WWW8 In William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and The Fury, he enlists different characters like Benjy, a thirty-three year old disabled and mentally ill member of the Compson family to illustrate life in the South during the Reconstruction era of American history. Benjy’s narration is unique in that it warps time, amalgamating many different memories with the present. Benjy’s role within the Compson family and within The Sound and the Fury is to represent unity, both in the familial sense, and within the context of the novel, since Southerners desired to unite pre-Civil War ideals with the present time; he is a reminder of the suffering that both the Compson family and the South endured. As a narrator, Benjy is totally neutral, and thus provides
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Benjy is one of the few members that does not change, and his consistent behavior does bring some order to the family in that they always feel the same way about him. However, they do not like him because he serves to remind them of all the problems that they have. He is always yelling and desperately trying to find parts of his past, reminding the family of their grim situation; “Benjy. Bellowing. Benjamin the child of mine old age bellowing. Caddy! Caddy!”(178). Always calling out for Caddy and for the past, he reminds the family of all that they used to be, causing them to examine their own decline. As a symbolic figure within the book, Benjy represents the failures of the South. Benjy is unable to adapt to the present because of his constant regressions to the past, just like how the traditional South failed to adapt to the changing ways of the world and thus lost much of its prestige during the Reconstruction. Benjy is disabled and unable to express himself, which reflects how the South lost its influence and respect within government after the Civil War. His character is thus a critique of how the South was unable to move away from their past, and he symbolizes all of the shortcomings that crippled the South at this
Benjy is one of the few members that does not change, and his consistent behavior does bring some order to the family in that they always feel the same way about him. However, they do not like him because he serves to remind them of all the problems that they have. He is always yelling and desperately trying to find parts of his past, reminding the family of their grim situation; “Benjy. Bellowing. Benjamin the child of mine old age bellowing. Caddy! Caddy!”(178). Always calling out for Caddy and for the past, he reminds the family of all that they used to be, causing them to examine their own decline. As a symbolic figure within the book, Benjy represents the failures of the South. Benjy is unable to adapt to the present because of his constant regressions to the past, just like how the traditional South failed to adapt to the changing ways of the world and thus lost much of its prestige during the Reconstruction. Benjy is disabled and unable to express himself, which reflects how the South lost its influence and respect within government after the Civil War. His character is thus a critique of how the South was unable to move away from their past, and he symbolizes all of the shortcomings that crippled the South at this