One of the most important "high modernist" novels, 1929's The Sound and the Fury chronicles the life of four children in the fading Southern aristocratic Compson family. Faulkner's use of first-person narration from multiple perspectives, beginning with a chapter told from the perspective of a man with debilitating intellectual disabilities, and his use of stream-of-consciousness narration has made The Sound and the Fury a notoriously difficult work. However, the technique, more than a mere gimmick, allows the novel to explore the ideas of time and generational growth.
The narrative follows the four children of Mr. Jason Compson III and Mrs. Caroline Compson — Quentin, Caddy, Jason IV,...
