ENGLISH 45C Lecture 22: 11/9 Sound and the Fury #3
Document Summary
Amazing how the real world events rn are crashing into the text - you can"t read this literature right now without thinking about what"s going on in the world. Faulkner provides both a critique + anatomy of southern white culture that"s inevitably in decline. Culture that after cw + reconstruction, clung to a certain version of what we might today call conservative white nationalism. Faulkner shows in multivalent detail the breakdown of these ideologies. Narrated by young men who are unbelievably damaged. Jason seems the most sane - but in many ways is the worst of all. Previous characters may be difficult/unlikeable, but we still have to wrestle with their complexities. Can"t simply say i hate quentin because he"s racist, there"s more to him than that. Previously, have split author function from narrator function. Unbelievable bitterness/bile he spews on every page. Faulkner wrote in the middle of the culture he wrote about - implicated in it as well.
