The Dilemma after Caddy’s Running Away—Reading The Sound and the Fury from Feminist Perspective.doc

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1、凯蒂出走后的困境喧嚣与骚动的女性主义解读The Dilemma after Caddys Running AwayReading The Sound and the Fury from Feminist PerspectiveAbstract: William Faulkner is one of the greatest American novelists in the 20th century. In many of his works he depicts the decline of the aristocratic families in American South, the d

2、eterioration of the old traditional values and those people who are distressed in the reality of the modern world. The Sound and the Fury is his first successful work. There are a lot of researches and studies on the novel. In the novel the woman characters play an important role. Caddy Compson is t

3、he core of the whole family. She has a strong influence on her three brothers, her family and the society. Caddys promiscuity foreshadows the downfall of the traditional Southern values. Miss Quentins escape indicates that the downfall cannot be avoided.Key words: traditional Southern values; deteri

4、oration; women摘 要：福克纳是美国二十世纪最伟大的作家之一，他的许多作品中都反映了南方大家族的没落、旧传统的解体、以及处在这一进程中的人们的矛盾和痛苦。喧嚣与骚动是他的代表作，许多学者对该书进行了探讨和研究。本文从女性角度对其进行了剖析。喧嚣与骚动中的几位女性在文中起了至关重要的作用，而其中的凯蒂康普生是小说的中心，她对她的三个兄弟，家庭及社会都有深远的影响。凯蒂的堕落预示着南方的传统观念必将走向灭亡。凯蒂的女儿小昆丁的出走进一步印证了这一事实。关键词:南方旧传统;末落;女性ContentsI. Introduction .1 A.General Introduction to

5、William Faulkner.1 B. Introduction to The Sound and the Fury.2 C. Introduction to Caddys Characters.4. Womens Existence as Caddys Dilemma.6 A. Pressure from the Family.6 B. Bondage of the Traditional Code.8. Womens Status as Caddys Dilemma .9 A. Women Having Fewer Rights.9 B. Womens Unfair Treatment

6、.10. Conclusion.11Works Cited.13I. IntroductionA. General Introduction to William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner was born into a Southern aristocratic family on September 25,1897,Oxford,Mississippi (McHaney 6). Faulkner was named after his great-grandfather. The family name was actually Falkner, without t

7、he “u”, which the writer added to his name later. His great-grandfather William C. Falkner, known as the “Old Colonel”, was an important figure in the history of northern Mississippi. He was widely remembered for his achievements as soldier, landowner, lawyer, businessman, politician, and writer. He

8、 was elected to the legislature before being shot by a political rival in 1889. the old colonel was the prototype for Colonel John Sartoris in his great-grandsons writing. Faulkner only attended two years of high school in Oxford, where he had tried his hand at writing early, but more often focused

9、his attention on various diversions until he dropped out in 1915. Like most writers of his generation, Faulkner was eager to go to the First World War, but he was never sent to Europe. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in Canadahe was too short to join the U.S Air Forceand was still under training wh

10、en the war was over.After the war, he returned to Oxford and was admitted to the University of Mississippi. Faulkner began to write for the school papers and magazines, quickly earning a reputation as an eccentric. His strange routines, swanky dressing habits, and inability to hold down a job earned

11、 him the nickname “Count Nocount.” Faulkner did not complete the freshman year in the University of Mississippi. He supported himself with a variety of odd jobs in New York and Oxford. He became postmaster of the University of Mississippi in 1921 and resigned three years later. In 1924 his first boo

12、k of poetry, The Marble Faun, was published, but it was critically panned and had few buyers.Faulkner enriched his knowledge by reading extensively in the ancient classics, the poems by Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, began to teach himself French, and then learned the novels of Balzac and the

13、 poems of the French Symbolists. In his lifetime Faulkner cultivated a literary friendship with two men, which was of great value to his career. In his youth Faulkner got acquainted with Phil Stone, a lawyer widely read in classic literature and modern French and English authors. Stone would serve f

14、or many years as a sometimes unwanted adviser, helping William Faulkner get his early works published.His family had a great influence on Faulkner. His grandmother, who was the prototype for Damuddy in The Sound and the Fury, often told him the stories about the South. His mother was also keen on li

15、terature and art. She was the center of the whole family for her film character.1924 saw his first book of poetry, The Marble Faun. William Faulkner writes 19 long novels and more than 70 short novels, most of which are family series setting in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. These novels involv

16、e tales of several generations, and the time spans from the War of Independence to the two world wars with over six hundred fictional characters. The typical Yoknapatawpha series include The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and The Snopes Trilogy (1940-1957),

17、 etc. William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. “Faulkner was a daring formal experimentalist. He evolved his literary strategies so as to be better able to communicate his ideas. Not only was he a dedicated student of human nature, but he was also a conscious artist the way Henry

18、 James was”(Chang 245). His “powers of imagination are very great. Rooting his works in the Deep South, he manages to create a literary milieu of his own through which he tries to transcend the limits of particularity to reach universality.” (Chang 245). Faulkner and his works have attracted intense

19、 attentions of readers from abroad and home.The study of Faulkner and his works has always been under hot discussion, and the attention to him and his works will not stop. B. Introduction to The Sound and the FuryThe Sound and the Fury, published in 1929, is the fourth novel written by William Faulk

20、ner. It tells a story of deterioration from the past to the present. The past is idealized to form a striking contrast with the loveless present (Chang 239). There is in the book an acute feeling of nostalgia toward the happy past. Depicting the decline of the once-aristocratic Compson family, the n

21、ovel was divided into four parts, each told by a different narrator. According to Faulkner, the story began with a vision of a little girls muddy drawers as she climbed a tree to look at death while her brothers lack the courage. The first section was told from the point of view of Benjy Compson, a

22、thirty-three-year-old idiot, and recounted the earliest events in the novel use flashback. As an idiot, Benjy was the key to the novels title. For the most part, his language was simplesentences were short, the vocabulary was simple. It was not difficult to read this section. However, sensory stimul

23、i in the present brought him back to another time and place in his past instantly because the idiot had no concept of time or place. Most of his memories involved his sister, Caddy, who was the central character of the novel. Most of Benjys other memories also focused on Caddy, who alone among the C

24、ompsons genuinely cared for Benjy. Key memories regarding Caddy include a time when she used perfume, when she lost her virginity, and her wedding. Benjy also recalled his change of the name (from Maury to Benjamin) in 1900, his Brother Quentins suicide in 1910, and the sequence of events at the gat

25、e, which leaded to his being castrated, happened also in 1910. The second section recounted the story from Quentin Compsons perspective. Quentins section took place on the day he committed suicide, and the present we followed his wanderings around Boston (he is a student at Harvard University) as he

26、 fastidiously prepared for his death. Like Benjy, he was obsessed with the past and frequently lapsed into flashbacks. Unlike the fairly discrete narratives of Benjys multiple memories, Quentins flashbacks also were much more intellectual than Benjys. The source of Quentins horror was Caddy. Hearken

27、ing back to antebellum views of honor, Southern womanhood, and virginity, Quentin could not accept his sisters growing sexuality, just as he cannot accept his fathers notion that “virginity” was merely an invention of men. Most of his flashbacks concerned directly his involvement in Caddys sexual ma

28、turing, but ironically they depicted also just how ineffectual Quentin was.Section three was told by the third Compson brother, Jason, and was set on Good Friday. Unlike his brothers, Jason cared much more on the present, offering fewer flashbacks. The tone of Jasons section was set instantly by the

29、 opening sentence: “Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say.”(Faulkner 192) Jason was a sadist, and his grimly humorous section revealed just how low the Compson family had sunkfrom Quentins obsessions over heritage and honor and sin to Jasons near-constant cruelty and complaints. The fourth and fin

30、al section was told from an omniscient viewpoint. It was sometimes known as “Dilseys Section” because of her prominence in this section, but she was not the sole focus in this sectiona long sequence follows Jason as he pursues his niece, who had stolen about $7,000 from him, to “Mottson.” The two ma

31、in narratives presented in this section were fairly straightforward: Jasons pursuit of his stolen money and his inevitable come-uppance when he insulted the wrong man in Mottson.In The Sound and the Fury, we can see the social and moral decline of one of the Southern aristocratic families, the Comps

32、ons. The novel is written in a stream of consciousness style and is split into four sections. All the characters in the novel is worth reading, they are controlled by the old Southern traditions. Apart from the cultural elements, the narrative strategies used in The Sound and the Fury make it unique

33、 and successful.Due to the limitation of race, gender, and times, Faulkner portrays the imagery of Southern white women under suppression and exploitation. His reflection of cross-racial friendship is limited only to have the white as masters, and the black as servants. Studies on the female images

34、of the novel can surely help us understand the main spirit in the novel, because the author does not express his thoughts and ideas in the superficial way, on the contrary the unique narrative way is speaking for him. C. Introduction to Caddys CharactersCaddy is compassionate. In the absence of the

35、self-absorbed Mrs. Compson, Caddy serves as a mother figure and symbol of affection for Benjy and Quentin. Caddy becomes the one who nurtures Benjy and Quentin. A moaning, speechless idiot, Benjy is utterly dependent upon Caddy, his only real source of affection.In 1900, when Benjy is five years old

36、, Caddy is trying to pick Benjy up to comfort him. She tells her mother that she can take care of Benjy. “You dont need to bother with him I like to take care of him” (Faulkner 61). Caddy attempts to comfort Benjy by satisfying his needs, for example, letting him play with a cushion. Caddy also prot

37、ects Benjy. Jason and Caddy get into a fight when Caddy finds out that Jason has maliciously cut all of Benjys paper dolls into pieces. We can see that Caddy acts as a mother figure to Benjy and gives love to him.Besides, Caddy is headstrong. One night in 1898, their grandmother Damuddy dies. Caddy

38、is not convinced that a funeral is actually taking place, so she decides to spy on the adults through the parlor window. Caddy climbs the tree to see what happens while her three brothers, lacking courage, wait below. When she is forbidden to go to the parlor and warned that Father would whip her, s

39、he says: “I dont care Ill walk right in the parlor. Ill walk right in the dining-room and eat supper” (Faulkner 21).Caddy always wants to be the king in the game with her brothers. She will do anything that boys can. She will do what other people cannot do. When all the children are left with Dilsey

40、, Caddy wants to be the master. She says: “Let them mind me tonight, Father”(Faulkner 22). She wants to go to school after Quentin has. Mrs. Compson says: “When Quentin started to school we had to let her go the next year, so she could be with him. She couldnt bear for any of you to do anything she

41、couldnt. It was vanity in her, vanity and false pride”(Faulkner 261). When Herbert divorces Caddy, she asks no provision from him, not even one cent. She will so anything to support her daughter.Caddy is also rebellious. When all the Compsons children play in the branch, Caddy gets her dress wet. Ca

42、ddy wants to take off the dress and make it dry. Caddy tries to challenge the traditional Southern code which south women must follow. She persists in her own way, paying no attention to other peoples idea.Playing in the stream as a child, Caddy seems to epitomize purity and innocence. But she soils

43、 her underwear. It has two meanings: death and loss of virginity. When she climbs the tree, all three of her brothers catch a glimpse of her dirty underwear from below. Dilsey reaches up and pulls Caddy down from the tree. Dilsey is putting Benjy and the other Compson children to bed. Caddys rear en

44、d is still muddy but Dilsey does not have time to bathe her before bed. Caddys muddying of her underwear in the stream as a young girl foreshadows her later promiscuity. The promiscuity heralded by Caddys dirty pants eventually unravels the three Compson boys emotional of mental stability. Whether o

45、f not they know it at the time, all three boys are made aware of the curse on the Compson name at this moment. It presages and symbolizes the shame that her conduct brings on the Compson family.When she reaches sexual maturity, Caddy begins to behave promiscuously. At the age of fifteen, she kisses

46、a boy. In 1909, Caddy loses her virginity, and later becomes pregnant. She is unable of unwilling to name the father of the child, though it is likely Dalton Ames, a boy from the town. Her experience with Dalton Ames leads her to promiscuity. In 1910, attempting to cover up her indiscretions, Caddy

47、quickly marries Herbert Head, a banker she meets in Indiana. Herbert immediately divorces Caddy when he realizes his wife if pregnant with another mans child. The Compsons drive Caddy out of the family but take in her newborn daughter. In order to support her daughter, Caddy is driven to prostitution. And when she learns that her daughter escapes from the home, she is downhearted. Womens Existence as Cadd