Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury Overview

Overview | Chapter 1: Benjy | Chapter 2: Quentin | Chapter 3: Jason | Chapter 4: The “Dilsey Chapter”

Curriculum Unit Overview

The following are important general links to aid your progression through the novel. Use them as necessary to aid your general comprehension so that you can better investigate the themes, symbols, and perspectives presented in the book.

• A hypertext edition of The Sound and the Fury
• Review the definitions of terms such as characterization, narrative, narrator, point of view, and symbolism using either the brief definitions available from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab, or more extensive definitions available from Carson-Newman College.
• William Faulkner on the Web (WFotW) has a large archive of William Faulkner reference materials online. Review, for example, a genealogy of the Compson family (note that clicking on a name leads to the glossary entry for the character).

Activity Instructions: Using the following websites, explore one aspect of or perspective on Faulkner's life and the culture of the South. You might find the Document Analysis Worksheets useful for this activity.

Questions that you might want to consider:

• What is the 'voice' of your website? Who wrote it? For what purpose?
• What effect does the style or form of the source have on your interpretation of the content? Does it matter if you read a biography, a chronology, a map, or an image? Do certain forms illuminate certain things while obscuring others? In what way?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages to having multiple perspectives on the same subject?

Web Links:

• Brief Faulkner biography via American Memory
• William Faulkner: Nobel Prize Speech via Internet Public Library
• Faulkner Biography at the Mississippi Writers Page via Internet Public Library
• Faulkner Image Gallery at the Mississippi Writers Page has several interesting and useful images.
• Teachers might want to include some of the sections of Library of Southern Literature, from EDSITEment-reviewed Documenting the American South. Drawn from The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, several excerpts have valuable information about the South in literature. Two valuable point of departure might be:
  • Civil War
  • Humor
  From William Faulkner on the Web via Internet Public Library:
  • Biography
  • Chronology of Faulkner's Life
  • Faulkner Family Tree