When I first started reading The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner, I immediately became attracted to Faulkner’s writing style and techniques. Though the novel itself may be extremely confusing, the writing made me hooked and extremely interested in the novel. I loved how Faulkner is able to really humanize Benjy; through Faulkner’s writing, we are able to understand how an underdeveloped human thinks and feels. Also, the use of flashbacks in the novel is incredible. The flashbacks makes the reader think, question, and connect pieces of the story together. Without the flashbacks, I believe that The Sound and the Fury would not be as good of a novel as it is now.
Faulkner’s writing of Benjy is extremely fascinating and well written. The first part of the novel, April Seventh, is seen from Benjy’s eyes. The first paragraph itself is detailed through Benjy, and the reader immediately begins to become almost puzzled at the description of golf. “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 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…,” says Benjy, describing a game of golf. Benjy is not able to understand that it is a game of golf, and instead we, as readers, are supposed to comprehend what Benjy sees. Some other examples of Benjy’s inability to comprehend what he sees is around mirrors and shadows. Benjy constantly describes characters as being in mirrors and leaving mirrors, unable to understand that what he is seeing is a reflection. Faulkner portrays size through shadows that Benjy sees; Benjey sees that his shadow is “longer” than other characters, meaning that he is really taller. The descriptions that Benjy give the reader serve many purposes. I believe that we are to feel Benjy’s innocence and understand how Benjy is incapable of truly understanding his surroundings. Through Benjy’s childlike descriptions, Faulkner portrays Benjy as a true childlike man. Also, the descriptions that Benjy provide the readers with help capture emotions, emotions that most of us believe an underprivileged human being is incapable of feeling. Benjy’s descriptions also provide the reader with key flashbacks, after he associates what he sees with the past. Benjy’s flashbacks serve as extremely important pieces in the novel.
The flashbacks are beautiful pieces of Faulkner’s writing. Flashbacks in the novel serve many important purposes. One of the principal purposes, I believe of the flashbacks, is to pique the readers’ curiosity in the novel. Faulkner wets the readers’ appetites with flashbacks by providing them with new information that they desperately want to know more about and connect with the present. This serves as a way to hook the reader to the novel and eagerly read more until everything falls together and makes sense. Also, the flashbacks serve as important pieces to the entire story. Flashbacks provide the readers with evidence and missing pieces of the story as well as explanations for the future events. The flashbacks are pieces of a puzzle that the reader must place in the puzzle of the story to understand the novel. I enjoy the flashbacks because of the theories I create and the connections I establish after reading them. Faulkner’s writing is only enhanced by his use of flashbacks.
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Aravind, I think the analogy between the flashback scenes in the Benjy section and the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle is a pretty good one, because like a puzzle, you have to be able to fit each piece of the flashback into the right spot, where its edges match those of other pieces, in order for the larger picture to emerge. I think this aspect of the novel frustrates some readers, so I'm glad to overcoming that resistance and finding ways to appreciate not only Faulkner's technique but also the story he's telling and the characters he creates.
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