What a Loud Sound: The Noise Doom Makes in The Sound and the Fury Abbie Hall

An air of doom and darkness hangs over the entirety of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. Utilizing the negative aspects of the South that swirled around him, Faulkner skillfully molds a family--the Compsons--out of that life. Not only does Faulkner discuss the different levels of impending doom that each of the three brothers and their maid, Dilsey, feels, he also touches on the different physical times in which they live. This is illustrated using an interesting technique: Most of Faulkner's characters rely primarily on their recollections of happenings in their lives. In fact, as in most of his works, this novel is filled with almost endless incidences of "remembering" (Minter 190). Perhaps that is why The Sound and the Fury is commonly referred to as a "stream of consciousness novel" or a "novel of inner monologue" (Chakovsky 293). How each character perceives the present and past links to their idea of compassion and human nature, and this idea is also what illustrates their distinctive perceptions of impending doom.

When pondering which of the three brothers battles the idea of irreversible predestination the most, Jason immediately comes to mind. Indeed, so much does he seem...