a-tentative-analysis-on-intrinsic-factor-of-quentin’s-death-in-the-sound-and-the-fury--英语专业毕业.doc

A Tentative Analysis on Intrinsic Factor of Quentin’s Death in The Sound and the Fury
Ⅰ. Introduction
Actually, the author knows a little about William Faulkner before entering college. The author gets more interested in his fictions after having learned the American Literature. The first book she borrowed from the library is Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury . And because it is the first book of Faulkner’s that she reads and with its special writing style, the book gives a good impression on her though it is difficult to understand at the very beginning. She reads the Chinese translation firstly and then reads this fiction in the original. Also, she surfs on the internet about the information about William Faulkner and his writing style. All of this is great helpful to her writing. So the author chooses this topic which she is interested in.
Quentin’s death in The Sound and the Fury is discussed by many people. They analyze his death on the aspect of social factor, that is to say, external factor. However, in this thesis, the author analyzes his death on the aspect of intrinsic factor, that is to say, internal factor, to dig out loss, confusion, as well as powerlessness of his inner world.
William Faulkner (1897--1962), one of the most significant writers in the twentieth century in American literary scene, even literary scene around the world, was born in New Albany, Mississippi. He had special feelings for the American South, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. William Faulkner especially was interested in multi-generational family chronicles. The Sound and the Fury, his acclaimed masterpiece, was published in 1929.
Faulkner’s fictions convey a strong sense of fragmentation in social community and within the individual himself due to the loss of love and lack of emotional response. His novels are closely related to the South decay. He feels that the destruction of the Old South leads to the corruption and disorder in the South, especially after the civil war. Moreover, the war has brought about great changes in economy and politics of the South. Most of his novels concern with people who live in a small region in American South, to which Faulkner gives a fictional title of Yoknapatawpha County which stands for the Old South. Faulkner is noted for his famous Yoknapatawpha series of novels. The Sound and the Fury is the most representative one of this series, which is ranked by Faulkner as his favorite. In this novel, the author manipulates the artistic devices—stream of consciousness and multiple points of view so proficiently that makes this novel rate as one of the three representative masterpieces for “stream of consciousness” novels, together with Marcel Proust’s Time Regained and James Joyce’s Ulysses. (Wang, 2011:206)
Faulkner obstinately reveals the human tragedy in his works. His works depict human suffering with its gloomy and heavy pessimism that shock the readers’ mind. The end of this novel The Sound and the Fury is simply a subject and a predicate, without any modification of components: they endured, which can be seen is the description of Compson family’s tragedy of life.

Ⅱ. The Sound and the Fury and Macbeth
The Sound and the Fury, by the soliloquy of the four characters, demonstrates the destruction and collapse of Compson family and presents the decay of values and norms of American South. In this novel, Faulkner, by the subtle employment of stream of consciousness and multiple points of view, renders four of his characters to respectively tell the story of how they experience so many social changes and the downfall of Compson family. Mr. Compson, the master of the house, is a titular layer who ardently loves talking about life with his philosophy, living out his days muddle–headedly. Mrs. Compson is a self-pity old lady, moaning and groaning about imaginary illnesses. Mr. and Mrs. Compson have one daughter and three sons—the eldest son Quentin who finally commits suicide is pessimistic, neurotic and incompetent, with deep-rooted concepts of tradition. The second son Jason who becomes an irrational avenger and tyrannism is selfish and ruthless. The youngest man-child Benjy is a fool who only prolongs remaining years in indescribable pain and wails. The daughter Caddy breaks the imprisonment of “Southern Lady”, being abandoned by the whole family because of losing her virginity, and ultimately reduces to Nazi general’s mistress.
From the LI Wenjun’s Commentary on The Sound and the Fury, we know that the special bond between Faulkner’s this novel and Shakespeare’s Macbeth is noted (Li, 2003:68). Faulkner is greatly inspired by William Shakespeare’s famous play Macbeth, out of which he gets his initiative to finish The Sound and the Fury. However, does Shakespeare’s Macbeth just enlighten Faulkner to create the title of this novel?
The title of this novel, The Sound and the Fury, is taken from the following soliloquy in Macbeth:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty space from day to day,
To the last syllable of the recorded time;
And all our yesterday have lighted fools
The way to the dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow: a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Shakespeare 1997:79)
Macbeth makes his speech after hearing the death of his wife, and quite incidentally or intentionally, some of his general feelings about loss, decay and death are presented in The Sound and the Fury (Wang, 2011:206). As the eldest son, Quentin is the only one hope of the family to pursue a different life at Harvard University. However, he commits suicide and symbolically kills the family along with himself. So it is never hard for us to percept that the author of this novel wants to play up the atmosphere of decay, loss and confusion in the process of elaborating his story, which he gets inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Therefore, this decisive background and theme projected in this novel highlight the theme of the novel—decay and confusion, out of which can be seen as the prophets of the Compson’s downfall, and the fading away of American Southerners. Clearly this piece of soliloquy from Macbeth not only furnishes the title of the novel, but also sets the tone of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.
Quentin’s language and life echo Macbeth’s words. And Quentin’s yesterday have in a sense lightened his way to dusty death (An, 2010:4). At any moment, we feel strongly the breath of death following Quentin while we are reading The Sound and the Fury. Quentin is William Faulkner’s most thoughtful character, and his presence expands the sight in The Sound and the Fury. When it comes to Quentin, the eldest son of Compson family in The Sound and the Fury, people often attribute his death to the Compson’s downfall and Caddy’s loss of purity and innocence. No doubt this assertion is partially true, but it is likely to be misleading to claim that this is the major reason that leads to Quentin’s death. However, what is the intrinsic factor that leads to his death? This paper will discuss the intrinsic factor of Quentin’s tragedy -- his frail disposition from the following two aspects.

Ⅲ. Intrinsic factor of Quentin’s death-- frail disposition
Quentin, a representative of an old Southern aristocratic family, has pain on the demise of Compson family. He is an ideal Harvard student who loves concepts of Compson honor precariously and attempts to rescue the decline family, yet Quentin’s frail disposition makes him no longer bear the stress of traditions and the cruel reality. Eventually, he hurls himself, relinquishing, drowning in the cold river in Massachusetts, June 1910. Quentin’s frail disposition is mainly reflected in his beliefs in unbetrayable tradition and inseparable time.
3.1 Unbetrayable tradition
Due to historical and geographical reasons, American South affected by the European thoughts of social conservatives of the Middle Ages, is more serious and conventional. A complete set of rules of Puritan ethics constrains the relationship among people and the norms of people’s behavior. The protagonist Quentin in The Sound and the Fury lives in such social culture.
3.1.1 Incapable of developing ancestral glory
Quentin’s section is mainly about his painful and chaotic soliloquy of the inner world of the day confession when he decides to commit suicide. Fantasy, dreams and escape build Quentin’s spiritual world, which constitute strictly the main causes of his suicide and tragedy of life. In brief, what lead to his tragedy are his deep-rooted tradition values and rigid thought. Faulkner says,
Quentin, who loved not his sister’s body but some concept of Compson honor precariously and (he knew well) only temporarily supported by the minute fragile membrane of her maidenhead as a miniature replica of all the whole vast globe earth may be poised on the nose of a trained seal. (Faulkner, 1990:331)
As a representative of the last generation of the decline of manor class, Quentin is proud of his family history and has a strong consciousness of the South. Though he always lives in the aureole of his ancestral glory, the cruel reality makes his weak shoulders unable to bear the stress of tradition. Inner conflict has been torturing him. He gets entangled in depression, pessimism, despair and a sense of defeat. He cannot do nothing but choose death. (Jing, 2011:143)
Quentin has no way to get rid of the shadow of the old traditions and he is incapable of being now and all his wisdom can merely cope with the past. Lacking mother’s love, Caddy’s lose of her virginity, Jason’s depravity, Benjy’s whine can only be regarded as a fuse of Quentin’s suicide（Tang, 2006:93). Actually, the tragedy is that his ideology is a completely unanimated，inherited and degenerate world outlook, outlook on life and values.
3.1.2 Incapable of Caddy’s “loss of innocence”
Frailty is not only Quentin’s Achilles’ heel, but also is the root-cause of his tragedy. He has no means of concealing the image of inner self-delusion. When he is desperate for the future of his family and himself, he sternly leaps into the bottomless abyss. In order to uphold the Compson’s honor and traditional concepts, Quentin swears to duel with Dalton to kill him for revenge when Caddy loses her virginity. However, Quentin is not courageous enough and he says “what for I wont try to beat that” when Dalton hands the pistol to him. “I hit him I was still trying to hit him long after he was holding my wrists……and he holding me on my feet” (Faulkner, 1990:161) . Dalton shrugs off Quentin, picking him up.
Quentin cannot stop time by destroying the watch. Nor can he prevent Caddy’s loss of innocence by hoping to isolate her from the loud world. Quentin, at this moment, is ridiculous and poor, which he’ll never erase shame. Frailty and cowardice make him unable to get rid of shame and tradition. Death for Quentin is thorough liberation and profound. From Quentin, who signifies the contemporary lost youth, we see that the desperation of noble family in Old South and the universal spiritual crisis of European and American youth generation after World WarⅠ.
3.2 Inseparable time
In a sense, Quentin’s tragedy is the tragedy of time. He is so sensitive to time, almost to the point of morbid that he has a strong and even distorted sense of time. The ring and ticking of the clock is seamless with the movement of life. The words “watch”, “time” and “clock” are used frequently in Quentin’s section. The word “watch” appears 78 times, “time” appears 69 times and “clock” appears 24 times (Rao, 2007:117). But his understanding of the relationship between “time” and “clock” is quite absurd. The emphasis in this novel on mechanical “recorded time” is an obvious parallel. Clocks and watches are the instruments used to recorded time, while “watch” for Quentin is the “mausoleum of all hope and desire.”
3.2.1 Zealous in the “past”
The four sections of the novel are titled with four dates. Quentin’s section is dated “June Second, 1990”, and begins with Quentin’s acute sense of time “When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight o’clock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch” (Faulkner, 1990:76). No matter when and where, the depth of his consciousness would be echoed with the ring and the ticking of the clock; his every nerve endings is feeling the existence of time. “But the shadow of the sash was still there and I had learned to tell almost to the minute” (Faulkner, 1990:77). Quentin can distinguish different styles of every quarter, even can smell the taste of autumn coming from the bell, and then he continues to observe the shadow sun moving.
It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire.” “It was propped against the collar box and I lay listening to it. Hearing it, that is. I don’t suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You don’t have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, and then in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing parade of time you didn’t hear. (Faulkner, 1990:76)
Quentin’s mind is brimming over with time and he is hostile to time. He refuses to accept the passage of time, the inevitable change and loss. From the outset of his narration, he is fixed in the “past”, his thought and behavior are almost entirely controlled by the memories of the past. It seems that all the past which he has strong feelings in is the spiritual pillar of him that supports him to live. “Haunted by past to which he is inadequate, tormented by a present he cannot face, and doomed to no future” (An, 2010:5). He is lost in the “was”, and cannot find an answer to the “is”. The entire things and memories of the past blot out the present. Obviously, Quentin’s memorial to the past is the nostalgia to the vanished South glory and the honor of the Compson family, and the nostalgia to the root of his living. However, the wheel of time in real-world moves silently and impassively forward, mercilessly crushing the past of which he is proud and surviving. He sees not nostalgia but fear in time. His efforts to get rid of the past not only accidently reconstruct the unforgotten “past”, but also strengthen its presence.
3.2.2 Powerless to conquer time
Time becomes his biggest threat when he finds himself no longer live a meaningful life. He worries about time and attempts to stop time so as to remain the past permanent. His mind is imbued with the advice when his father gives him the watch,
I give it to you not that you may remember the time, but that you forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. T