiotie/ Clément Rosset –Translated by Mme Pernelle,
Minuit, Paris, 1977. - p.7.
1
35
are redundant from time to time, connecting words, phrases, clauses and
sometimes making the character’s ideas cohesive. For example: “He was still
laughing, and I couldn't stop, and I tried to get up and I fell down, and I couldn't
stop” (Faulkner, 1995: 19). The given example shows us an improper use of
cohesive devices and we can see it if the sentence had been written in this way:
“He was still laughing, and I couldn't stop. I tried to get up, but I fell down, and I
couldn't stop”. Therefore, we can state that the improper use of cohesive devices
causes misunderstandings and disorder through connections. In Benjy’s
monologue, this incoherence is commonly regarded as a result of time shifts, that
is why the readers are confused.
1) “Dilsey pushed me and I got in the bed, where Luster already was. He
was asleep. Dilsey took a long piece of wood and laid it between Luster and me”
(Faulkner, 1995: 30).
2) “You can’t go yet, T.P. said. Wait. We looked around the corner of the
house and watched the carriages go away” (Faulkner, 1995: 30).
3) “Come on, Luster said, I going to take this here ball down home, where I
wont lose it. Now, sir, you can’t have it” (Faulkner, 1995: 30).
The given sentences follow one after another, but none of them has logical
links that help to make sense. We understand it by the use of proper nouns, for
example, the first statement depicts “Dilsey”, “Benjy” and “I” (Benjy), while the
second extract involves “T.P.”, “you” (Benjy) and “we” and the last instance
includes “Luster” and Benjy. Everything is unmatched, besides, Benjy describes
36
them without clarifying time references. The only key aspect that helps us to get
the sense out of it is the words written in italics. “As a result, this all raises an
effect of time travel, but the destinations remain unnoticed” (Anggraheni, 2017:
66). It once again demonstrates Benjy’s inability to seize the concept of time,
indicating the mental conditions that bring about the character’s difficulty with
language.
L. Moffitt Cecil states that in Benjy's monologue the reader can discover two
distinct levels of language. The first level consists of the character’s impressions of
events which “flow willy-nilly through his consciousness” (Cecil, 1970: 35). We
can assume that on this level Benjy serves as a narrator “in which capacity he
makes use of the rudimentary language Faulkner devised for him” (Cecil, 1970:
35). Besides, here we can disclose his verbal limitations which describe his mental
disabilities.
The second level of Benjy’s language is the presence of dialogues that the
character remembers as having been spoken by one or another of the main
characters in the novel. His excellent memory, discloses “a calculated departure
from verisimilitude” (Cecil, 1970: 35), and allows him to narrate his story.
In order to reveal flow of consciousness and rhythm of the first section,
William Faulkner does not attach significance to traditional syntax, logical
connections and punctuation. He does not guide the reader through the confusing,
mental processes. Moreover, he uses periods instead of commas after directive
expressions like “Quentin said” (Faulkner, 1995: 41) or “Father said” (Faulkner,
37
1995: 41). What is more, we cannot find exclamation marks, question marks,
dashes or colons. In omitting this, the author describes the disorder and confusion
of character’s thoughts, constructing grammatical equality on Benjy’s sentences,
keeping us aware of Benjy as a narrator. We find out all his statements to be equal.
Moreover, this is a typical response placing an importance on everything and
pointing out the character’s immature treatment of events.
“That Benjy’s bellowing is grammatically the equal of the bright shapes that
accompany him to sleep may suggest that if there is an emotional hierarchy at
whose top is loss - of Caddy particularly, but also of everything else - it
nevertheless remains true that all sensations seem to register equally, and
unrelatedly, on him” (Polk, 1993: 146).
Besides, most sentences in Benjy’s monologue are simple sentences: “They
held me” (Faulkner, 1995: 20), “They were singing” (Faulkner, 1995: 29) and “We
waited” (Faulkner, 1995: 22).
The three examples have the same structure where a verb (“held”, “were
singing” and “waited”) merely changes a noun phrase (“they” and “we”) to make a
significant sentence. However, we can find the presence of longer simple sentences
in his interior monologues: “Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces,
I could see them hitting” (Faulkner, 1995: 1) and “Dilsey came with a blanket and
spread it over her and tucked it around her” (Faulkner, 1995: 42). The given
examples are more complex than the ones mentioned before. Another example: “It
was red, flapping on the pasture. Then there was a bird slanting and tilting on it.
38
Luster threw. The flag flapped on the bright grass and the trees. I held to the fence”
(Faulkner, 1995: 2). In the given extract we discover five simple sentences, which
are lacking syntactic complexity. Consequently, the use of simple sentences in
Benjy’s interior monologues does not make us think deeply about the information
they render. We only read and listen to his primitive way of narrating.
The following extract depicts the form often used to differentiate quotations
within Benjy’s monologue: “Maury says he's going to shoot the scoundrel.” Father
said. "I told him he'd better not mention it to Patterson before hand.” He
drank.“Jason.” Mother said.“Shoot who, Father.” Quentin said. “What's Uncle
Maury going to shoot him for.”“Because he couldn't take a little joke.” Father
said.“Jason.” Mother said. “How can you. You'd sit right there and see Maury shot
down in ambush, and laugh.”“Then Maury’d better stay out of ambush.” Father
said.“Shoot who, Father.” Quentin said. “Who’s Uncle Maury going to
shoot.”“Nobody.” Father said. “I don’t own a pistol” (Faulkner, 1995: 41).
As we can see from the example above, none of these utterances belong to
Benjy's language. Firstly, we read the words of undisclosed speaker, then Benjy
interjects the identifying clause and after it the same speaker or a new one makes a
statement again. We can suggest that a complete neglect of question marks shows
Benjy’s inability to perceive the voice intonation. His frequent use of the verb
“said” shows that most of the conversations, which exist in his head, is just a sound
for Benjy. Consequently, we agree with André Bleikasten that Benjy’s monologue
is not a monologue at all; it is “a polylogue, a mosaic or patchwork of many voices
39
seemingly recorded at random by an unselective mind” (Bleikasten, 1976: 68).
Therefore, we can say with certainty, that Benjy instead of interpreting and
ordering events for the readers, creates a confused account of his life, relying upon
the remembered speech of others.
Consequently, the interior monologue in the first section of the novel “The
Sound and the Fury” helps Benjy to indicate his feelings and unspoken thoughts.
Its structure is a presentation of the way in which language at the same time
destroys and creates.
II.2
Benjy’s shift from memory to memories
Benjy Compson develops his internal voice in the first section of the novel
“The Sound and the Fury” through his own memories. Dorrit Cohn in her book
“Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction”
states that memory narratives “far more readily disrupt the temporal macrostructure than the temporal micro-structure of a text, revealing the tenacity of the
link between realistic narrative presentation and chronological narrative sequence”
(Cohn, 1978: 183). The book’s narrator, as long as he speaks or writes, creates a
language based on communication by shifting between past and present. “The
private associations that determine mnemonic thought-sequence only prevail in
40
first-person forms when the fiction of written or oral communication gives way to
the fiction of self-communion” (Cohn, 1978: 183), in other words when narrative
presentation and narrative chronology are disconnected at the same time.
Dorrit Cohn highlights the importance of “the memory monologue” in the
novel “The Sound and the Fury”. She defines “the memory monologue” as: “A
variant of the autonomous monologue in which the mind is trained full-time on the
past”, in memory monologue “the present moment of locution is a moment
emptied of all contemporary … the monologist exists merely as a disembodied
medium, a pure memory without clear location in time and space” (Cohn, 1978:
247).
It is quite obvious, that Benjy’s monologues never refer to the place or time,
in which he verbalizes his memories.
The only temporal cohesion that memory monologues show is the cohesion
of “the spontaneously remembering mind” (Cohn, 1978: 184). The mind is
scrutinized only in the past, besides, the recollections are tightly linked together
“and not to a chronologically evolving time-span of silent locution” (Cohn, 1978:
184). Therefore, we can assert that the memory monologue is considered to be a
version of autonomous monologue that is linked to autobiography, thereby causing
the deception of the “uninterrupted unrolling” (Cohn, 1978: 185) of a thought
process.
41
Benjy’s recollections act as the key aspect in his section, giving his mind a
“shower of memories” from his past life. These memories can illustrate the
character’s childhood, his family or a very vulnerable period of life.
His first memories are devoted to the day, when his name was changed from
Maury to Benjamin. We can suggest that the character’s change in the name is a
loss of his identity.
Taking into account the use of “bright shapes” in Benjy’s section, we cannot
omit a few more significant words requiring readers to pay special attention. These
words are: the “fence” and the “gate”. Benjy’s narration starts with the phrase
“Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting”
(Faulkner, 1995: 1). In the given example, the word “fence” acts as an enclosure,
because he can look through it, but he is not allowed to go beyond it. What is more,
the “fence” links, for the first time, his childhood memories to Caddy, who instils a
feeling of safety and warmth in Benjy: “We went along the fence and came to the
garden fence, where our shadows were. My shadow was higher than Luster's on
the fence. We came to the broken place and went through it. “Wait a minute.”
Luster said. “You snagged on that nail again. Can’t you never crawl through here
without snagging on that nail. Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through. Uncle
Maury said to not let anybody see us, so we better stoop over, Caddy said. Stoop
over, Benjy. Like this, see (Faulkner, 1995: 2).
As André Bleikasten points out, and it is undeniable: “the fence is the limit
separating the present from the lost Eden of childhood” (Bleikasten, 1976: 81). The
42
“fence” is seen by us as evidence of Benjy’s captivity, a barrier he always tries to
break down. What is more, the “fence” in the first section appears to be the edge
disconnecting the present from the lost happiness of his childhood. Therefore, we
can point out that the character’s state can be described in one word “loss”. The
most significant loss for Benjy is the loss of his sister.
Another barrier for Benjy and at the same time a way out to another world is
the “gate”. Benjy is imprisoned; he cannot go beyond the gate that is why he never
stops bellowing. As soon as he goes through the gate, he hushes: “They passed out
the gate. “Now, den,” she said. Ben ceased” (Faulkner, 1995: 289). Therefore, we
can suggest that the “gate” is associated with Benjy’s desire for freedom as well as
with his desire for Caddy’s return.
We cannot fail to take into the account the timelessness of Benjy’s vision:
“To that idiot, time was not a continuation, it was an instant, there was no
yesterday and no tomorrow, it all is this moment, it all is (now) to him. He cannot
distinguish between what was last year and what will be tomorrow, he doesn’t
know whether he dreamed it, or saw it” (Bleikasten, 1976: 76). He always waits
for something or someone; we can suggest it to be a waiting for the past in his life.
In doing so, Benjy denies time. He “has no consciousness of time, but his
consciousness is in time” (Bleikasten, 1976: 76).
One more crucial issue that we must take into account is whether the stream
of memory appears in Benjy’s mind immediately or must have a connection to the
past events. Therefore, we can assert that the ambiguity is typically associated with
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Benjy’s narration. The truth is that both his past life: one connected to his
childhood and another one to the immediate past of his thirty-third birthday are
narrated in the same tense, which is related to the “synchronism of his arrested
mental world” (Cohn, 1978: 250). It means that actual moments and his
recollections are both shown without discursive commentary, expression of
emotion and interpretation. Benjy ties his life to the past events: “We went along
the fence and came to the garden fence, where our shadows were. My shadow was
higher than Luster's on the fence. We came to the broken place and went through it.
“Wait a minute”. Luster said. “You snagged on that nail again. Can’t you never
crawl through here without snagging on that nail”. Caddy uncaught me and we
crawled through. Uncle Maury said to not let anybody see us, so we better stoop
over, Caddy said. Stoop over, Benjy. Like this, see. We stooped over and crossed
the garden, where the flowers rasped and rattled against us” (Faulkner, 1995: 2).
After reading this scene, comes the question: When does this memory from
childhood appear in his mind? Is it related to the moment he crawled through with
Luster or maybe to the moment he remembered crawling through with Luster?
Dorrit Cohn states both interpretations to be valid. As for William Faulkner, he
himself alluded to the scene-shifts in Benjy’s section as “thought transferences”.
Therefore, an entire Benjy’s section can be named a memory-monologue.
The example of the scene where kids are talking about the recent death in
the family and where Caddy mentions a horse (Nancy) and the buzzards that ate
her corpse immediately connects the character’s own memory to that scene: “The
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bones rounded out of the ditch, where the dark vines were in the black ditch, into
the moonlight, like some of the shapes had stopped. Then they all stopped and it
was dark, and when I stopped to start again I could hear Mother, and feet walking
fast away, and I could smell it”. (Faulkner, 1995: 31)
In doing so, Benjy understands the notion of death; in that case, memory is a
new link between his mother and death. Moreover, we can point out, that death is
something he cannot grasp, but at the same time, it has a great impact on his mind.
He perceives the presence of death as if he were an animal. He howls, like their
dog, Dan, when Mr. Compson dies, besides, he smells his death. Therefore, we can
speak about Benjy’s mysterious intuition to feel such kind of things.
Therefore, his connection to positive feelings (“bright shapes”, associated
with sleeping beside his sister) is lost and shifts to the negativity connected to his
mother’s voice.
We can highlight the importance of Benjy’s memories related to Caddy:
“Faulkner gives the absent or verbally disembodied voice space within the
narrative” (Gray, 2013: 12). John T. Matthews in his essay “The Discovery of
Loss” defines Caddy’s importance in Benjy’s voice. His sister becomes for him the
source of his voice: “Benjy and Quentin are doomed to appropriate nothing except
Caddy as already disappearing; she is, in their sections already the trace that is an
origin, and her absolute plentitude can never be evoked in their minds” (Gray,
2013: 12). Moreover, her voice, in Benjy’s voice, shifts freely into the present.
45
William Faulkner likes to shift from one scene to another by cutting the
sentences in the middle, thereby creating difficulties of the ensuing narration. “The
feverish shuttling back and forth between his memories” (Bleikasten, 1976: 71),
helps to suggest Benjy’s emotional outburst, which is linked to the most
insufferable memories of his sister Caddy. Moreover, we can state that most of the
scenes in which Benjy is shown are scenes of dispossession.
One of the most poignant scenes is the one where Benjy finds his sister with
her boyfriend. Quentin directs Benjy to go a different way in order not to see them,
but Benjy finally notices them and he remembers the moment when he saw Caddy
with Charlie, her lover. This passage proves Caddy’s true and sensitive anxiety
towards her brother.
The scene, illustrating Benjy’s desire to talk to the schoolgirls, turns his
thoughts to the time he waited for Caddy to go home. Besides, Benjy’s keen desire
and attempt to talk to girls illustrates to the reader the character’s fear and
frustration, which Benjy can hardly express ( the loss of Caddy): “I was trying to
say, and I caught her, trying to say and trying and the bright shapes began to stop
and I tried to get out… But when I breathed in, I couldn't breathe out again to cry,
and I tried to keep from falling off the hill and I fell off the hill into the bright,
whirling shapes” (Faulkner, 1995: 51).
The character’s idiocy prevents him from understanding that Caddy will
never return to him, so he is waiting for her, bellowing and moaning at each
reminder of her absence. He cannot find the replacement of his sister. The verb
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“try” is used eight times in this short passage. The phrase “I was trying to say”
shows us a cry coming from Benjy’s heart, revealing his painful, poignant and
heartfelt destiny.
Again and again, Benjy alludes in his narration to the episode with fire.
Captured by the fire, he can see the lighted candles on the cake, but it is Luster
who blows the candles, making Benjy cry. After this moment, Benjy’s thoughts
move back and forth to the time of his name change. He associates it with rain, the
clock’s sound and with Caddy’s crying.
The quarrel between Miss Quentin and Jason at lunch shifts Benjy back to
his early childhood, Caddy’s desire to feed him so he would not cry and Versh’s
remark about his change in the name. When Luster undresses Benjy, he may for
the first time understand Benjy’s poignant fate, as he says: “Looking for them ain’t
going to do no good. They’re gone” (Faulkner, 1995: 71). As Benjy falls asleep,
his last thoughts are related to Caddy as always: “Caddy held me and I could hear
us all, and the darkness, and something I could smell. And then I could see the
windows, where the trees were buzzing. Then the dark began to go in smooth,
bright shapes, like it always does, even when Caddy says that I have been asleep”
(Faulkner, 1995: 73).
Moreover, a number of descriptions in the novel are devoted to Benjy’s
preparation for bed, medical treatment and time spent in the kitchen. The
mentioned memories depict Benjy’s control over the people in the house.
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We can notice that Benjy has his own memory, but his memory has no link
to the normal human mind. It becomes a part of the mind itself and is constituent to
the stream of made perception, Benjy’s past which “gnaws into the future and
which swells as it advances” (Bergson, 1991: 7). The character cannot see a
difference between memory and perception. The memories raised up by present
experience appear to be new perceptions, which mean that he is not recollecting
them but changing them with exactly the feeling of their first appearance.
As we can see, Benjy’s thoughts wander from one scene to another. For
Benjy, reality is not a disorder of things which must be organized to avert madness.
As soon as the reader can control the jumbled way of Benjy’s description of events,
the narration becomes easier to understand.
Benjy’s own memories develops his internal voice in the first section of the
novel “The Sound and the Fury”, illustrating the character’s childhood, his family
or a very vulnerable period of life.
II.3 The use of italics
William Faulkner demonstrates the time shifts through the use of italics in
the novel. As Leona Toker in her article “Diffusion of Information in “The Sound
and the Fury”” points out: “Time-shifts are supposed to imitate the spontaneous
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associative backward-and-forward movement of the characters' minds and
therefore cannot be expected to have date tags” (Toker, 1988: 112). Here we must
mention that for Benjy, the notions like “past” and “present” do not exist,
moreover, his mind keeps away from concepts linked to time.
Passages in italics appear to be more than merely visual signs of time shifts.
They illustrate images kept in Benjy's unconscious which work their way forward
in his mind to form the narrative of the present and his conscious life. “Caddy
uncaught me” (Faulkner, 1995: 2) reveals a passage of two italicized paragraphs
which depict the scene in which they carry Uncle Maury's letter to Mrs. Patterson.
The description starts as “a dim and fuzzy italic shape” (Polk, 1993: 147) in his
memory. After being caught on the fence, it appears as “a full-blown scenario”
(Polk, 1993: 146) in roman type in the next paragraphs. Roman type, in that case,
shows what is at this stage most prominent in his consciousness. The passage
written in roman does not follow the narrative begun in italics, it returns to the time
when Mother and Uncle Maury allowed Versh to dress Benjy warmly and go out
with him to meet Caddy, coming back home from school. Benjy’s memory is
triggered by the sense of smell “Caddy smelled like trees” (Faulkner, 1995: 4).
This is typical of the way his recollections are brought to his mind through the
senses. In this case the emotional link is the feeling of warmth emanating from
Caddy.
After this scene, the narration is interrupted again by italics “Now stomp”
and “Hold still now” (Faulkner, 1995: 6), which come to Benjy’s mind as a
49
recollection when Versh dressed him. The example of the given narration moves to
the moment when Benjy is told: “Haven't you got your Caddy” (Faulkner, 1995: 7).
He, again and again, feels his sister’s absence and begins to moan: “Can’t you shut
up that moaning and slobbering, Luster said. Ain’t you shamed of yourself, making
all this racket. We passed the carriage house, where the carriage was. It had a new
wheel” (Faulkner, 1995: 7).
By April seventh, Luster lets the readers know that the image of the carriage
reminded Benjy of the time when T. P. drove his mother and him to the cemetery
and he pursues that memory till the moment he sees Jason and makes him go with
them to the cemetery.
We can state that by the use of italics, William Faulkner does not clarify his
text; moreover, he makes his novel dense and complicated. The author wrote that
he added “a few more italics where the original seemed obscure on second
reading” (Parker, 1990: 7), confusing his readers completely. Robert Dale Parker
in “Where you want to go now: Recharting the Scene Shifts in the First Section of
“The Sound and the Fury”” writes: “The italics seem to mark snippets of dialogue
that Benjy hears in the background and cares about less than he cares about the
quoted, more emotionally weighted dialogue in the same passage” (Parker, 1990:
7).
The author asserts that the italics in the first section of the novel “do not
indicate a thought transference” (Parker, 1990: 7), at the same time Faulkner states
the fact that “my use of italics has been too without definite plan” (Parker, 1990: 7).
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As Andre Bleikasten states: “the interchangeability of scenes suggests a
metaphoric structure, with each scene substituting metaphorically for another scene,
the transitions between scenes nevertheless work metonymically” (Parker, 1990:
15). The scene shifts with the use of italics are considered to be a kind of
metonymic link, for example, from Caddy to the slipper, from Caddy to the girls,
from Caddy to the bright shapes and from Caddy to the gate and many others. We
can state that none of these examples are stable, because every time they lead
Benjy to another metonymy, thereby creating a new shift in time.
One of the glaring examples of the italics is included in the phrase “She
smelled like trees” (Faulkner, 1995: 41). The smell of trees is always associated in
Benjy’s mind with Caddy. When trees bloom, they have such a vivid green colour,
which is pleasant for the eyes. The person gets a breath of fresh air and there is
nothing to compare it to. However, when Caddy starts using perfume, she
distances herself from Benjy. She convinces him: “We don’t like perfume
ourselves” (Faulkner, 1995: 40). After saying it, Benjy shifts to italics “She
smelled like trees” (Faulkner, 1995: 41). He does not want her to change her
natural smell by using perfume, otherwise, he will not recognize her: “her use of
perfume masks the innocent scent of trees that he associated with her” (Anderson,
1991: 36). In doing so, we see Benjy's thoughts of the past coming to his mind.
Therefore, we can suggest that this shift from past to the present shows two
qualities of Benjy’s memory: firstly, he remembers his sister smelling like trees
(shift to the past) and then he remembers her smell linked to the present, in which
51
he recollects her. “This is the only shift to the present that comes without anything
in the present interrupting Benjy's memory of the past” (Parker, 1990: 15). Besides,
this shift in time explains Benjy’s misery of being forgotten and abandoned.
Another remarkable example is highlighted with the word “baby”, repeated a
number of times throughout the first section. Mrs. Compson calls Benjy “poor
baby” (Faulkner, 1995: 6), when Caddy tells him: “You're not a poor baby. Are
you” (Faulkner, 1995: 7). In that moment the text shifts into italics and refers to
Luster’s words: “Cant you shut up that moaning and slobbering” (Faulkner, 1995:
7), depicting a thirty-three-year-old man in the role of a baby. The following scene,
when they are going to the cemetery, moves Benjy to his memory again, where the
word “baby” is repeated again. Mrs. Compson is afraid of letting T.P. drive the
carriage, she says: “I'm afraid to. Mother said … With the baby” (Faulkner, 1995:
7), to which Disley answers: “You calling that thing a baby” (Faulkner, 1995: 7).
Soon Luster of the present, again and again, interrupts: “Cry baby, Luster said”
(Faulkner, 1995: 10). Consequently, we see how through all these shifts, the motif
of “infancy” pervades Benjy’s mind. It seems to us that Benjy only listens to
Luster when the latter speaks about Benjy’s infancy. “Trapped in an adult body,
his indestructible childhood, so far from being grace, exhibits the grotesque
grimace of abjection” (Bleikasten, 1976: 75).
We can state that most of the scenes recollected in Benjy’s mind are either
consequences or anticipations of his loss: his sexual mutilation, the loss of his
beloved sister Caddy and the death of his brother Quentin.
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Therefore, we can point out that the use of italics in the first section of “The
Sound and the Fury” sets the style for the first section of the novel. William
Faulkner completely disappears from the narrative. If the reader does not want to
be disorientated and if the reader wants to follow the chronology of the events, he
has to pay special attention to the way of narrating. Moreover, William Faulkner
desired initially to print Benjy’s section, using different coloured inks to show time
shifts and the character’s consciousness, but in the end, this idea was rejected by
the publisher as very expensive.
Conclusions for chapter II
By exploring Benjy’s mind, we can arrive at the conclusion that the interior
monologue is tightly linked to Benjy’s narration, breaking down the chronological
order of the whole first section and helping the researcher to scrutinize the
character’s way of narrating deeply. It represents the flow of Benjy’s inner thought
processes, emotions and impressions. The shift of memories that appears
throughout Benjy’s section links together moments in his mind. They are
demonstrated through the use of italics. They act as the intrusion of the present into
Benjy's past and show how easily Benjy can be detached from space and time.
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III.
EXPOSITION THROUGH THE SENSES
III.1 Benjy’s dependence on his senses: touch, sound and sight
The best way to read Benjy’s section is to immerse ourselves into his
sensory world. Benjy directs his stimulating world through his senses. His world is
dazzling, because all the characters use only language (the words) to tell something,
whereas Benjy uses his perception to reveal his emotional state. He does not
verbalize his life; he mainly notices and expresses visually the things happening
around him. Benjy cannot differentiate one sensation from another, in that case,
Noel Polk in his article “Trying Not to Say: A Primer on the Language of “The
Sound and the Fury”” speaks of “the profusion of synesthesia” in Benjy’s section
(Polk, 1993:145). As the reader can see, the character does not in point of fact say
that “The sun was cold and bright” (Faulkner, 1995: 4), but he shows the physical
sensations of what the reader will name “bright” and “cold” and gives the visual
sensation of “sun” as shining on him at the same time.
Cecil Moffitt in A Rhetoric for Benjy defines Benjy’s senses as intense and
active, at the same time saying that he “has no power to form conscious judgments
about his own person, his plight, or the fortunes of the people around him” (Cecil,
1970: 43).
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Benjy’s world is focused on some key aspects, such as “Caddy”, “fire”,
“mirror” and “slipper”. These words are tightly linked together in Benjy’s
consciousness and are related to the recollections of his sister.
In the centre of Benjy’s section are his senses: what he feels (the sense
fragment) and what he hears (the sense cue) (Gray, 2013: 8). However, when his
feelings are out of control, the close link between what he hears and what he feels
is lost. For instance, a glaring example with Caddy’s slipper. “I squatted there,
holding the slipper. I couldn’t see it, but my hands saw it, and I could hear it
getting night, and my hands saw the slipper but I couldn’t see myself, but my hands
could see the slipper” (Faulkner, 1995: 70). Therefore, depicting the way of how
that slipper feels in his hand, Benjy creates an emotional connection between his
hand and the object the slipper. We can state that hands in the given example are
depicted as something that have their own senses and have power over them (“my
hands saw it” and “my hands saw the slipper”). It seems to us that Benjy has no
control over his hands and they do not belong to him. We can suggest here that
Benjy’s automated activity exists without his awareness of it. Consequently, this
example demonstrates to us his poor condition, prohibiting him from living a
normal life.
Moreover, Noel Polk states that Benjy’s sensory comprehension of life is
similar to a primitive unified experience. The character’s hand can “see” things: “I
couldn’t see it, but my hands saw it” (Faulkner, 1995: 70). Noel Polk notes that
such primitivism was usually a significant aspect of modernist writing. The
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modernist artists at that time wanted a kind of relation to the world before nature,
besides, humans “had been turned primarily into functions of the marketplace as
laborers, producers, and consumers of goods” (Matthews, 2009: 108). Such
characteristics in “The Sound and the Fury” show “how modernist art resisted
social degradations imposed by modern economy” (Matthews, 2009: 108). In
doing so, William Faulkner requires readers to forget known ways of perceiving
the world and to get closer to new approaches of representation.
Fire plays a significant role in the descriptions of senses, which is as well
related to his sister. Sometimes he does not completely understand the purpose of
fire and burns his hand “The long wire came across my shoulder, and the fire went
away. I began to cry. I put my hand to where the fire had been. “Catch him”.
Dilsey said. My hand jerked back and I put it in my mouth and Dilsey caught
me … “He just burnt his hand a little”. Dilsey said” (Faulkner, 1995: 57). Benjy
likes looking at the fire, because he and Caddy used to sit next to the fire together:
“We could hear the roof. I could see the fire in the mirror too. Caddy lifted me
again” (Faulkner, 1995: 60) and “Hush, Mother”. Caddy said. “You go up stairs
and lay down, so you can be sick. I'll go get Dilsey”. She led me to the fire and I
looked at the bright, smooth shapes. I could hear the fire and the roof” (Faulkner,
1995: 62). The fire is associated in Benjy’s consciousness with his Mother’s illness
as if her fever was fire burning within her: “Versh set me down and we went into
Mother's room. There was a fire. It was rising and falling on the walls. There was
another fire in the mirror, I could smell the sickness. It was on a cloth folded on
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Mother's head. Her hair was on the pillow. The fire didn't reach it, but it shone on
her hand, where her rings were jumping” (Faulkner, 1995: 59).
One word that is closely referred to the image of “fire” is “mirror”. As
Robert A. Martin points out: “The mirror is what Benjy can see at any given
moment, his entire frame of reference perhaps. It seems to tell the reader that any
thing man sees may be but a reflection of something else uncertain, not sharply
defined, elusive” (Martin, 1999: 48), this statement references C. Ross’
understanding of “idiocy”. Benjy narrates the following section: “She fought.
Father held her. She kicked at Jason. He rolled into the corner, out of the mirror.
Father brought Caddy to the fire. They were all out of the mirror. Only the fire was
in it” (Faulkner, 1995: 63). On this page the words “fire” and “mirror” are used
several times, as if they are connected to each other. In the given example we see
people, coming in or out of the mirror and, what is more, Benjy understands them.
“Father put me down and went into the mirror … too” (Faulkner, 1995: 62).
Through the use of the mirror, Benjy can perceive, moreover, “he cannot be a
participant in the world beyond it” (Martin, 1999: 49). Additionally, Benjy is
regarded as “a kind of moral mirror, in which the members of his own family may
contemplate reflections of their own potentialities, their own moral strengths and
weakness” (Thompson, 1966: 112), whereas the other characters do not want to
accept this power in Benjy. They merely do not want to see their vices.
It is quite obvious that Benjy’s world differs from the world of ordinary
people. He sees life through images. The character’s perception of the world is full
57
of vividness “bright grass” (Faulkner, 1995: 2) and is far from the realistic way of
living “spinning yellow” (Faulkner, 1995: 10). He uses vivid and glaring phrases to
convey his own way of looking at things, to show his observations of the
environment, people and events: “between the curling flower spaces” (Faulkner,
1995: 48). The given examples demonstrate a fabulous world, existing in his
disturbed mind. It is his way of sharing feelings, perceiving everything in vivid
colours. Others characters can speak, but there is no place for real and dazzling
existence in their life. Everything is full of frustration, anger and resentment. They
cannot perceive the events through brilliance, whereas Benjy can.
The scene where Charlie states that Benjy cannot talk “he can’t talk”
(Faulkner, 1995: 45) and understands nothing makes Caddy says the opposite “He
can see. Don’t. Don’t” (Faulkner, 1995: 45). Caddy understands that Benjy really
perceives the world and he can seize it. “Caddy understands Benjy beneath the
physical edge that silences his voice, as she can read his cues and cries as
indicators that he is building a language within his own mind” (Gray, 2013: 9).
What is more, we cannot omit the fact that Caddy manages to get the idea and the
sense of Benjy’s language. She understands Benjy like no one else in their family.
Consequently, we can point out that Benjy’s mind can be discovered through
his senses. William Faulkner helps his mentally challenged character to create a
world full of sensation. His existence consists of senses and Faulkner limits his
character’s world to them. If Benjy cannot feel, smell, hear, see or taste something,
these things do not exist for him at all.
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III.2 Benjy’s dependence on his senses: smell
Every character of the novel is associated by Benjy with a specific smell.
Thus, for him “Caddy smelled like trees” (Faulkner, 1995: 46), the phrase repeated
by Benjy a number of times. “Dilsey finished putting me to bed. The bed smelled
like T.P. I liked it” (Faulkner, 1995: 27), this example, proves Benjy’s ability to
create a connection between person and smell, even if a person is absent in the
scene. Moreover, in doing so Benjy shows his power to associate a concrete
person’s characteristics with a specific name. The same happens to Versh “We
went down to Versh’s house. I liked to smell Versh’s house” (Faulkner, 1995: 26),
and “Quentin smelled like rain” (Faulkner, 1995: 64). We can point out, that the
given examples are a kind of consolation for the character, because in Versh’s
house he can find a fire, which is always associated with his sister Caddy and
Quentin smells like rain, because “Caddy smelled like trees in the rain” (Faulkner,
1995: 17). It seems as if the associations evoked by the characters and their smell
soothed Benjy’s pain, because they transport him to a life with his sister.
Therefore, the reader follows the smell from scene to scene with Benjy: “A
door opened and [he] could smell it more than ever, and a head came out. It wasn’t
Father. Father was sick there” (Faulkner, 1995: 32). The key aspect of smell in the
narration helps the character to notice both: the figurative decay of his family
(Mother) and literal death (father).
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Josephine Adams scrutinizes this in the following way: “Benjy attributes a
kind of firmness to scent: he can easily recognize the specific scents of the
characters to whom he feels a connection” (Adams, 2014: 30). At the same time,
an attentive reader can notice that Benjy does not describe the smell of Jason or his
mother. It seems as though Benjy’s scent referred only to the ones he loves.
Therefore, Josephine Adams points out three levels of smells for Benjy. The
first is linked to the absence of smell; in that case, the character does not describe
the scents of people for whom he feels no affection. The second level is related to
the presence of “nonspecific smell” (Adams, 2014: 30), it means that Benjy can
identify definite scents of people, for instance, the smell of Versh and T.P., but he
cannot name them. The third level is related to Caddy’s smell: “Caddy smelled like
trees” (Faulkner, 1995: 40). The given phrase displays Benjy’s power of close
connection between essence and smell.
Josephine Adams maintains that “Caddy’s fleeting misinterpretation of
Benjy’s needs” (Adams, 2014: 31) is significant for two reasons: firstly, it means
that the absence of her physical body is less significant than the presence of her
smell. Secondly, her extensive care about Benjy “a kind of narcissism” (Adams,
2014: 31). Caddy feels responsible for Benjy’s cries as her intention to leave
provoked such an emotional reaction from Benjy: “I’ll run away and never come
back … Caddy said. I began to cry … Caddy was all wet and muddy behind, and I
started to cry and she came and squatted in the water…Hush now. She said. I’m
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not going to run away. So I hushed. Caddy smelled like trees in the rain” (Faulkner,
1995: 17).
In the given example, the use of the conjunction “so”, demonstrates Benjy’s
precise interpretation of Caddy’s phrase, freeing his mind from anxiety. Besides,
we can suggest that by the use of the conjunction “so”, the character responds to
the commands. He hushes not because she made him believe in her leaving, but
because he simply reacts to her commands. Moreover, in the phrase “was all wet
and muddy behind” (Faulkner, 1995: 17) from the example cited above, Benjy
depicts his pain related to the change in Caddy’s appearance. For him, she must be
pure and must smell like trees. He comprehends purity as a spiritual state of mind,
through which one must follow a moral code and to be honest with other people.
Caddy breaks all these rules and she does not want to accept moral responsibility,
moreover, she acts the way she wants, making the Compson family ashamed of her.
This power appears to be similar to Foucault’s demonstration of the power of an
author: “If I discover that Shakespeare was not born in the house that we visit
today, this is a modification, which, obviously, will not alter the functioning of the
author’s name. But if we proved that Shakespeare did not write those sonnets
which pass for his, that would constitute a significant change and affect the manner
in which the author’s name functions” (Adams, 2014: 32).
Therefore, for Benjy, the person’s purity plays a significant role in his
perception of the world. As was the case with Caddy, her dirty clothes do not have
the same effect on Benjy as the clean clothes had before. She disappears not
61
physically, but emotionally, leaving him with a heart full of panic and anxiety.
Additionally, she starts to use perfume and Benjy cannot perceive her natural smell.
Consequently, we can state that he cannot feel her presence anymore, which is why
he cries, moans and sobs a lot.
“Caddy smelled like trees and when she says we were asleep. What are you
moaning about, Luster said” (Faulkner, 1995: 4), “Can’t you shut up that moaning
and slobbering, Luster said” (Faulkner, 1995: 7), “What is the matter with you,
Luster said. Can’t you get done with that moaning and play in the branch like
folks” (Faulkner, 1995: 17), every example of “moaning” is related to Caddy,
mostly from her smell. These poignant moments come from his inability to speak
and share his feelings, so he uses his own sense of words. Moreover, all the given
examples assume that “Benjy’s world—from his language to his sense of time—is
a manifestation of the poststructuralist understanding of language” (Adams, 2014:
37). Poststructuralists regarded language not as a transparent method that connects
with reality or truth outside it, but as a code or structure, which gets its meaning
from its contrast with one another. Moreover, there are no ideas prior to language,
because language itself brings new ideas into being. We can state, that the same
happens to Benjy: he creates his own language, a unique way of narrating, which
creates new meanings and a new vision of life. He is shown as being a master of
his own innovative language. As Eric Santner states: “The essentially bereft
condition of the speaking subject points, for de Man, to a fundamental double bind
that defines the linguistic conditions: language, and in particular the topological
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resources of language, is used to heal wounds that language never ceases to open
up” (Adams, 2014: 37).
Despite Benjy’s inability to connect the present events and the memory, he
manages to create a link between what he feels and what memories reflect in his
reality. In the episode when Caddy is with Benjy at the gate, Benjy perceives
everything through smells and his own sensations “We stopped over and crossed
the garden, where the flowers rasped and rattled against us” (Faulkner, 1995: 2).
By the touch of the flowers, he can see himself being a part of that garden and
mainly a part of his own microcosm. We can find another glaring example, linked
to the smell of touch, in the sentence “I couldn't feel the gate at all” (Faulkner,
1995: 4). He uses the sense of touch to feel himself a part of a real life. Besides, the
sense of hearing helps him not to lose himself in reality: “Caddy held me and I
could hear us all” (Faulkner, 1995: 73).
Matthew L. Price describes Benjy’s nose as “a surrogate for his inability to
see certain events and bestially confirms experiences through smell” (Price, 2005:
24). While waiting for Caddy, he observes: “I could smell the cold. The gate was
cold” (Faulkner, 1995: 4). This example shows how Benjy perceives the world: he
can smell the cold weather and connect this signifier to the gate. His Mother’s
room is associated with sickness: “I could smell the sickness” (Faulkner, 1995: 59).
We can point out, that in literature the use of phrases such as “smell the sickness”
and “smell the cold” is often regarded as a way to heighten aesthetic function. The
given technique has a name “synesthesia” meaning “joined sensation” (Cytowic,
63
2002: 2) or parallel sensation. Benjy’s mental state appears to be more sensitive to
perception than emotion or cognition.
Moreover, Benjy can identify movement through smell: “I could smell the
clothes flapping, and the smoke blowing across the branch” (Faulkner, 1995: 12).
His ability to smell the motion of the clothes shows that his nose “functions, to mix
metaphors, as an olfactory “gaze”” (Price, 2005: 24).
Therefore, we can consider smell to be the most significant motif for Benjy.
He perceives through the smell the world around him. Smell has a pleasant
meaning for him as it is associated with Caddy. Consequently, we perceive Benjy’s
sense of smell to be pure and acute.
Conclusions for chapter III
By studying this chapter, we can arrive at the conclusion that Benjy’s
dependence on his senses: touch, sound, sight and smell, plays a significant role in
his narration. The character creates his own world full of sensation and lives in this
world. Benjy uses his perception to show his feelings and emotions.He, through his
senses, puts himself in a world, where everyone and everything alienates him.
However, that fact does not prevent him from creating his own place in this world,
where he can feel, smell, hear, see and taste.
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CONCLUSION
Benjy Compson is regarded to be Faulkner’s innovation, coming from
Faulkner’s imagination. William Faulkner gives the reader the key to the
character’s psyche and to his mind. The novel starts and ends with Benjy.
The first section is seen as an illusion of a mind that is observing the present
or recalling the past. The author tries to narrate the story through a child’s vision,
using his own way of perceiving the world. As a result Benjy Compson in the first
section of the novel demonstrates what language can become for a person without
the ability to speak his own mind. This is achieved splendidly by the use of
vocabulary: the amount of nouns, verbs and adjectives; by the use of simple and
long sentences. The character’s voice produces different sounds such as bellowing,
sobbing, moaning and roaring. All these sounds reveal the character’s anguish and
emotional state of being abandoned by his sister Caddy. As if mimicking the
sounds used by Benjy, the Compson family takes on their own onomatopoeic word
“hush” which reveals their deterioration.
Firstly it seems that Benjy pays no attention to the order of events, but if we
look deeply, we will notice Faulkner’s montage and technique used throughout
Benjy’s section. It is the change in typeface (into italics) to show time-shifts.
Benjy’s memories illustrate his childhood; they are related to the Compson family,
mostly to his sister Caddy. The use of interior monologue helps Benjy to show his
65
feelings and unspoken thoughts, existing in his mind. Every word and sound
coming from Benjy’s mouth is his internal voice that still adapts to external
changes. Therefore, in investigating William Faulkner’s novel “The Sound and the
Fury”, we understand that the author’s key achievement is his capability to make
the internal external.
We cannot regard Benjy without his dependence on his senses: the sense of
smell, the sense of sight, the sense of touch and the sense of sound. The reader
follows Benjy’s world of senses from scene to scene. If Benjy cannot perceive
something, then it does not exist for him at all. He associates everyone with a
specific smell in the novel.
Therefore, we can state that Benjy is the narrator of the first section of the
novel “The Sound and the Fury” and Benjy’s sound of silence is not silence at all.
66
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