The Compson's: The Fall Of Old Southern Tradition

The Decline of the Compson’s:The Fall of Old Southern Tradition
In many great works of literature tradition is a focal point throughout a huge segment of the novel. In the novel,”The Sound and the Fury”, William Faulkner brilliantly illustrates the rise of modernism, along with the fall of old Southern tradition. In order to fully emphasize the fall of old southern traditions, Faulkner uses the fictional family of the Compsons. The Compson family consists of Mother, Father, Quentin, Caddy, Jason, and Benjy. The Compson family is a dysfunctional family with an abundance of complications that preoccupy their lives. The root of their problems are Caddy’s virginity, the lack of parental love, and the Compson children’s inability to move on from

With the parents old ways of thinking this led to them being bad parents, and forcing them to have no affection of love towards their children. Father’s cynicism views had a very disturbing effect on Quentin. Fathers use of oppressing his beliefs, and religion on Quentin left him confused, and lost. Quentin tried fighting, between right and wrong with trying to find his own beliefs, but he kept getting dragged back into his father's beliefs, which made him contemplate suicide, and eventually go through with it, because he wanted the pain, and anguish to stop hurting him, along with time. Mother, on the other hand, is the real, and main cause of the family’s misfortunes. She always seems to be complaining about her sickness and her own children. She complained so much that she was never there for her children when they needed her, and when she was there, she whined, and cried the whole time. She thinks that Benjy is a punishment on her and that Jason is the only one that she doesn't hate. As a mother, she is even worse, because we find that Quentin talks about her in one of his speeches about how there was no one to which he could call Mother. In one of the quotes said by Quentin he describes his relationship with his mother,”if I’d just had mother so i could say Mother Mother…”(Faulkner 172). This quote illuminates just how little affection his mother gave him when he was a child. Mrs. Compson was

The three narrators all have some connection with Caddy that renders them incapable of moving on and living their life. Faulkner utilizes time effectively with the characters of Benjy, Quentin, and Jason. Benjy sees life as unchangeable, because he is unable to live through life normally like other people. He switches and shifts from memory to the present, because he is unable to think; he associates thoughts with other thoughts. Benjy only remember the loss of Caddy, and not Caddy herself, because of the way he perceives memory. Benny’s section portrays time as an effect it can have on someone. On the other hand, Quentin's memory process differ from Benjy’s, even though they both cannot escape the memories of the past. Quentin's memories hinder him from moving forward, and surviving in present times. Quentin’s section is all about his overwhelming grief from the loss of of his sister's virginity, and the honor, that goes along with it. In the end though he ends up committing suicide from the suffering and longing from the pain of his family's honor, and him losing the ability to live in time where it could hurt him. Contrary to Quentin, Jason’s section is fueled by pure anger, rage, and revenge. Jason almost has no thought of the past and how it affects him. Jason’s actions, and anger are fueled by Mother, and the horrible way that the family survives through hard times. Jason