您现在的位置: &&&&&&正文
An Analysis of Caddy’s Tragedy in the Sound and the Fury
来源：　| 　发布时间：13-10-27 17:58:54　 点击数：　
英语组 童婷
: William Faulkner is one of the representatives of American Southern Literature who has gained a worldwide reputation. The Sound and the Fury, published in 1929, is regarded as one of his memorable masterpieces and one of the greatest literary works of America in the twentieth century. As a talent writer and a Nobel Prize winner, Faulkner specialized in the depiction of the loss and corruption of Southern honor and morals within his own little postage stamp of native soil. In The Sound and the Fury, he depicted the decadence of an ever-prominent and once distinguished family ―the Compson family, and in such a way he revealed the decadence and disintegration of the Old South. This thesis attempts to analyze the reason of Caddy’s tragic fate from three aspects: woman moral concept, male chauvinism and unhealthy family environment in South America, thus to draw the conclusion that in the old society, women couldn’t survive various oppressions. They couldn’t decide their own destinies but had to obey others.
Key words: The Sound and the Fury, Compson, woman moral concept，male chauvinism
摘要：威廉?福克纳是享誉世界的美国南方文学代表作家之一，他发表于1929年的《喧哗与骚动》被公认最具有纪念意义的杰作，也是20世纪美国文学最伟大的代表作品之一。作为一个天赋极高的作家和诺贝尔得主，福克纳擅长通过描写他那块“邮票大小的故乡”来揭示美国南方荣誉与道德的衰败与消逝。在《喧哗与骚动》中，福克纳通过描述曾经显赫一时的康普生家族的灭亡揭示了旧南方的没落。本文试从美国南方妇道观、男权主义以及冷漠家庭关系三个方面的分析，揭露凯蒂悲剧命运的原因，并从而得出结论：在封建时期，妇女不能幸免于各种压迫，她们不得决定自身的命运，只得服从他人。
《喧哗与骚动》；康普生；美国南方妇道观；男权主义
Introduction
was born in a prominent Southern family, grew up in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, and eventually returned there in his later years to purchase his famous estate, Rowan Oak. Oxford. The surrounding areas were Faulkner's inspiration for the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, and its town of Jefferson. These locals became the settings for a number of his works. 1 Faulkner cared about the historical problems left behind by the ancestors. He was particularly interested in the decline of the Southern nobles after the destruction of its wealth and lifestyle during the Civil War and Reconstruction. The families in Faulkner's novels are filled with unsuccessful sons, disgraceful daughters, and smoldering resentments between whites and blacks in the aftermath of African-American slavery. The Sound and the Fury is one of such novels.
The Sound and the Fury is a ripe literature work and William Faulkner loved it very much. He composed this literature work earnestly and depicted three women folks in this fiction: Caroline Compson, who was tortured by the Southern Caddy, who had Dilsey, who symbolized the future of human beings. Finally, Caddy couldn’t escape from her tragic ending. She was tortured by the Southern woman moral concept, becoming a victim of by Patriarchal Society and unhealthy family environment.
This thesis attempts to analyze the reason of Caddy’s tragic fate from three aspects: woman moral concept, male chauvinism and unhealthy family environment in South America, thus to draw a conclusion that in the old society, women couldn’t survive various oppressions. They couldn’t decide their own destinies but to obey others’.
A. William Faulkner
&&& As an America writer, William Faulkner has wrote 19 full-length novels and nearly 100 short essays, of which 15 are composed in Yoknapatawpha County. The main plot of his works centered on the several generations of various classes in this county. The sound and the fury is his masterpiece.
&&&& He is also a very excellent detective fiction writer, with the knight’s gambit being the famous one. In 1949, he became a Nobel Prize winner. What he addressed in the stocktholm was one of the most wonderful speeches ever before, as he said: “I will refuse to believe the mankind has come to an end……the mankind can endure the sufferings and will be successful ultimately.”2 This speech was quite Faulkner-style. He devoted his bonus to establish an International Faulkner Prize, which was aimed to support and encourage the emerging writers.
Since 1957, he has been working in University of Virginia until he died in 1962.
&&&& After he died, America and countries in other parts of the world increasing speak highly of him. Writers in some areas, especially in Latin America, were obviously influenced by his writing style. As a modern classical writer, Faulkner inscribed the very history of the society and possessed a keen modern awareness. His colorful expression was regarded as art treasure of multi-styles.
B. The Sound and the Fury
&&&& The Sound and the Fury is the first mature work of Faulkner. In this book, Faulkner described the tragedy of a declined southern landlord family. He vividly depicted each character of this novel, including Cady, Jenson, Bengy and so on. The whole story is centered on the fall of Caddy through the internal monologues of the three bothers. With the final complement of the maid Woolsey from a limited perspective, Faulkner gave an end to this novel. The Sound and the Fury was described though multiple narrative perspectives method and of stream of consciousness, which was viewed as a classic of the modern novels.
Some of the content is repetitive, but giving people a different feeling, because the author was not so much focusing on the changes in characters’ mind as the degradation of the Caddy itself. The story was divided into the three characters’ consciousness process, which allured readers to get into inner world of the various figures. The seemly disorderly depiction of the story hides an internal order. The name of this novel came from a line in Macbeth, one of the famous tragedies wrote by Shakespeare, which was said by the hero Macbeth: “life is just like wishful thinking, full of sound and the fury, but do not have and significance.”3
I. The Tragic Perspective of the Work
&&& Modern western tragedy is a quest for the essence of humanity. Existing crisis of humanity includes the feeling of absurdity of the world and the anxiety towards themselves. The core of it lies in the unswervingly pursue for an unattainable free survival and ideal humanity. Many modern people are living in a multiple survival plight.
& America writer Conrad thinks that The Sound and the Fury is the most excellent work of Faulkner, which was referred by James as a seamless constructed masterpiece. It can be counted as a textbook of creative skills.
A. The Decline of the South
The value of literary work is not only lies in transcending the writer himself, but also in the range of performance expressed by it, as well as the connotation of social customs, policies and economy conveyed by it. William Faulkner is a writer of complication, which can be demonstrated in accurately describing the complex southern society and subtle relationship by the usage of vivid language. Most importantly, his work is in correspondence with the social process. As a backward feudalism society, the previous Southern America was mainly relied on the topiary economy, which pursues strict and paranoid Puritanism in religion, and practiced social hierarchy and cruel black slavery politically.
The tragedy of Caddy’s family is not an isolated incident. The ancestors’ scholasticism, the incest, rape and murder of the family buried an invisible curse of the ending. Stricken by the historical trend, the old south teetered, which represented that the family run on the ruins of the old world. The first son Quentin represented a kind of tradition passed down form generation to generation, a relatively stable culture, reflecting the strong southern traditional psychology and consciousness. The second son Jason, the one who was filled with the snobbery and desires of the south emerging bourgeoisies, was the embodiment of the modern civilization of capitalism. This kind of civilization, with the help of techniques, invaded all aspects of the society and squeezed the cultural zone, causing the collapse of the traditional culture. Under the impact of rapid decline, great tensions was raised in the manorial system and caused anxieties of the gentries. Faced with the shock posed by powerful civilization, Mr.Compson Quentin turned into a reliant of the capitalism civilization of industry, and a selfish, cool materialist without any moral ethics, and finally he failed as a sacrifice of the social transformation. Faulkner constituted a psychological and historical space-time, in which he demonstrated the recognition and deviation of the southern culture. His work also exerts the duality including the love for the southern land as well as the traditional values, and his fear for the evils brought by the slavery, racism and the Puritanism. Full of love and attachments, he conveyed the information of the decline of the southern reputation and moral by the monologue of the Compsons’. From the perspective of inner psychological mechanism of intuition, aspiration, instinct and imagination, he revealed the moral crisis of void, stubbornness and pedantry in Mr.Compson’s family, and created a lifeless wasteland, which render The Sound and the Fury being an endless elegy of the declining old southern society.
B. The Distortion of the Characters
&&&&&&&& In the The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner shaped several victims under layered contradicts and suffering, which gives an outlet of the family suppressed by the traditional ruins. From the angle of aesthetic and criticism, Caddy, a blend of goodness and vamp, was fully modeled. She changed from a pure, courageous and confident girl into a prostitute, and finally became the concubine of a Nazi general. Undoubtedly, her degradation was just like adding an insult to the injury of the family.
lost his resource of co Quentin was deprived of the imaginative lover and finally committed suicide for the repu JJ lost his post in the bank, ruining
little Quentin was born with evils passed form his mother, being an orphan with nobody to rely on. The decline of Caddy is not just reflected in psychology, but also in aesthetics as well as in moral. Through the description of inner activities and the distortion of characters, Faulkner unveiled the traditional social conception and modern consciousness in south America, the contradiction between reality and ideal, and added the spiritual connotation of lost, depression and anxious to this novel, making the novel’s theme deeply blurred and full of mysterious modern ideology.
Symbolization is a kind of art technique used in literature, which relies on specific image or things in reality, such as color, sound and objects, to convey writer’s thoughts or emotion indirectly. In The sound and the fury, “water” has two symbolized meanings. First, as a media, water is pure, which means the purification of morality. The baptism in Christian is using water to wash off original crimes to purify soul and get a long living. Each time Caddy come back home after dating, Benjy would shout at her and drag her to take a bath, for by which she can wash off dirties on her body and give away the fragrance of trees again. Water symbolized pureness and reborn as well as disasters and destruction. In The sound the the fury, water was showed as rain or river, which also symbolized ominous signs, depression, disaster and death. The long conversation about breakup between Quentin and his lover was happened in an evening rain. The rain was just like an ominous fog covering Quentin with full of darkness of death. The river in the work also means death and the mystery in life. Before Quentin convicted suicide, he wandered at the river bank, and finally, he chose to drown himself to protect the so called reputation.
&&&&&&& Shadow in the novel works the same way as water. The Quentin’s addiction to shadows that means the mother’s indifference, Benjy’s stupidness, Jenson’s money-worship, Caddy’s non-virgin body and the crumble-down of his family, drove him to the deepest pain and can’t pull out. The complicated desires made him live in a world full of fantasy shadows. He stepped on the shadow of himself, and the shadow was in front of and behind him, making his world complicated as the shadow itself.
&&&&&&& There is a series of symbols which symbolized time, such as watch, the striking of clock, and the sun. Besides, fire in the work is the symbolization of light, warmness, purification and holy as well as disasters, penalty and ruin. In Bengy’s mind, fire is the most sacred thing, and no matter how hard he cried, staring at a well burning fire would calm him down. Fire has become the symbol of family warmth and purification. Quentin has long time hoped the souls of his and Caddy’s would be ringed by the fire of the hell. He hoped it would burn out the sins of the old world and the shame brought by the new world to avoid the fury world
Caddy was a prominent family-lady, the one who Compson wanted to make an elegant woman. To all family, she was chaste, beautiful and gracious. In her families’ eyes, she must accept all the traditional doctrines. But young Caddy disliked all the traditional things, disdaining the formal tradition. When she was young, she climbed the tree to pry about grandma’s house, narr when she was 15 years old, she dated with the boys. Far form meeting all her families’ expectation, she declared that she believed there’s nothing merit about virtue. She disdained the Puritanism’s idea and the woman moral concept. Finally, her resistance and rebellion was failed under various depressions.
The appointment between Caddy and Amis was destroyed by Caddy’s family members. They were forced to separate from each other, and after which Caddy dated different boys ceaselessly. Finally, she got pregnant. Under her mother's arrangement, she married a banker who she didn’t love at all, for she had to conceal the scandal and maintain her family's reputation. Caddy's mother was a typical south gentlewoman who was selfish, hardhearted and under the Puritanism idealistic edification. When Caddy got pregnant, she did nothing but enforced her marrying Heder. Finally, Caddy obeyed her mother. However, when her husband found the truth that she had been pregnant before marrying him, he forced her to leave home. What's worse, Caddy's mother abandoned her. At this time, Caddy lost all things including family, relatives and husband. She was condemned by all family members and society.
It is impossible for an individual to live outside of society. In order to keep alive, Caddy stepped into society alone, becoming an inamorata of Nazi as she had no skills. She pursued freedom as well as new life. However, she can’t get rid of the influence of old spirit and traditional culture. Finally, she was victimized by the south woman moral concept, which was powerful and deep-rooted.
In the 20th century, LuXun5also paid attention to female matter. The tragic fate of Caddy and XiangLin represented the same kind of female character, who was persecuted by the old concepts. They revealed a universal women’s issue to the society of that time. William Faulkner disclosed and condemned the cruel forces imposed to the female, which derived from Puritanism and kinds of social forces. Lu Xun had a great sympathy for Xiang Lin, who was a representative of the weak in the novel of Blessing. In this novel, he lashed the traditional custom flintily. The Puritanism and feudalism was the root, which brought about the tragedies of Caddy and Xiang Lin. Although the distance between China and America was long, Puritanism and feudalism were extremely similar in destroying humanity. In South America, the Puritanism pursued Puritanism doctrine, which oppressed normal desire and condemned any normal enjoyment and amusement. The virtue of the feudal society, in the male’s eyes, is more important than any people's life. One of the cases is Xiang Lin, who was deprived of the soul and just left over with a lifeless body. The two females were destroyed thoroughly by Puritanism and feudal culture, which surprised us readers a lot. At the same time, we realized the misery brought by the Puritanism and the feudal culture. When Faulkner and Lu Xun exposing and criticizing the persecution brought by Puritanism and feudalism, they not only sympathized with the female who were insulted by traditional doctrine, but also calmly pointed out the limitations of these women.
&Both the woman moral concept of the Puritanism and the notion of the feudal ethic were internalized in the women’s heart, becoming a kind of acceptable culture gradually. They obeyed their ancestors' ideas, weighed their behaviors by the standards of it, following them consciously. It was this thought that resulted in their tragic destinies. There’s no doubt that the tragic characters of Caddy and Xiang Lin were the representatives of William Faulkner and Lu Xun’s works respectively. The tragedies certainly rooted in Puritanism and feudalism, which cruelly destroyed human nature. What is more, lacking of rebellion consciousness accelerated the tragedy, and finally, resulted in their tragic fates. If they can realize all of it, perhaps the outcome will be totally different.
The male chauvinism in the society was the representative of political, economic, legal, religious, educational, military, family area. Nearly all positions of authorities were reserved for men. The Evaluation of women is under the standard of male, but the reverse is not the same case. At the South America, the male chauvinism was a doctrine, which regarded the male as gods. They could control all things and play the most important roles in the society. They believed that their existence were different from females. The thought that male is superior to female were deeply rooted in the society, and the freedom of the female should be restricted strictly. The female were forbidden being educated and barred to accept the mainstream knowledge and culture of the society. The male called the female the weaker, others and even the second sex, and they believed the male were the main body of the society while the female were just the decorations.
Chauvinism emphasized the natural basis of male domination. The differences between men and women were natural. In the work of The Sound and the Fury, Caddy wanted to enter Harvard to study, but her family opposed her strongly. Finally, Quentin entered. Her father told Quentin that studying in Harvard was a dream of his mother. When he was born, his mother wanted to send him to Harvard to study. But when Caddy told Mother her thought, her mother complained it all the time because in her families’ eyes, it is meant for boys to enter school to study, but not the girls. This kind of traditional thought shows that male superiority was already a deep impression on people's heart.
The traditional culture deprived the girls of the education right. It was under this structure that the female was controlled. Male dominated all the resources, limited women's choices and separated them from the society so as to keep them from accepting knowledge, and finally, they could not improve themselves by knowledge but only to accept traditions. Caddy’s mother was so typical a south gentlewoman that she believed the female should observe the female virtue and be ready to dedicate themselves to men at any time.
When Caddy was young, she was a protector of her idiotic young brother. In her brother Benjy’s life, she played a role of Benjy's mother, always caring about him. She gave up a lot of things that gained by the other same age girls. As for Benjy, he loved his sister Caddy, but as he was mentally disabled, his love was selfish. Although his intelligence quotient was as a three-year-old baby’s, he could judge whether or not Caddy had an appointment with other guys accurately, and cried all the time to show his love for her, so Caddy abandoned her true love for him. Quentin, Caddy's another brother, was a traditional moral inheritor under old traditional doctrine. He always played a role of an observer. He saw Caddy’s virtue as a treasure, always being stiff and fanatical. Actually, his target was to vindicate his familial prestige and reputation. In Compson’s family, Caddy’s virtue was seemed as her families' reputation and all family members' psychic stanchion. Quentin, as the elder son of Mrs. Compson, was also a vindicator of the old traditional culture. He was always trying his best to protect Caddy’s virtue, considered it as his divine duty, and prevented any behavior of Caddy which would breaches traditional culture, being a role who restricted Caddy’s development. When Caddy was young, she damped her clothing into the river, persisting getting off her skirt to be dried in the sun, but Quentin opposed her practices as it was not conform to the traditions. When Quentin knew that she dated a boy called Amis and loved him very much, he raged and broke them up. At last, he even lost his mind, almost being crazy, for he believed that he lost his duty and reproached himself continually. Finally, He embarked on suicide. And Caddy, after the dream shattered, she got involved into an extreme pain. She responded to the traditional culture in a self-degradation way, forcing herself to live in a dark brink.
As previously described, Caddy was prevented by Benjy and Quentin from enjoying normal life, while the other selfish family members also indirectly lead to the tragic fate of her.
Mr.Compson was a well-spoken but very cynical and detached man. He subscribed to a philosophy of determinism and fatalism, believing life is meaningless for he can do little to change what befallen on his family. Compson maintained the notions of gentlemanliness and family honor, which was inherited to Quentin. Though he inculcates his son with the concept of family honor, Mr.Compson is unconcerned with it in practice. He acted indifferently to Caddy's pregnancy, telling Quentin to accept it as a natural shortcoming of woman. He was indifferent to all things.
The negligence and disregard of Mrs. Compson contributed to the family downfall directly. Constantly, she was lost in a self-absorbed haze of hypochondria and self-pity, absent being a mother to her children and never cared about her children's needs. She even treated the Benjy, the one who is a mentally disabled, ruthlessly and selfishly. Mrs. Compson's self-absorption included things which are undermined by her Brother Maury's adulterous behavior. Ultimately, Caroline made the decision to change the name of her youngest son from Maury to Benjy because of this insecurity of her family reputation. After she knew her daughter Caddy got pregnant before marriage, she let Caddy marry a man who didn’t love her, aiming to vindicate family reputation and prevent the family skeleton from outspreading.&
Jason, Caddy’s little brother, stayed away from the other children. Like his brothers, Jason was always fixating on Caddy, but his fixation is based on bitterness and a desire to get Caddy in trouble. Jason was very clever, but he never used these talents in a way of kindness or generosity. Jason was lack of achievement which primarily steams from his relentless self-pity.
Caddy married a banker who permitted giving her a job in the bank. But after the banker knew Caddy had been pregnant before marrying him, he didn’t get her the bank job and abhorred her, so the money that Caddy post to her little daughter was held out by him. He didn’t show any concern for Caddy and her little daughter any more.
D. Caddy’s Inner Weakness.
From the very beginning of this novel, Caddy was always being an embodiment of braveness, sticking to what she thought was right. At that time, it was not so usual to meet a woman like her, and that’s what made her so unique. Young Caddy even dare to climb trees to pray about grandmother’ put her dresses on the rope so as to dry up, which was unacceptable for her families because it was not conform with the traditional women’ she hang out with boys, thinking she had the right to meet different guys and find her true love, and finally, she really did. However, as she got pregnant before marriage, her parents were so angry and then forced her to separate with Amis. This was quite heart-broken for Caddy to bear, and she should stand up and fight against the unfair treatment. However, it was never an easy case for her to do so. For years being influenced by the tradition doctrines and ideas, she was quite indecisive though she wanted to pursue freedom and relief. She was losing the true-her gradually. She permitted her mother to marry the man she had no love for, and with the disclosure of the secret, she began to endure the suffering both from her marriage and her family members.
Bit by bit, she was getting far away from the one who really wanted to be, and finally she followed the same fate of women living in that age. She had had been a kind of seed who may finally mark something in the history, perhaps may overwhelm the whole south’s traditional thoughts about woman, but she was no exception. She was vulnerable to the harsh environment and too weak to be a fighter who can be brave enough to fight for her own sake, and that’s the inner factor lead to her tragic fate.
In ancient times, women were always regarded as the weak and oppressed by various forces. In The Sound and the Fury, the three characters, including little Quentin, who had a different background, had similar destiny. Caddy was just a miniature of women at that time. It reflected the common destiny of many women living in that agebecause of the strong influence of women moral concept, male chauvinism and indifferent family environment in South America, women were only tools for playing. They were forced to accept the so-called social virtues, being unable to resist them. Finally they became the victims of the society.
In the author’s view, the female matter is a worldwide theme, which is investigated by ideologists, philosophers and sociologists. Novelists and artists also pay much attention to this issue. This novel analyzes the causes of the tragic fate of Caddy who was from an American southern noble family, and discloses the influence of` traditional woman moral concept in the south of America and male chauvinism’s impact on Caddy’s tragic ending. The majority of the females living in that age wanted to pursue freedom and release. Caddy was one of them. But unfortunately, her pursuit was destroyed and ultimately she stepped into death like hundreds of women with the similar backgrounds. Her life was miserable and worthy of people’s sympathy, which also triggered our contemplation
Jay Parini, A Life of William Faulkner
2.& Zhu Yunqi, ed., Poems of Love (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1994) 73.
&胡阶娜, 　美国文化，历史和文学作品　(天津：南开大学出版社,2004) 73.
5 &鲁迅， 鲁迅全集第三卷（北京：人民文学出版社, 1981）126.
, Kilvert. The Male Chauvinist's Cookbook. Winchester Press, 1974.
Danny, Palmerlee. South America. Oversea Publishing House, 2004.
Gary, Althen. American Ways: A Guide for Foreigners in the United States. Intercultural
&&&& P2 edition, 2002.
Jay, Parini. One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner. Harper Perennial, 2005.
Larry L. Naylor. American Culture: Myth and Reality of a Culture of Diversity. Bergin &
Garvey Paperback, 1998.
Maryanne, Kearny. American Ways: An Introduction to American. Culture Pearson ESL; 3
Edition, 2005.
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Pennsylvania: Vintage, 2005.
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury Pennsylvania:Vintage, 1991.
Faulkner, William. Light in August. Pennsylvania: Vintage, 2005
Zhu Yunqi, Poems of Love. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,&
&&&& 1994.
胡阶娜.美国文化，历史和文学作品. 天津：南开大学出版社, 2004.
后现代的美国南部文学的变化. 济南：山东大学出版社
鲁迅.鲁迅全集．北京：人民文学出版社,1981.
威廉?福克纳.上海：上海译文出版社2003.
威廉?福克纳.散文，演讲和公开信. 上海：上海译文出版社,2001.
杨彩霞.世纪美国文学和圣经的传统. 北京：中国人民大学出版社,2007.
I am very grateful to all my teachers in the school of Foreign Language of Neijiang Normal University, to whom I owe much of my knowledge in the English language. But my most sincere gratitude goes to my tutor, Miss Luo for her insightful criticisms, invaluable help and constant encouragement throughout the composition of my paper. This paper would never have been finished without her gracious patience and conscientious guidance.
I also owe the completion of this paper to my classmates and roommates, who have shown great friendship to me during the four years of my undergraduate study.
Meanwhile, I would like to dedicate this paper to my parents whose love means the strongest support in my life.
上一篇文章:
下一篇文章: 无
本网声明：任何网站如需转载本网站文章，敬请注明出处。
眉山外国语学校 版权所有
主办单位名称：眉山外国语学校
网站备案：蜀ICP备号
眉山外国语学校
电话号码: 028- 邮编：620010 技术支持：
MEISHAN FOREIGN LANGUAGES SCHOOL All rights reserved.}