Has anyone read the Sound of Fury?

Question

If anyone has, can u guys please help me. I just wanna know how Quentin Compson is isolated in the novel- other than from Caddy, and the family. Also, how dies his mind advance throughout the novel? I have some points, I would just like to see some input. Thanks!

Answer 1

No one has actually read this book... and it is "The Sound and the Fury" FYI.

Narrated by Quentin, the most intelligent and most tortured of the Compson children, the second part is probably the novel's finest example of Faulkner's narrative technique. In this section we see Quentin, a freshman at Harvard University, wander the streets of Cambridge, contemplating death and remembering his family's estrangement from his sister Caddy. Like the first section, the plot is not strictly linear, although the two interweaving storylines of Quentin at Harvard on the one hand and his memories on the other are clearly discernible.

Quentin's main focus is on Caddy, whom he loved immeasurably, for which love he felt tremendously guilty. Quentin tells his father that they have committed incest, but his father knows that he is lying ("and he did you try to make her do it and i i was afraid to i was afraid she might and then it wouldn't do any good [sic]"(112)). Quentin's idea of incest is wrapped around the idea that if they "could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us" (51) that he could protect his sister by joining her in whatever punishment/hardship/retribution she would be forced to endure. In his mind, he would not feel guilty about Caddy's fate if only he had been able to share it with her. Shortly before Quentin left for Harvard in the fall of 1909, Caddy became pregnant with the child of Dalton Ames who is confronted by Quentin. The two fight, with Quentin losing horribly and Caddy vowing to never speak to Dalton again for Quentin's sake. Pregnant and alone, Caddy then marries Herbert Head, whom Quentin finds repulsive but Caddy is resolute: she must marry before the birth of her child. Herbert however finds out that the child is not his and sends mother and daughter away in shame. Quentin's wanderings through Cambridge, as he cuts class, follow the pattern of his heartbreak over losing Caddy. For instance, he meets a small Italian immigrant girl who speaks no English. He significantly calls her "sister" and spends much of the day trying to communicate with her, to no avail. Ultimately, Quentin kills himself by jumping off a bridge into the Charles River after loading his jacket with flat-irons.

While many first-time readers report Benjy's section as being difficult to understand, these same readers often find Quentin's section to be near impossible. Not only do chronological events mesh together regularly, but often times (especially at the end) Faulkner completely disregards any semblance of grammar, spelling, or punctuation, instead writing in a rambling series of words, phrases, and sentences that have no separation to indicate where one thought ends and another begins. This confusion is due to Quentin's severe depression and deteriorating state of mind. The section is therefore ironic in that Quentin is an even more unreliable narrator than his retarded brother Benjy was. Because of the staggering complexity of this section, it is often the one most extensively studied by scholars of the novel.

Answer 2

don't they have "Cliff notes" on line??
or is that is what this is ?