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Calvinistic
Visions of Time and Humanity in The Sound and the
Fury
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It has been
persuasively argued that a heavy dose of Calvinism runs through Faulkner’s
Yoknapatawpha saga, though The Sound and the Fury is perhaps the most
underused novel in this strain of criticism. Influenced by the Calvinistic South that
surrounded him, Faulkner created a Compson clan that reflected basic Calvinistic
tensions that Faulkner saw.
However, more than just effectively demonstrating those moral tensions,
Calvinism in The Sound and the Fury gives each Compson brother, as well
as Dilsey, a different time structure in which to live. The three Compson brothers and Dilsey
each have an individual vision of humanity closely linked with their sense of
Calvinism and time. As has been noted by
numerous critics, including Harold J. Douglas, J. Robert Barth, and Mary Dell
Fletcher, a distinction must be made between theological Calvinism and
pragmatic, Southern Calvinism.
Theological Calvinism traditionally presents a vision of humanity that is
depraved, destined, and dealing with the ramifications of Original Sin. Perry Westbrook, in his book Free
Will and Determinism in American Literature, sums it up
well: Man after the fall is evil. He is not deprived of will; he simply is
incapable of willing anything but evil.
He wills as he chooses, but his choice is determined by his sinful
nature…man sins willingly through his corrupt nature, not by exterior
compulsion. The corrupt will,
indeed, creates its own necessity. (5) This does not mean,
however, that humans should not struggle to lead godly lives or pursue
conversion in themselves or others.
Indeed, the outward fight for godliness is a sign of being of the elect,
and the effort of the will is necessary for conversion (Westbrook 7). Life, then, becomes a constant struggle
to bring one’s own will in accordance with the will of God, though He is seen as
having controlled the ultimate decision regarding one’s
destiny. American Calvinism,
while keeping traditional Calvinistic principles at its core, modified its
tenets to stress conversion more than predestination, grace more than
punishment. And while Calvin’s teachings were preached emphatically from the
pulpits, its greatest influence was in the culture it created, one where God was
seen as having blessed the Chosen by giving them earthly gifts, where defiance
of moral codes (especially in a sexual manner) resulted in social castigation,
and where the sins of the fathers did, indeed, rest on the third and fourth
generations. Society determined what, exactly, these sins were. Scotch-Irish settlers
and Northern American migrants readily grafted Calvinism into the American
South. Baptist and Methodist denominations adopted the notions of free will held
by their Presbyterian counterparts, in part because it allowed them to justify
slavery, as the absolute power of God meant that slavery was “His will and His
responsibility” (Fletcher 201). Many Southern churches severed ties with the
North (some did so because of the slavery issue), creating an even stronger
strain of Calvinism in the South. Fletcher writes that the typical southerner saw his position
as one providential trust, analogous to that of Jehovah, who had become a God of
battle with a flaming sword. The doctrine of the elect, when projected into the
secular world, meant that these southern Protestants were the Chosen—the
instruments to carry out God’s plan for instructing black men in the Gospel.
(201) Though the
Enlightenment modified Southern Calvinism (much to the church’s chagrin), the
notions of original sin and depravity were never allowed to leave the
Southerner’s framework. Grace was believed to be able to cleanse one’s sins,
thus making salvation desirable, but the belief that few would ultimately
benefit from this grace led to a focus on the vengeful God of the Old Testament
in place of the God of mercy and love of the New
(202). Though Faulkner was
ambiguous about his personal faith, he was raised in a fairly religious family,
with his great-grandfather expecting him to have memorized a new Bible verse
each morning. He was linked to many different denominations, having been
baptized into the Methodist church, married in a Presbyterian chapel, and buried
by the Episcopal church (Johnson 68). Faulkner’s literature seems to reflect the
world he saw around him (of his writing about the South, Faulkner said “I have
tried to escape and I have tried to indict”), and the South was a place that was
heavily influenced by Calvinism (Fletcher
230).[1] In literature,
Calvinism traditionally stresses external law (most notably, the Ten
Commandments), portrays a struggle between the flesh and the spirit, and
contrasts free will and destiny (Fletcher 204, 212). Harold Douglas and Robert
Daniel believe that incidents of violence are common in Calvinistic literature
as they show the degeneracy of man, and that Faulkner’s “ambivalent attitude
towards slavery” is a sign of Calvinism (5). In addition to violence, sexual
sins are often portrayed as meriting severe punishment, as in the Old Testament
they are among the most unclean of sins (Fletcher 204). Besides listing specific
actions and deeds that merit a work of literature being noted as Calvinistic,
Douglas and Daniel note that Faulkner’s overall “saturnine tone that
characterizes [his literature] except when it is grotesquely humorous” gives it
a distinctly Calvinistic feel (5). It is not surprising that Calvinism, a highly
individualistic theology, is so prevalent in The Sound and the Fury, a
novel that essentially presents a story through the eyes of four very different
people. Perry Westbrook
believes that the fundamental Calvinistic point in The Sound and the Fury
is that we find, in each of the main characters, a soul that acts in free will
on its perverted desires, though it is impossible to imagine them doing
something else (177). Douglas and Daniel focus more on the clear divisions in
the novel of the elect and the damned, noting that Dilsey belongs to the former
category and the Compsons to the latter.
They argue that Faulkner’s Calvinism reflects his belief that “human life
[is] perpetually meaningful and interesting,” as the Calvinist creates tragedy
by showing how far from the ideal humans can fall (12). The notion of progress, so important in
traditional American society, becomes meaningless when presented in a
Calvinistic framework, because the state of the soul is the only thing that can
have purpose. Faulkner’s use of a
Calvinistic framework thus imbues the text with meaning that it would otherwise
lack, as it forces the reader to look at the individual soul of each character
rather than judging them by worldly standards. “It provides the conditions for
tragedy,” Douglas notes, quoting Yeats when he continues, “We begin to live when
we have conceived life as tragedy” (12). Faulkner’s Calvinistic
bent has been carefully examined.
However, his use of Calvinism extends beyond thematics in The Sound
and the Fury. The story of the
degeneration of the Compson family passes through one crazed, streaming mind
into another, until we reach the fourth and final section, where the reader is
given a glimpse of the life of Dilsey on Easter Sunday. Each major section of the novel is
distinguished by how time is perceived by the narrating character, leading to
remarkably different views of humanity and the
future. Cleanth Brooks, in his
book William Faulkner: The
Yoknapatawpha Country, comments that unless each male Compson “can look
ahead to the future, he is not free.
The relation that the three Compson brothers bear to the future and to
time in general has everything to do, therefore, with their status as human
beings” (329). Thus the Compson
brothers’ relationship to the future, to the world around them, to their
concepts of freedom, and to the way they view themselves is related to their
sense of time. More precisely,
their sense of time is related to their vision of humanity, and it is this
vision that reflects various specific degrees of Calvinism.
I. Benjy’s section, the first of four in The Sound and the Fury,
is the most confusing and difficult for the reader. For Benjy, time exists not in the
traditional states of past, present, and future, but rather as a chaotic mix of
those states, creating the sensation that his life progresses in a cyclical,
rather than linear, motion. And
while time is of great concern to the reader in Benjy’s section (we do, as
Sartre claimed, want to place all of the events of Benjy’s life in order, though
we know this is then not the same story that Faulkner wrote), Olga Vickery has
persuasively argued that Benjy exists outside of time, removed from the
limits of this world. Benjy’s place in time
is very defined, however, when studied in the context of the family’s
relationship to him. When Benjy is
four, the family finally accepts the fact that he is mentally handicapped. For Caroline Compson, this marks the
beginning of the family’s doom, so much so that her son’s name must be changed
from Maury, a Bascomb family name, to Benjamin, the Biblical lastborn son of
Jacob. Faulkner intentionally mixed
up several Old Testament stories in referring to Benjy’s name, taking “Benjamin
the child of mine old age” from the story of the birth of Isaac, and “Benjamin
the child of mine old age held hostage into Egypt” from the actual story of
Benjamin, beloved son of Jacob, who was kept from his father by his brother
Joseph in Egypt when there was a famine in Canaan (56, 108).[2]When
asked by a student at the University of Virginia if the mistake was Faulkner’s
or Caroline’s, Faulkner answered the question with “Is there anybody who knows
the Bible here?” The response
indicated that the student “looked it up and Benjamin was held hostage for
Joseph.” Faulkner replied with,
“Yes, that’s why I used them interchangeably,” indicating that he wished for the
weight of the Old Testament combined, rather than individual stories, to rest
upon certain elements of The Sound and the Fury (Gwynn 18). Just as Faulkner wished
for Benjy’s name to indicate a mixture of love and sorrow, joy and grief, Benjy
becomes for his mother a symbol of his fallen family, a once-loved last son
turned into a measure by which the outside world can see the family’s doom. Indeed, Benjy is Caroline’s
“punishment,” and he represents the end of prosperity and social standing for
the Compsons (65). The lastborn
Compson, the very symbol of his family’s doom, is in fact
the least cursed in the Calvinistic sense, for he has no sense of impending
destruction or future calamity.
Benjy can neither be saved nor cursed, for his present is the past and
his future is simply not thought of.
Faulkner constructed a place for Benjy that exists without the sense of
time. Just as Benjy has no
knowledge of the progression of time, he is “incapable of good and evil because
he had no knowledge of good and evil,” as stated by Faulkner in an interview
with Jean Stein vanden Heuvel (233).
Thus Benjy is ultimately neutral to Calvinism, though he is surrounded by
a world that insists upon it. He
does not adhere to the Southern social norms, has no sense of destiny, cannot
progress financially or otherwise, and is, quite simply, a stuck cog in the
Compson family wheel. Because he
has no sense of the progression of time, he is bound to the same stories,
repeated over and over, and neither he nor his family can ever progress to an
ending, a resolution of past problems. As the reader searches
to make sense of Benjy’s garbled thinking, it becomes obvious that Benjy
struggles in telling the story not only because of his mental capacity, but also
because of the story he has to tell.
His section is a warning of the rest of the story to come, telling us of
the irresolution of the Compson family and the lack of ending that each section
brings. Because of this, it is even
more difficult for Benjy to tell the story in a linear fashion. Benjy’s section is repetitive in word
choice and thematics, which hinders progression, if not making it impossible.
For the
Compsons, Benjy
represents degeneration, a regression that cannot be overcome. As long as Benjy is alive, he is
reminder to his family of their fall.
During the Easter weekend in which most of the novel takes place, Benjy
turns 33, the age of the crucified Christ.
In the traditional Christian view of salvation, one must recognize that
Christ came to save sinners, and that all are sinners. In accepting salvation, Christians
recognize that they are in need of such a thing. Though Benjy does not act as a savior to
the Compson family (indeed, we learn from the appendix that he spends the
remainder of his life locked up in a mental hospital), he is at once both
innocent of sins and a constant reminder of them. Benjy’s role as being simultaneously
outside of time (in his concept of reality) and a static reminder of it (in his
family’s concept of reality) is similar to the role of Christ. Though Christ-like in
being both transcendent and bound by time, Benjy does not adhere to the
Christian notion that all are sinners.
Through his eyes, we see that Caddy can be both stained and pure,
“smelled like trees” and not, for he does not perceive her as progressing
linearly down a path of destruction.
She is complicated, mixed up, and his past remembrances of her purity are
just as strong as those where he notes that she is impure. Benjy’s sense of time allows Caddie to
be both fallen and saved, and this contrasts strongly with the rest of the
family’s Calvinistic rigidity, which rests on binaries: saved/fallen, good/bad,
clean/stained. Caroline Compson
obviously subscribes to this line of thought: Jason is viewed as her “salvation” from
Benjy’s “punishment,” and she states that “there is no halfway ground that a
woman is either a lady or not” (65).
Both Mr. Compson and Quentin, as Warwick Wadlington notes, “tend to
experience difference as contradiction, multiplicity as a stalemated war between
‘impure properties.’…A universe of antagonisms is formed, all divided and
subdivided, as awareness focuses on each, into further bifurcations of ‘A and
not-A’” (362). Quentin, Caddy’s
daughter, tells Jason that “I’m bad and I’m going to hell” (119). She has already decided that she is not
a lady (proving Mrs. Compson’s binaries correct), and she will follow the path
of her sinful mother. Benjy’s vision of
humanity allows for the unallowable in the Calvinistic society in which the
Compsons live. Benjy does
use binaries in terms of making distinctions between Caddy and not-Caddy,
but his binaries do not rest on simple moral judgments. Though Caddy does smell like trees and
then not, it is important to note that these two distinctions are mixed up in
Benjy’s mind: Caddy never exists
only as a bad girl, for his sense of time allows him to remember her as one who
did—and who does, for Benjy—smell like trees. He sees that people are not simple
binary opposites, and he doesn’t view life as a simply moving forward to
progressions or damnation, but he instead attempts to view the whole
picture. Though he is concerned
with Caddy’s blatant sexual misconduct, he does not damn her to hell for
it. He is an idiot, and yet he is
possibly the sanest Compson, capable of viewing people holistically. However, it is
important to remember that Benjy does not (and cannot) see himself as a savior
or view his family as needing such a thing. He views people through the eyes of
innocence, and his discernment of his family’s action is limited. Even when he can perceive, he can only
remember having “tried to say,” and not actually saying (33). Benjy can hear of the family’s doom
through the comments of others, and when Roskus says that “Taint no luck on this
place…I seen the sign and you is too” one wonders how much of that Benjy
understands (19). Benjy sees the
mud that is staining his family, but he cannot articulate what that mud is, nor
can he tell the family of his complete picture of Caddy. In the end, Benjy’s message is
muted. II. Faulkner carefully places Quentin, perhaps the most seemingly
Calvinistic character of all of the Compsons, right after the doomless and
timeless Benjamin. Rather than
being indifferent to time, Quentin is obsessed with it, watching shadows,
breaking watches, dividing his day into clear sections. Moreover, Quentin is obsessed with what
time brings, reflecting heavily on the doom time carries for his family and the
inevitable suicide time will lead him to
commit. Quentin’s section is less difficult than Benjy’s, but it has its own
unique challenges for the reader.
Quentin is not waiting for a story to unfold or to happen, he is merely
going over the things in his life that have caused him to decide to kill
himself. For Quentin, there is no
more choice, no more action, only the need to fulfill some pre-decided
destiny. As Sartre
states, The coming suicide which casts its
shadow over Quentin’s last day is not a human possibility; not for a second does
Quentin envisage the possibility of not killing himself. The suicide is an immobile wall, a
thing which he approaches backwards, and which he neither wants to nor
can conceive.
(269) Time is both obsessed
over and useless in Quentin’s framework, as he has already found a method by
which he can transcend it. Once he
hit upon his solution, suicide, there is no possibility that he can conceive of
an existence that would force him to linger in time any longer. Escaping time allows him to enter an
eternity he has constructed for himself using Calvinistic principles. Cleanth Brooks notes
that Quentin could be called one of Faulkner’s Puritans, and certainly there is
no doubt that his rage at Caddy’s sexuality appears quite puritanical (Brooks
331). Calvinistically, there are
few greater sins than that of sexual immorality, and his strong reaction is in
keeping with the Old Testament (and Old South) notions of family honor. Indeed, in the appendix to The Sound
and the Fury, Quentin is one “who loved not his sister’s body but some
concept of Compson honor” (207). But we also know that Quentin Compson is more complex than a
Calvinistic figure who desires punishment for his sister. Quentin is not content with simply
condemning Caddy to hell for eternity because of her sins. Moreover, Quentin desires permanent
unity with Caddy, rather than separation.
By constructing an almost plausible story of incest, Quentin is able to
use the very Puritanism that sustains his sense of order into a thing that will
jointly condemn his sister and himself to hell for eternity. In the appendix, we learn that Quentin loved not the idea of the incest
which he would not commit, but some Presbyterian concept of its eternal
punishment: he, not God, could by
that means cast himself and his sister both into hell, where he could guard her
forever and keep her forevermore intact amid the eternal fires. (208) Quentin longs for
resolution, for ending, and for a future unity with his sister. His sense of Calvinistic doom allows him
to live June second as a day that has been already resolved, and his Puritanism
almost convinces him that an eternal hell will be waiting for him. However, as John
Matthews comments, Quentin’s very actions destroy any sense of resolution in his
section. Matthews states, “The
suicide is the great unspoken fact of his monologue—a finality important because
it eternalizes the present by ‘unthinking’ the future” (385). Though his physical life has found an
ending, his future spiritual life, one that he has pinned all his hopes upon,
will remain forever unknown to the reader.
We wonder if his ending was merely that, an ending, or if he somehow
found the hellish existence he was longing for. Moreover, Quentin’s suicide drives his
family to further despair and decay.
For Caroline, and the rest of the Southern world, it is yet another
indicator that the Compson family is on a downward spiral. Rather than creating a sense of
resolution, Quentin’s suicide is one more sign of the growing dispersion of
the family. It is important to
remember that Quentin’s fabricated Calvinism is one that can create a timeless
order out of the chaos of his life, not one that is tied to religious
faith. He lacks a personal
relationship with God, any notion of the redeeming qualities of Christianity (he
is, after all, only using it to damn himself to hell), and there is no sign that
Christian rituals play a part in his life.
However, he is well versed in the Bible (much like Faulkner), and
different Biblical passages randomly stream in and out of his head throughout
his section. Most of Quentin’s thoughts on religious figures are wrapped up in how
they affect time. He repeats his
father’s notion “That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of
little wheels,” implying that time wears away everyone, though, ironically, time
itself is eternal (49). Quentin
ponders the second coming of Christ, thinking that “the Day when He says Rise
only the flat-iron would come floating up.
It’s not when you realize that nothing can help you—religion, pride,
anything—it’s when you realize that you don't need any aid” (51). And perhaps his vision of the inept
Christ that ultimately cannot save him is the most telling of his spiritual
situation, as there was only “sawdust flowing from what wound in what side that
not for me died not” (111). Quentin’s vision of humanity is one of continual loss with no hope of
recovery. His thoughts continually
return to his childhood, and it impossible not to notice that the only happy
memories Quentin has are from playing with his siblings and black friends (later
servants) as children, as Irving Howe notes (272). Quentin’s childhood is an Eden of sorts,
complete with a tree, a serpent, and a pastoral setting. The struggles between the races are not
yet very evident, and Benjy’s idiocy is not acknowledged. Caddy’s muddy drawers make a large
impression on the mind of the young Quentin, and when she becomes “stained”
sexually, Quentin’s edenic youth has become a descent into hell. Quentin relies heavily on the Christian
plan of purity, fall, and punishment without the hope of salvation, redemption,
and a place in heaven. His life can
only be one of loss, never again of gain, and his only escape is suicide. Quentin’s modified
Calvinism causes him to see people as either cursed or blessed, with no room for
change. His doomed family, and the
cause of this doom, is a cause of preoccupation, as he repeatedly tells and asks
Caddy “theres a curse on us its not our fault is it our fault” (100). The “fault” of the family, which on the
surface is Caddy’s sexual promiscuity and his feigned incest episode, seems to
also rest on possible past sins of the family, such as slavery.[3] For Quentin, time has become
representative of a declining morality.
However, Quentin’s father constantly berates Quentin’s moralizing,
telling him not to fight against time as “no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own
folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools”
(49). Ultimately, Quentin chooses
not to fight his own battle, leaving his confusing Calvinistic construct for the
“clean flame” he hopes awaits him. III. Benjy is outside of time and therefore has no internal struggle with
his destiny. Quentin is so bound by time that his future is nothing but
unavoidable horror, and he seeks to transcend it. Jason, the final Compson brother, is the
only character truly struggling with the Calvinistic notion of fate and free
will, and it is this struggle that causes Jason to spew his caustic bitterness
on the people that surround him. The stream-of-consciousness technique that Faulkner uses in Benjy’s
and Quentin’s section is once more at work in Jason’s part, though it is as
different from the first two as they are from each other. Jason’s telling of the tale is more
straightforward, with less diversion to side stories and less movement around in
time. Jason’s assessment of his family is much clearer than Quentin’s: Caddy and Quentin (her daughter) are
bitches, Caroline is a sniveling pushover, Dilsey is a lazy maid, Benjy should
be locked up, and his brother and his father both drowned in their liquid of
choice. Jason’s problems do not
rest in his ability to see the world around him clearly (albeit viciously); they
lie instead in his reaction to this imperfect world. Though Quentin is the figure who commits suicide, Donald M. Kartiganer
believes that Quentin is only neurotic, though Jason is psychotic. The difference lies in their ability to
interpret the world around them:
Quentin fabricates a fable (incest) “in order to deal with a reality he
cannot face. That it is a
fable is something he himself insists on.
Jason, however, confuses the real and the illusory, and is quite unaware
of the way he arranges his own punishment” (336). Jason’s struggle between free will and
predestination ultimately causes his psychosis, for “standing between him and
reality is his need to hold on to two opposing views of himself: one is that he is completely sufficient,
the other is that he is the scapegoat of the world” (336). Jason’s belief that he alone is his own
master, coupled with his sense of complete victimization, leads to an
unresolvable tension. A man who tries to be both victim and bully at once can never succeed
at both, and Jason’s life falls apart because he is ineffective in each role he
tries on for size. He cannot be the
controlling person he wants to be, but neither can he accept what fate has
handed him. Indeed, when Jason
realizes that his niece is outside of his control, he “could see the opposed
forces of his destiny and his will drawing swiftly together now, toward a
junction that would be irrevocable” (191).
Quentin has taken away the only thing that compensated for Jason’s lost
job: his hoarded money. Originally promised financial gain
through his sister’s wedding, Jason’s lost job represents the fate of being a
Compson. His cache of money
represented his attempt at changing that fate. Though time moves linearly for Jason, he
is still dwelling on the lost job of 15 years past. He cannot move forward until he deals
with this, and Quentin’s act of thievery forces him to bring together his notion
of fate and will. Quentin Compson’s relationship to time is one of a longing for
dispossession: he wishes for
nothing more than to exist in a timeless state. John Matthews argues convincingly that
Jason, on the other hand, wants to possess time and claim it for its intrinsic
financial value. For a man who
cannot find an intrinsic value in life, the only value he can place on it is one
of money. He is obsessed with
obtaining, hoarding, and gambling with money, for there is no other means by
which he can prove his humanity. As
Matthews comments, “Surely once source of Jason’s commitment to his work is that
it protests against suicides’ announcement that time is worth nothing” (377).
Jason is not unlike many social Calvinists of his day. Not knowing whether they were saved or
damned, it was believed that God would show His personal approval by granting
them material things. In this way
their community, their family, and themselves would know that they were blessed
by God and thus saved. W. J. Cash
asserts in his book The Mind of the South that in the South was the
doctrine “which has always moved along with Calvinism everywhere: that Heaven apportions its reward in
exact relationship to the merit and goodness of the recipient—that both the
mill-owners and their workmen were already getting what they deserved” (358).
Financial gain is a tragic, if easy, way to assess the value of one’s
life, but for Jason it becomes the only way. He sees humanity as being worthless,
without redemption (nor requiring it), and lacking morality. Ironically, while Jason obsesses about
the sexual sins of Caddy and her daughter, Quentin’s suicide and his father’s
alcoholism, he sees nothing wrong in the cruel way he treats the remainder of
his family. Those who lack morals
are wrong not because of their particular crime, but because in each of the
instances Jason is left to pick up the pieces: he must raise Caddy’s Quentin and then
attempt to keep her off the streets in order to preserve the Compson name, he
must assume the role of eldest son after Quentin kills himself, and he is all
his mother feels she has left after her husband drowns himself in liquor. While the reader (and Dilsey) can see
that Jason is alienating those that surround him because of his actions, he
thinks that he is attempting to save his family. Jason struggles with understanding how fate and free will works in the lives of those who surround him: Quentin is at once a product of being Caddy’s daughter (she is, in Jason’s eyes, “just like her mother”) and is, at the same time, a girl who makes awful choices (135). Thus, the only objective way to assess people (and himself) is by the money they have. Ironically, Quentin, the niece he so despises, comes out on top. Thus, among the Compson brothers, Faulkner has moved from
Benjy, who
merely lived in a Calvinistic world, to Quentin, who created a Calvinistic
world, to Jason, who cannot understand how that world works and who chooses to
seek meaning for his life outside of himself, through financial gain, rather
than from within. The only Compson
that truly struggles with the notion of free will versus destiny, Jason’s quest
for resolving the two opposing forces results in him judging humans solely by
their productivity. Humans are only
worth the air they breathe only if they are able to prove to society that they
deserve that air. Benjy is
obviously just taking up space on earth, Quentin threw his chance at Harvard
away, and Caddie not only lost her chance at a good life but she lost Jason’s as
well. Jason feels that he is cursed
by the family into which he was born and is responsible to. When he scrounges for some sense
of self-worth through his hoarded money, he is able to live, but when he loses
his money he has nothing. Jason has
lost his self-worth, and his attempt to try to beat the fated path he was placed
on is thwarted, once more, by fate in the form of Quentin. Caddy has defeated him twice. IV. Written in Faulkner’s jarringly normal third-person voice, the fourth
section portrays the life of Dilsey on Easter Sunday. Dilsey, in all of the other sections,
seems to be the only sane person in the novel, and Faulkner affirms her saneness
by writing of her day in a smooth, linear fashion. Olga Vickery writes of Dilsey’s
organizational abilities in the midst of
chaos: By working with circumstance
instead of against it she creates order out of disorder; by accommodating
herself to change she manages to keep the Compson household in some semblance of
decency. While occupied with
getting breakfast, she is yet able to start the fire in Luster’s inexplicable
absence, provide a hot water bottle for Mrs. Compson, see to Benjy’s needs and
soothe various ruffled tempers. All
this despite the constant interruptions of Luster’s perverseness, Benjy’s
moaning, Mrs. Compson’s complaints, and even Jason’s maniacal fury. (Vickery
288) The order Faulkner
gives to the fourth section is marked by a characteristic that all of the other
sections lack: the act of choosing
to live in the present. Benjy’s
section is fuller of past remembrances than it is of present-day
occurrences. Quentin is constantly
recalling his life with Caddy, and he longs to change the past in order that his
future will be with her, in “the clean flame the two of us more than dead”
(74). Jason does not waste his time
longing to change the past, but he carries his bitterness over his lost job to
the present. Dilsey, however, does
not spend much time recalling past occurrences. She lived with the Compsons through all
of their struggles, and indeed, she notes that she has “seed de first en de
last” (185). The past is not
something Dilsey has forgotten, but it is not something to be dwelled upon. She must live in the present, for
nobody else in the Compson family is willing to do so. As the Compson clock moves three hours
behind, it is Dilsey who always knows the exact time. Her ability to live in
the present is possible by the fact that her scope of time is so much larger
than the rest of the Compsons. The
Compsons are bound by the finite limits of life and death, and even when Quentin
wishes to escape those limits and descend to hell, he doesn’t really believe
that this is possible. Dilsey’s
past, however, is defined by the “ricklickshun of de lamb” (185). The lamb is the only thing she needs to
remember, and the blood of that lamb will atone for all of her past sins. Her future is also already known, for
she is certain, as she tells Quentin, that her name is in the book of life
(38). With her past sins and doubts
and worries given to Christ and sanctified by his blood, and her future only
bringing her closer to Him, Dilsey can live in the present with grace and
peace. Dilsey’s faith is the
true Christianity of the novel. If
she were to articulate it in theological terms (which she never would do), her
faith would come across as being very Calvinistic as well. Dilsey recognizes her sins and the sins
of those around her, which is exemplified by her participation in the Easter
Sunday church service where Rev. Sheegog repeatedly calls out “po sinner” and “O
sinner” to the congregation (185, 185).
She lives with the assurance that she is one of the chosen, even telling
Caddie that her name will “be in the Book, honey…Writ out” (38). She knows that not all are chosen, and
she believes in a hell, spoken of as the “darkness en de death everlastin upon
de generations” in the church service (185). However, the most
important Calvinistic characteristic that Faulkner gives Dilsey is a belief in
grace. Harold Douglas and Robert
Daniel rightly point out that American Calvinism does not conceive of humankind
as doomed to sin, as the path to redemption is always open (2). It is this road that Dilsey thinks about
during her church service, as she ponders the paths each Compson took away from
that redemption. The point Faulkner
makes, however, is clear: there is
redemption, and one need not be a hero to obtain it. In the midst of the Old Testament lined
South, the New can prevail, and it is this story of Christ’s love that we see in
Dilsey’s church. As Douglas and Daniel
write, Faulkner’s use of Calvinism creates “a creature alienated from his
Creator by his own choice,” and Dilsey sees this choice clearly in the sermon
Rev. Sheegog preaches (12). Sheegog
moves deftly between the Old Testament and the New, bringing stories of slavery
in Egypt to the enslaved, of the newborn babe Jesus to the children, of the
redemption of Christ to the sinners.
The Compsons—and all of the Negroes—are in this last lot of people: they are the thieves, the murderers, the
women in labor, the people weeping over death, and the greedy souls awaiting
salvation. Eternity is presented
clearly here: Dey kilt me dat ye shall live
again; I died dat dem whut sees en believes shall never die…I sees de doom crack
en de golden horns shoutin down de glory, en de arisen dead whut got de blood en
de ricklickshun of de Lamb! (185) Depravity is the state
of all souls, but redemption is a possibility for all. Dilsey can see that the Compsons
(excluding Benjy) have no desire to obtain this redemption, and this makes their
future (eternity in hell, which she believes in) all the more sad. However, she merely wants to survive and
bring the comfort to them in their present, though she realizes that
their present is all they have, while she awaits eternity. She disapproves of the renaming of Benjy, as it is a sign that he is not good enough for the
Compsons, though she
feels he is the only Compson who will transcend the boundaries of life. Dilsey creates order in the household,
and she protects Caddy’s daughter Quentin, inwardly glad when Quentin finally
escapes. Just as her sense of time is much larger than that of the
Compsons,
Dilsey’s notion of family is a larger one as well. She is not bound by mere blood, for her
family is made up of her Christian brothers and sisters. Indeed, her own blood relations are a
bit ambiguous, leading us to wonder if Frony is Dilsey’s daughter, as some have
claimed, or not. She does not often
speak affectionately to her family that surrounds her, for they are not her real
kin, though they are unified by their last name. However, she finds her true family as
she sits in the midst of the church service, in the group of “breddren” and
“sistuhn” that Rev. Sheegog calls out to, becoming unified through Christ with
those who surround her (184). Benjy
is part of this family as well, the sole white man in the group of blacks, as
Dilsey knows that “de good Lawd dont keer whether he bright or not” (181). Her black friends whisper about Benjy’s
presence in the church, and a concerned Frony inquires why Dilsey must bring him
along. Aware that Benjy doesn’t
belong anywhere (“Trash white folks…thinks he aint good enough fer white church,
but nigger church aint good enough fer him”), Dilsey knows that God will accept
him into His family (181). Dilsey’s
worldview allows her to transcend normal boundaries set by time, family
boundaries set by humankind, and social boundaries set by the different races
around her. Her vision of time and
humanity is wrapped up in her own words:
“I’ve seed de first en de last,” Dilsey tells her daughter, “I seed de
beginning, en now I sees de endin” (185).
Dilsey’s faith allows her to live in the present, for she knows from
where she came, and her future is clear.
Her clear vision allows her to penetrate almost any situation in the
Compson family, and her foresight especially pertains to Jason: she knows he will burn up his free
ticket long before he actually does it, and she sees that his niece will be
safer if she escapes from him. Her
omniscient knowledge is perhaps most obvious when, after discovering Quentin’s
absence, she tells Mrs. Compson “Dar now…Didn’t I told you she all right?”
(176). The meaning is lost on
Caroline, but Dilsey understands that Quentin has left for a place where her
family can no longer hurt her.
Dilsey is able to cope with all of the tumult because of her faith, and
this allows her to endure, as Faulkner writes in the appendix.
*
*
* In
Benjy, Faulkner has
created a world that is the antithesis of Calvinism:
there is no concept of destiny or free
will, no notion of man’s sinfulness, no idea of grace. There is acceptance, love, and a lack of
decisive judgement. The lack of
analysis of the problems of humankind translates freely into a lack of
coherency. Quentin’s section moves
beyond this, creating a world in which damnation becomes the only solution to
his problems. Quentin’s life is one
of binary classifications, in which people are good or bad, clean or stained,
saved or damned. His family belongs
to the latter category, and the only way he can think to reunite with Caddy is
by making sure he is damned as well.
Quentin’s constructed Calvinism allows him to envisage a world with
Caddy, a paradise in the midst of the burning flames. Jason’s place in the novel marks the turning point,
Calvinistically,
from mere acceptance of destiny to a desire to change one’s fate. He is the Compson who is truly
struggling with his destiny versus his free will, and his inability to accept
his situation creates the unresolvable tension that leads him to insanity. In having no sense of intrinsic
self-worth, however, and no notion of grace in his framework, Jason can only
find value in his life through financial
pursuits. And, finally, we
approach Dilsey, who in seeing the beginning and the end, has the only rational
time structure of the novel. Her
Christianity is not constructed, is not a method for escape, and brings a larger
scope of time to her rather than narrowing it. While she does not view life around her
with an air of naivety or a sense that good will always prevail, she has honest
compassion for others in her soul.
However, the ending of the fourth section does not leave us with the hope
that Dilsey feels. The troubling thing about the ending of The Sound and the Fury
is that, apparently, Jason wins. He
takes control of the horse, turns the carriage around, and once more establishes
his headship of the Compson clan.
In the final sentence we see Benjy, calm as the “cornice and façade
flowed smoothly once more from left to right, post and tree, window and doorway
and signboard each in its ordered place” (199). Under Jason’s command we see order
restored to chaos, Benjy’s crazed vision of life reduced to smooth linearity.
This linearity is not
without its price, however. We know
from Jason’s thoughts that his vision of the world is not a kind one, and we
have reason to believe that his sense of time, order, and humanity will lead to
harm. Indeed, when we find out in
the appendix that Benjy was sent to an asylum, we are not surprised. In Dilsey, the prevailing figure of the
fourth part of the novel, we saw a glimpse of grace, of atonement, of wholeness,
and of peace. Yet she is but one
figure in a slew of many, and while she brings order to the Compson clan, she
cannot affect their hearts. Her
Christianity is enough for her, but not for others, and this is tragic. While Jason prevails over the last page
of the novel, a sense of humanity is lost.
For the Christian, the question is asked: why does Christ not prevail? Why is Dilsey’s faith ultimately inept
in the world surrounding her? These questions can be
answered on a number of levels.
First and foremost, Faulkner was not interested in presenting a story of
Christian salvation. While his own
remarks about the novel tend to be convoluted and contradictory, it is apparent
that the Christian walk was of interest to him, but not to an extent that he
felt it need prevail over all other beliefs. Indeed, in his lectures at the
University of Virginia, when asked, “would it be true…that you favor strongly
individual rather than an organized religion?” he answered, “I do, always”
(Gwynn 73). Christianity was
Dilsey’s method of finding meaning, but for Faulkner, it was not the only
way. Yet it is apparent
that, for a number of reasons, Faulkner was not content with the original
ending. He tinkered with the story
for years afterward, adding two introductions four and five years after
publication, and a detailed appendix 16 years after the writing of the original
novel. After all these changes, he
still insisted that he was not satisfied, telling Jean Stein vanden Heuvel that
The Sound and the Fury is “the book I feel tenderest towards. I couldn’t leave it alone, and I never
could tell it right, though I tried hard and would like to try again, though I’d
probably fail again” (233).
Faulkner also makes it clear that Jason was “completely inhuman,” whereas
Dilsey “was a good human being.
That she held that family together for not the hope of reward but just
because it was the decent and proper thing to do” (Gwynn 132, Faulkner 237).[4]
His clarifications of
the novel lessened Jason’s control and gave power to Dilsey. In the second introduction written for
the novel, Faulkner alludes to Dilsey’s strength: “There was Dilsey to be the future, to
stand above the fallen ruins of the family like a ruined chimney, gaunt, patient
and indomitable; and Benjy to be the past” (231). Though the reader receives a vision of
Jason dominating the final scene, Faulkner saw Dilsey as being the true
victor. And in his appendix, where
Caroline dies five years after the end of the novel, Caddy is left to the Nazis,
her daughter Quentin simply “vanished,” Benjy is committed to an institution,
and Jason is “emancipated” from all who surround him, left only with his money,
Dilsey and her family are the only people who “endure” (215). In Faulkner’s revisionings, Dilsey is
left standing as all others fall away. However, apart from all of Faulkner’s additions and comments, we are
ultimately left with the novel alone.
Here it is possible to differentiate between the story the text presents
and the story the reader removes from that text. Jason’s apparent victory is neither
desired nor enjoyed by the reader.
Perhaps, in the midst of this tragedy, we infer the real meaning of
life: that Dilsey’s view of society
is the one we would want. It is
also important to remember that, without Dilsey, we do not know where the
Compsons would be. Though Jason
dominates the ending, Dilsey (and her family under her command) brings order to
the Compson household from the opening of the novel. Faulkner’s literal ending allows Jason
to take control of the household, but the reader can lift from that a construct
of hope more powerful than Jason could ever hope to have. Like Quentin, Faulkner
has constructed a reality for us:
one that is devoid of hope, full of suffering, and that gives humanity no
future. We are left watching the
Compson family burn in their own clean flame, their livelihoods, compassion, and
humanity gone. The temporal
time that succeeds for Jason ultimately fails. Faulkner once stated that he wanted the
appendix to be simply entitled “COMPSON.
1699-1945,” because it was to be an obituary of the clan (SF
203). Ultimately, by only
bringing death to the Compsons, Faulkner has shown us that the Compsons’ vision
of humanity has no hope for a future.
Much like Quentin, he has constructed a reality for a family where no one
can possibly survive. However,
whereas Quentin’s reality (and the Compsons’) has no hope or desire for hope,
Faulkner does. Though Jason has a
momentary victory at the end of the novel, he is doomed, and we know from
Faulkner’s speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize that he does not envisage doom
for humanity. Faulkner declined “to
accept the end of man…I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail…He is immortal, not
because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has
a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance” (Faulkner
121). In the end, Dilsey, with her
vision of eternity, not only endures, but also prevails. Notes [1] In speaking of his upbringing,
Faulkner said “The Christian legend is part of any Christian’s background,
especially the background of a…Southern country boy…I grew up with that, I
assimilated that, took that in without even knowing it…It has nothing to do with
how much of it I might believe or disbelieve—it’s just there” (Gwynn
86). [2] Ironically (and intentionally,
given Faulkner’s command of the Old Testament), the Biblical Benjamin underwent
a name change as well. “Benjamin
the child of my sorrowful,” is a line that streams through Quentin’s head in his
section, referring to the Biblical Benjamin’s name given to him by his mother,
“Ben-Oni,” or “son of my trouble” (Gen 35:18), which was then changed by Jacob
to Benjamin, “son of my right hand” (109). [3] When asked at the University of
Virginia how the family sins had affected Quentin, Faulkner replied: “The action as portrayed by Quentin was
transmitted to him through his father.
There was a basic failure before that. The grandfather had been a failed
brigadier twice in the Civil War…The first Compson was a bold ruthless man who
came into Mississippi as a free forester to grasp where and when he could and
wanted to, and established what should have been a princely line, and that
princely line decayed” (Gwynn 3). [4] Faulkner used stronger language in describing Jason at times, once responding to a question that asked if Jason was a literal bastard. “No,” Faulkner said, “not an actual one—only in behavior” (Gwynn 84).
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