William Faulkner`s The Sound and the Fury-Handout

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William Faulkner’s Metaphysics of Time
in The Sound and the Fury


A. The Major Characters’ Time Concepts

1. Benjy –an idiot
- Unconscious of time: Time does not exist for him, for he cannot conceive of time and he is unaware of the passing of time. He can only experience sensation.
- Timeless state: With this lack of a time sense, he lives in the timeless state that Quentin tries so hard to reach.
- A past-present world: For him, everything happens in the present--the historical present (a past event described in the present tense).
- dislocations of the time sequence are natural functions of Ben’s mind, and these cause hime to make misinterpretations of time: the golfers calling “caddie” in 1928(Faulkner 3)—Caddy in 1910, grandmother’s funeral in 1899—Caddy’s wedding in 1910(Faulkner 38), Miss Quentin in the lawn swing in 1928—Caddy in the lawn swing in 1908 (Lowrey 55).

목차

A. The Major Characters’ Time Concepts
B. Authorial Time Schemes
C. “Twilight”—the original title and a cental symbol of the novel
D. The Time-bound, Time-Entrapped Characters and the Modern Changing Reality
Conclusion
References

본문내용

A. The Major Characters’ Time Concepts

1. Benjy –an idiot
- Unconscious of time: Time does not exist for him, for he cannot conceive of time and he is unaware of the passing of time. He can only experience sensation.
- Timeless state: With this lack of a time sense, he lives in the timeless state that Quentin tries so hard to reach.
- A past-present world: For him, everything happens in the present--the historical present (a past event described in the present tense).
- dislocations of the time sequence are natural functions of Ben’s mind, and these cause hime to make misinterpretations of time: the golfers calling “caddie” in 1928(Faulkner 3)—Caddy in 1910, grandmother’s funeral in 1899—Caddy’s wedding in 1910(Faulkner 38), Miss Quentin in the lawn swing in 1928—Caddy in the lawn swing in 1908 (Lowrey 55).

2. Quentin—romantic, sensitive, neurotic, hopeless; obssessed over heritage and honor.
a. Obsessed with time(the past): He best exemplifies Faulkner’s “metaphysics of time”. For him there is no future, not even specious or plausible present; reality was and is the past-- “Cogito, ergo eram” (“I think, therefore I was”).

참고 자료

Brooks, Cleanth. “Man, Time, and Eternity.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of
The Sound and the Fury. Ed. Michael H. Cowan. A Collection of Critical
Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: PrenticeHall, 1968. 63-70.
“Existentialism.” Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Vol. II. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1978.
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Vintage, 1984.
Howe, Irving. “The Passing of a World.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of The
Sound and the Fury. Ed. Michael H. Cowan. A Collection of Critical Essays.
Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: PrenticeHall, 1968. 33-39.
Lowrey, Perrin. “Concepts of Time in The Sound and the Fury.” Twentieth Century
Interpretations of The Sound and the Fury. Ed. Michael H. Cowan. A
Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: PrenticeHall, 1968.
53-62.
Millgate, Michael. The Achievement of William Faulkner. Lincoln: U of Nebraska
P, 1978.
Mortimer, Gail L. “Precarious Coherence: Objects through Time.” William
Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Modern Critical Interpretations. Ed. H.
Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.103-116.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “On The Sound and the Fury: Time in the Work of Faulkner.”
Literary and Philosophical Essays. Rpt. Faulkner, William. William
Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury. Ed. David Minter. A Norton Critical
Edition. New York: Norton, 1987.
“Works of William Faulkner: Time Concepts.” Http://www.elibrary.com/getdoc.
cgi?id =50109096xOy799&Form=En&Button=MEM.