The Sound and the Fury

It seems appropriate that Dilsey, as the household maid primarily responsible for the raising and care of the Compson siblings, provides the final point of view in this concluding section. Witnessing the family through her eyes, even though the reader is not privy to her inner thoughts, puts them in perspective: Mrs. Compson behaves imperiously toward Dilsey; she is demanding and complaining, full of self-pity. Jason is disrespectful, and Dilsey does not hide her dislike for him. The omniscient narrator of the final section can also be attributed to the voice of Faulkner himself, and, as such, it delivers the definitive assessment of the Compson family and its legacy, or lack thereof. The reader is finally given detailed physical and psychological descriptions of the characters without their own biased filters, which lays them bare in a way the preceding sections do not. It is notable that Caddy herself—around whom much of the action revolves—is not given a section to narrate; thus, she remains somewhat opaque and unknowable, beyond the reach even of the omniscient voice of the final pages (see Symbols & Motifs: Women and Sisters).

An atmosphere of decay and decline suffuses the final section: The day is cold and “bleak,” and Dilsey’s regal attire—in “maroon velvet cape” and “dress of purple silk”—is bordered with “mangy and anonymous fur” (306). Her face is “sunken,” and her hands are “gaunt” (306). She has grown small and tired in her older years, and as the custodian of the Compson family line, her decline foreshadows theirs . It also becomes increasingly clear that, on this day, in the last glimpse the reader gets of the Compson family, something is amiss. It appears as if Jason oversleeps, a prospect that unsettles the household routine; the firewood is not ready for the stove; then, the discovery of the broken window in Jason’s room foreshadows the most alarming event of the morning. Miss Quentin is gone, and it appears as if she has stolen Jason’s stash of money—which, with just irony, was most likely originally intended for her.

All of this reveals further fractures within the family unit. When Jason accuses Luster and Benjy of breaking the window—this is before the family realizes Miss Quentin has scarpered—Mother insists that nobody wants to interfere with his affairs, least of all her. She claims she would not invade Jason’s privacy, “even if I had a key” (320). Jason responds harshly, “Yes [...]. I know your keys wont fit. That’s why I had the lock changed” (320). Not only does this reveal a startling level of mistrust—Jason does not merely lock his door, he changes the locks just in case Mother has an old key—but also the deep secrets and betrayals that define this family. Jason locks his room to prevent the discovery of his deceit. He cons Mother into burning fake checks so he can horde the money for himself.

Ironically, the doting relationship between Mother and Jason is revealed to be a relationship based upon false pride and mutual resentment. The two are very much alike: “Jason laid his knife and fork down and he and his mother appeared to wait across the table from one another in identical attitudes” (323). While Jason is “cold and shrewd,” Mother is “cold and querulous” (323). One is tempted to suggest that Mother did get exactly what she wanted/deserved in a son like Jason. The entitlement with which Jason conducts himself is certainly part of his inheritance from Mother. When he discovers the missing money, along with the absent niece, he calls the police and immediately makes unreasonable demands: “Yes, I’ll be there in five minutes. Have that car ready to leave at once. If you dont, I’ll report it to the governor” (328). He treats law enforcement in the same way he treats his errant niece, with contempt and threats—though in neither case does this actually work. Jason never gets what he wants, though he perhaps gets what he deserves—like Mother.

In fact, he eventually gets his comeuppance. The narrator captures Jason’s oversized sense of grievance completely: “Jason told him [the sheriff], his sense of injury and impotence feeding upon its own sound, so that after a time he forgot his haste in the violent cumulation of his self-justification and his outrage” (350). However, his impatient rage gets him nowhere; again, he is outmaneuvered and emasculated by his niece. The sheriff not only ignores Jason’s unreasonable requests but also threatens to reveal his financial malfeasance. Jason’s righteousness is mere bluster, cover for his own unethical actions.

When Jason tries to take matters into his own hands, he is again thwarted by being attacked by one of the performers in the show (who he mistakenly assumes is a weak old man) and ultimately eluded by Miss Quentin. As it finally dawns on him that he has been defeated, he can no longer go on: “Some looked at him as they passed, at the man sitting quietly behind the wheel of a small car, with his invisible life ravelled out about him like a wornout sock, and went on” (362). He is neither an object of pity nor even an object of curiosity. In his dejected state, he even asks a Black man to drive his car back home.

Interspersed with Jason’s misadventures are the scenes with Dilsey and Benjy, who attend the Black church across town. The scenes here are notable for several reasons: One, the author portrays the disparity between the Compson family home, set next to a golf course in town, and the location of the Black church. As Dilsey and Benjy walk toward the church, they come across “broken things” and “rank weeds” and “the foul desiccation which surrounded the houses” (336). The church itself is “weathered” with a “crazy steeple” (337). This is in contrast to the spiritual uplift provided by the church service and the congregational gathering that radiates faith and love. Two, it can also be noted that, while the Compson residence may be located in a wealthier part of town, it exists in a state of disrepair—not to mention that the family it houses resides in a state of spiritual despair. With the psychological breakdown of Jason—after the “bad luck” of Benjy, the exile of Caddy, and the death of Quentin—Dilsey’s earlier, cryptic message seems clear: “I seed de beginnin,” she says to Frony, “en now I sees de endin” (344). She repeats this later, after announcing that “’Jason aint comin home. Ise seed de first en de last,’ she said, looking at the cold stove. ‘I seed de first an de last’” (348). Dilsey is the witness to the end of the line in terms of generational heritage. Even though Jason returns to Jefferson, he returns an impotent man.