The disconcerting lack of structure in the opening chapters of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is an immediate indicator that something is quite awry with the Compson family. Benji, a character who is literally speechless, narrates the opening chapter in an inarticulate and initially incoherent torrent of action and emotion. His limited mental capacity contorts not only the structure of the narrative, but the meaning of events and even the meaning of words themselves. The separation between signifier and signified coupled with the absence of chronology enables Benji’s narrative to communicate associative connections in his experience, infusing meaning. Or perhaps that is just what we as readers are conditioned to look for?
Benji’s narrative communicates information in its simplest form. In the opening passage on page five, a golf game is described in a convoluted sequence of action: “They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the fence.” Benji’s observations simultaneously distill experience to its simplest form while also serving to put distance between an event or word and its meaning. The game of golf is particularly relevant to Benji’s experience in a number of ways. The constant repetition of the word “caddie” recalls his sister “Caddy.” The golf course was once Benji’s beloved pasture, which the family sold in order to fund Caddy’s failed marriage and Quentin’s failed attempt at Harvard. As a result, the golf game is both simplified and complicated within the context of Benji’s narrative.
This passage is indicative of much of the rest of the chapter, filled with actions which are then followed by Benji’s reaction of either being soothed or agitated. The word moaning is repeated constantly throughout Benji’s section as it acts as his only form of verbal expression. Luster consistently tells Benji to stop: “Hush up that moaning” (3), “Shut up that moaning” (4), “Can’t you shut up that moaning and slobbering” (9), “See can you stop that slobbering and moaning” (17). Interestingly, the word “moaning” seems to be substituted for the word “mourning” at a later point in the chapter on page 33 when Fromy explains that a funeral is “where they moans.” Just as the refrain of “caddie” at the golf course propels Benji to memories of Caddy, perhaps Luster’s repetition of the word “moan” reminds Benji of Damuddy’s death. Benji’s word and sensory-associative responses to stimuli piece together what is clearly a mournful life experience.
So if to moan and to mourn are interchangeable in this narrative, what is Benji mourning? On page 55, Luster taunts Benji with the memory of Caddy: “Beller. You want something to beller about. All right, then. Caddy.” While Luster uses “beller” instead of “moan” the result is the same. It seems too farfetched to believe that like Quentin, Benji is mourning Caddy’s lost virginity, a culturally constructed notion far more complicated than golf. Unless, Faulkner is suggesting that the concept for virginity is innate, which also seems farfetched? It is more likely that Benji is mourning Caddy’s absence, which is the result of her sexual promiscuity.
Megan Mitchell
