From the first line of the novel, The Sound and the Fury provides a conflicted perspective on boundaries (physical, metaphorical, linguistic, and otherwise). Benjy, a character defined by his inability to communicate, simultaneously operates as a witness to events, represented in his own relationship to the physical geography of the house. Benjy “cant get out” from the fence (Faulkner 52). He is bound by and connected to it, not only physically, but perhaps even metaphorically and temporally. For example, when a group of people passes along the fence, he “tried to say, but they went on, and I went along the fence, trying to say […] I held to the fence, looking after them and trying to say” (52). The fence marks the bounds of Benjy’s ability to connect with others, but he navigates it as much he can, first by following along the line of the boundary before finally clinging to it in his failed attempt to connect. It also represents a particular site of remembrance for him in that it is the place where Caddy has previously left and appeared. As T.P. tells, “He think if he down to the gate, Miss Caddy come back” (51). Limited though he is in this respect, the first line of the novel reveals his means of working around the limitation. It is “through the fence, between the curling flower spaces” that he is able to observe (3, emphasis mine). Much like his role within the family saga, Benjy, constrained by his own limitations of language and understanding, is still able to watch and witness, and even to relate events to the reader, in his own way.

Unlike Benjy, Quentin is resolute in his respect of boundaries, and seems to be defined by them. His attendance at Harvard hinges upon the fragmentation and sale of family land. His relationship to time is marked by a desire to recognize each passing moment, to the point where unity is wholly disintegrated. He witnesses its passage not only in “the shadow” sunlight casts or in hearing time pass, but also in his own thoughts, “counting to sixty and folding down one finger and thinking of the other fourteen fingers waiting to be folded down” (88). This isn’t limited to time, but rather, informs of Quentin’s overall view and experience of the world. For example, in his perception of the races, he views “a nigger […] [as] a sort of obverse reflection of the white people he lives among” (86). His view of them is not just of their inferiority, but rather of their imperfect opposition—lesser reflections of something higher. Notably, in a conversational fragment, Quentin associates Caddy with them, asking her, “Why must you do like nigger women do in the pasture the ditches the dark woods hot hidden furious in the dark woods” (92). There is an implication of racial muddying in his accusation, one associated with the transversal of a boundary, moving from the safe site of the house to the “dark woods,” from white to its “obverse reflection.” Perhaps he views Caddy’s soiling not just in terms of the impurity of sexuality and womanhood, but also, in some way, as a loss of racial purity as well (maybe due to her large number of sexual partners, and her inability to positively identify her child’s father?).

Unlike her brothers, it is Caddy who straddles and crosses boundaries (in both directions). It is not just that she unilaterally moves from one domain to the other, but that she continually loops back and forth, unable to be pinned down or contained. Caroline laments that “there is no halfway ground […] a woman is either a lady or not,” and yet, Caddy seems to represent that halfway ground. She represents a site of “lady”hood in that she has necessarily lost it. Further, her wedding is a key event in all of their lives, which does not seem to really take place, and her position in the text is defined by the bombast of her presence and the severity of her absence. Throughout the novel, she is frequently represented hovering in physical interstitial spaces—doorways, windows, gates, even mirrors. She uncatches Benjy from the fence; Quentin views her “in the mirror […] running” and then, “running out of the mirror”; and she often appears in the specific narrow space of doorways rather than inside rooms (4, 44, 81, 89, 124). She moves between and among, directions along which Benjy “sees” that constitute spaces (or breaks) Quentin seems apprehensive to recognize as a legitimate position.

Most of the posts have specifically referred to either a section of the book, or   a particular character or      to a particular event.    What I find most striking is the style of writing.  Forward , back, sideways… sometimes with out punctuation    sometimes with regional dialect, with the narrator changing from moment to moment nt….. sometimes like James Joyce (Quentin and the little girl)…. moving characters back and forth as easily as as my 7 year old nephew moves moves toys…. themes like suicide, incest, family dynamics, family honor, parental neglect, drunkenness , mental retardation being  addressed st the same time (sometimes in the same paragraph) wow!  it is remarkable that Faulkner can juggle so many themes   and so many narrative.  What is truly astounding is that the man never seems    to drop the ball.    What concentration!  What discipline!  (It may sound trite.. but what talent!)   Steve

Benjy is confused; Quentin is depressed; Jason is angry; and Dilsey has to deal with all their problems. Faulkner’s final chapter focuses primarily on Dilsey’s role in the home, and how she interacts with the family. His shift to the third-person narrative is no surprise – if Faulkner were to give Dilsey a voice and allow the reader to follow her stream of consciousness, it would disrupt the social hierarchy that he thematizes in his analysis of southern living. As such, Dilsey is quoted often in this section and the third-person narrator is sympathetic to her plight.

Last week we discussed Faulkner’s thematic interest in the concept of failure, specifically addressing how each narrator fails to tell the story (or successfully portray the image of the girl with the muddy bottom in narrative form) in his respective section. It occurred to me as I read the would-be Dilsey chapter that she doesn’t actually have a chance to fail at telling this story, yet she does have a section devoted to her point of view. For instance, we may not be privy to Dilsey’s specific thoughts when she makes the great traverse up the stairs to tend to Mrs. Compson’s needs, but the narrator’s description of Dilsey’s Sisyphean struggle certainly provides insight as to what she may be thinking after “she began to mount the stairs, toiling heavily” only to find out there was no reason for her efforts: “Dilsey said nothing. She turned slowly and descended, lowering her body from step to step, as a small child does, her hand against the wall” (271-272). Even without access to Dilsey’s thoughts, the reader senses her struggle and in this case Dilsey’s silence reveals much more about her character and her relationship with Mrs. Compson than words might have.

Dilsey’s silence replaces Benjy’s moaning, Quentin’s talking to himself, and Jason’s yelling at everyone. Her character avoids those types of flaws by simply keeping her mouth shut, and upholds her duty in the Compson household using the same technique when it comes to Mrs. Compson. In her silence, Faulkner places Dilsey beyond failure in this novel, and Jason crudely points out that failing is a white man’s problem when he thinks back on an angry conversation he has with Dilsey, stating: “You’re a nigger. You’re lucky, do you know it? I’ll swap with you any day because it takes a white man not to have anymore sense than to worry about what a little slut of a girl does” (243). Jason feigns envy here for the lack of pressure on African Americans in the South at that time, choosing not to acknowledge the lack of rights and tiring work Dilsey was assigned as a black female in the south. At that moment he can only think of his personal failure to reclaim his family’s good name and wealth that was lost to his father’s alcoholism, Quentin’s suicide, and Caddy’s fornication.

So Dilsey cannot fail, but Jason’s ironic statement illuminates the fact that failure is actually a privilege of sorts. As a white man with a voice and the potential to succeed, it is Jason’s right to fail. Dilsey is the only prominent character in the novel that upholds her responsibilities and maintains her unjust social role as “mammy” of the Compson household through her silence. Dilsey talks back to Jason on occasion, and voices her opinion among her children and Benjy, but when it comes to Mrs. Compson, “Dilsey [says] nothing” (272). Because Dilsey’s role is so undesirable, I believe that “success” is too strong a word for her character. If failure is impossible, success must be impossible as well; one who has nothing to lose loses nothing.

Through Dilsey’s character, Faulkner demonstrates that even failure is a privilege that is not granted to all. While no one wants to fail, the very act of failing is a right to protect because where there is failure there is the potential for success. Faulkner’s own life is a great testament to this concept, as his “failure” of a novel, The Sound and the Fury, actually turned into his most  celebrated success.