Overall Reaction to The Sound and the Fury

The story about the Compson family was extremely complicated and hard to follow at first with all of the different time periods and different narrarators, but by the end of the book, Faulkner tied everything together in a way that every detail makes sense to the reader. Throughout the story, there are many intricate themes and symbols that help tie everything together. Time is one extremely important theme in the book. In Quentin's chapter, Quentin says that time is always slowly passing as we live our lives. He is constantly trying to escape the inevitable passing of time. One symbol of this theme is that of a clock. Quentin's obsession with clocks and the idea that the ticking of a clock will never stop is reflective of how the Compsons never truly do anything with their time and their lives. Time goes on, but the Compsons never actually achieve anything extraordinary. They are merely living in a shadow of their past greatness, which leads us to another symbol; that of shadows. Shadows are mainly present in Benjy and Quentin's chapter. These shadows are symbolizing how their current state is only a shadow of how successful they used to be. Another major symbol is Benjy. He symbolizes the burden that the family carries. Although, he is the only one who can see the truth, he also can't do anything about it because he is mentally handicapped. Benjy is helpless and can't do anything on his own without the help of others. The only person that truly cares about him is Caddy. Caddy symbolizes the only hope for success in the Compson family. She is the only person that can bring success back to the Compsons.