Symbols In The Sound And The Fury

Improved Essays
The symbols of time and shadow play a major part in the novel, The Sound and the Fury. As a whole, these symbols represent the Compson’s fall from glory. As time passes since the days when the Compson family was in its heyday, the family slowly falls to ruin. Morals are lost in the flood of self-pity and self-absorption while the family bonds weaken and break. In the midst of the family’s decay, time and shadows take on different meanings for each of the characters. Quentin, running from his shadow, seeks to stop time, Benjy is oblivious to both time and shadows, and Jason is chained to a shadowed past event. Disley, in stark contrast to the family, sees only the present and the future.
Quentin spends most of his time dwelling on the past
…show more content…
For him, there is no distinction between past and present as to him, everything is just one experience. He is unable to make a distinction between something that happened just hours before and something that happened years ago (4). There is almost no present and no future to him, only the past. Benjy spends the great majority of his time jumping around between memories, which he watches as if they were present events. Most of his memories tend to center around Caddy, who left the house years before the present day. Since Caddy is no longer in the present for him, he can only find her in his past. On the other hand, Benjy’s unique narration allows the reader to draw connections from the past to the present that others characters could not see, such as the foreshadowing of Caddy’s promiscuity (39). Though Benjy is unable to comprehend what others could easily do, he is also free in a way. The shadow of the Compson family does not weigh on him like it does for Quentin. Quentin was always acutely aware of the Compson’s fall from glory and was mentally affected by it. However, like the concept of time, Benjy does not understand what is happening around him. Though his narrative shows the Compson’s decay, he himself does not understand it. Though the shadow of the Compson’s decay hangs over his head, he does not see nor understand the

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