In The Sound and the Fury, the myth of the Southern Belle is central to understanding the mental crisis Compson brothers experience that hinders their engagement with reality. In The Sound and the Fury, the Compsons, a disintegrating Southern aristocratic family mentally still living in the Old South, struggle with changing South and its conditions. In the novel, their only daughter Caddy’s virginity is a metaphor for the Old South; the role of the Southern belle is the role that Caddy is expected to play but cannot perform. The first three sections of the novel are told in the voices of each of the three Compson brothers, and each section is concerned with the recovery of Caddy’s virginity and her status as the belle. The conception of the
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Because the Belle’s role was to remain in stasis, waiting to transition through “marriage from the position of Southern belle to that of the Southern lady,” her sexual fall was considered an unthinkable abomination (Buzacott 14). The presence of black mammy further defines the paradoxical nature of the Belle. The black mammy’s roles as the object of white men’s sexual desire and the caretaker of the white children (Sykes 10) allow the Belle to remain pure and chaste as a symbol of unchanging, virtuous South (Buzacott 15). Faulkner was aware of this absurd contradiction. The bizarre contradiction is best embodied in the figure of Caroline Compson. Mrs. Compson is the archetypal Southern Belle who has removed herself from both the sexual embrace of her husband and a nurturing relationship with her children to fulfill the role of the chaste Southern Belle. Although she is supposed to be the ideal mother and the virtuous white woman, her commitment to the role of the Belle contributes to the destabilization of her family. Ironically, by embracing the role of the Belle, she becomes an incompetent mother and a distant wife. Mrs. Compson is neither able to care for Benjy, the mentally disabled son, nor emotionally connect to her children, leaving her daughter Caddy and the family’s black servant Dilsey to take care of the household. Furthermore, she naively entrusts her financial affairs to her alcoholic brother, Mowry, and her unscrupulous son, Jason, thereby allowing herself to be taken advantage of. Her primary concerns, like that of her husband, are family honor and the world that has already passed
Because the Belle’s role was to remain in stasis, waiting to transition through “marriage from the position of Southern belle to that of the Southern lady,” her sexual fall was considered an unthinkable abomination (Buzacott 14). The presence of black mammy further defines the paradoxical nature of the Belle. The black mammy’s roles as the object of white men’s sexual desire and the caretaker of the white children (Sykes 10) allow the Belle to remain pure and chaste as a symbol of unchanging, virtuous South (Buzacott 15). Faulkner was aware of this absurd contradiction. The bizarre contradiction is best embodied in the figure of Caroline Compson. Mrs. Compson is the archetypal Southern Belle who has removed herself from both the sexual embrace of her husband and a nurturing relationship with her children to fulfill the role of the chaste Southern Belle. Although she is supposed to be the ideal mother and the virtuous white woman, her commitment to the role of the Belle contributes to the destabilization of her family. Ironically, by embracing the role of the Belle, she becomes an incompetent mother and a distant wife. Mrs. Compson is neither able to care for Benjy, the mentally disabled son, nor emotionally connect to her children, leaving her daughter Caddy and the family’s black servant Dilsey to take care of the household. Furthermore, she naively entrusts her financial affairs to her alcoholic brother, Mowry, and her unscrupulous son, Jason, thereby allowing herself to be taken advantage of. Her primary concerns, like that of her husband, are family honor and the world that has already passed