the beggining and the end

The final section in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury serves to bring the novel to a close in a way that reveals the complete destruction of the once high-and-mighty Compson family and continuance of the family’s downward spiral beginning with the changing of Benjy’s name. In this section –told in a third person point of view primarily following the family’s longest surviving servant, Dilsey, during the morning of April 8, 1928- the reader can see the complete breakdown of the family into a dysfunctional group dependent on others simply to survive. Mrs. Compson, bed-ridden and delusional, leaves all of the house-hold matters to Dilsey, complains about having to make the slightest effort, and clings to her status as a “lady” throughout the morning as a justification in how the family’s problems were neither her fault nor her concern. The third person perspective also conveys her self-centered attitude without any character bias –claiming that the tragedy of Quentin’s suicide was intended only to wound her. More importantly, it is this clinging to status which creates the feeling of closure upon the end of the story. Although the Compsons’ situation has changed throughout the story, the stubbornly cling to their traditions -as is clearly shown through Jason’s assault of Luster for taking the wrong way around the town square- and it is this failure to adapt which keeps them firmly attached to their downward spiral in both wealth and well being (240).