【喧嚣与骚动】是美国小说家福克纳的长篇小说代表作。又译名《声音与疯狂》。1929年出版发行。这部小说描写的是19世纪末至20世纪20年代美国南方杰弗逊镇的望族康普生家庭的没落以及各个家庭成员的遭遇与精神状态。全书共分四个部分，每部分有一个人物来叙述故事。第一部分是“班吉的部分”，通过康普生的小儿子白痴班吉的眼睛，描绘了周围的世界和濒临没落的家庭状况。第二部分是“昆丁的部分”，以班吉的哥哥昆丁为故事叙述者，写他的思忆、思考、梦呓、潜意识活动以及他的现实生活。第三部分是“杰生的部分”，以昆丁的弟弟杰生为叙述者，由于昆丁没能使杰生谋到银行里的职位，杰生非常仇恨昆丁一家，充分展示了他自私卑下的心理状态。第四部分是“迪尔西的部分”，迪尔西是康普生家的黑女佣，以她对这个家庭的观察和内心独白补充小说中的情节，体现了她的“人性”力量。Analysis of Major CharactersMr. Jason Compson III
Mr. Compson is a well-spoken but very cynical and detached man. He subscribes to a philosophy of determinism and fatalism—he believes life is essentially meaningless and that he can do little to change the events that befall his family. Despite his cynicism, however, Mr. Compson maintains notions of gentlemanliness and family honor, which Quentin inherits. Mr. Compson risks the family’s financial well-being in exchange for the potential prestige of Quentin’s Harvard education, and he tells stories that foster Quentin’s nearly fanatical obsession with the family name.
Though he inculcates his son with the concept of family honor, Mr. Compson is unconcerned with it in p
ractice. He acts indifferent to Quentin about Caddy’s pregnancy, telling him to accept it as a natural womanly shortcoming. Mr. Compson’s indifference greatly upsets Quentin, who is ashamed by his father’s disregard for traditional Southern ideals of honor and virtue. Mr. Compson dismisses Quentin’s concerns about Caddy and tells his son not to take himself so seriously, which initiates Quentin’s rapid fall toward depression and suicide. Mr. Compson dies of alcoholism shortly thereafter.
Mrs. Caroline Compson
Mrs. Compson’s negligence and disregard contribute directly to the family’s downfall. Constantly lost in a self-absorbed haze of hypochondria and self-pity, Mrs. Compson is absent as a mother figure to her children and has no sense of her children’s needs. She even treats the mentally disabled Benjy cruelly and selfishly. Mrs. Compson foolishly lavishes all of her favor and attention upon Jason, the one child who is incapable of reciprocating her love. Mrs. Compson’s self-absorption includes a neurotic insecurity over her Bascomb family name, the honor of which is undermined by her brother Maury’s adulterous behavior. Caroline ultimately
makes the decision to change her youngest son’s name from Maury to Benjamin because of this insecurity about her family’s reputation.
Candace Compson
Caddy is perhaps the most important figure in the novel, as she represents the object of obsession for all three of her brothers. As a child, Caddy is somewhat headstrong, but very loving and affectionate. She steps in as a mother figure for Quentin and Benjy in place of the self-absorbed Mrs. Compson. Caddy’s muddying of her underwear in the stream as a young girl foreshadows her later promiscuity. It also presages and symbolizes the shame that her conduct brings on the Compson family.
Caddy does feel some degree of guilt about her promiscuity because she knows it upsets Benjy so much. On the other hand, she does not seem to understand Quentin’s despair over her conduct. She rejects the Southern code that has defined her family’s history and that preoccupies Quentin’s mind. Unlike Quentin, who is unable to escape the tragic world of the Compson household, Caddy manages to get away. Though Caddy is disowned, we sense that this rejection enables her to escape an environment in which she does not really belong.
Benjy Compson
A moaning, speechless idiot, Benjy is utterly dependent upon Caddy, his only real source of affection.
Benjy cannot understand any abstract concepts such as time, cause and effect, or right and wrong—he merely absorbs visual and auditory cues from the world around him. Despite his utter inability to understand or interpret the world, however, Benjy does have an acute sensitivity to order and chaos, and he can immediately sense the presence of anything bad, wrong, or out of place. He is able to sense Quentin’s suicide thousands of miles away at Harvard, and senses Caddy’s promiscuity and loss of virginity. In light of this ability, Benjy is one of the only characters who truly takes notice of the Compson family’s progressing decline. However, his disability renders Benjy unable to formulate any response other than moaning and crying. Benjy’s impotence—and the impotence of all the remaining Compson men—is symbolized and embodied by his castration during his teenage years.
Quentin Compson
The oldest of the Compson children, Quentin feels an inordinate burden of responsibility to live up to the family’s past greatness and prestige. He is a very intelligent and sensitive young man, but is paralyzed by his obsession with Caddy and his preoccupation with a very traditional Southern code of conduct and morality. This Southern code defines order and chaos within Quentin’s world, and causes him to idealize nebulous, abstract concepts such as honor, virtue, and feminine purity. His strict belief in this code causes Quentin profound despair when he learns of Caddy’s promiscuity. Tur
ning to Mr. Compson for guidance, Quentin feels even worse when he learns that his father does not care about the Southern code or the shame Caddy’s conduct has bro
ught on the family. When Quentin finds that his sister and father have disregarded the code that gives order and meaning to his life, he is driven to despondency and eventually suicide.
Quentin’s Southern code also prevents him from being a man of action. The code preoccupies Quentin with blind devotion to abstract concepts that he is never able to act upon assertively or effectively. Quentin is full of vague ideas, such as the suicide pact with Caddy or the desire for revenge against Dalton Ames, but his ideas are always unspecific and inevitably end up either rejected by others or carried out ineffectively. Quentin’s focus on ideas over deeds makes him a highly unreliable narrator, as it is often difficult to tell which of the actions he describes have actually occurred and which are mere fantasy.
Jason Compson IV
Jason’s legacy, even from his earliest childhood, is one of malice and hatred. Jason remains distant from the other children. Like his brothers, Jason is fixated on Caddy, but his fixation is based on bitterness and a desire to get Caddy in trouble. Ironically, the loveless Jason is the only one of the C
ompson children who receives Mrs. Compson’s affection. Jason has no capacity to accept, enjoy, or reciprocate this love, and eventually he manipulates it to steal money from Miss Quentin behind Mrs. Compson’s back. Jason rejects not only familial love, but romantic love as well. He hates all women fervently and thus cannot date or marry and have children. Jason’s only romantic satisfaction as an adult comes from a prostitute in Memphis.
assertively
Unlike Quentin, who is obsessed with the past, Jason thinks solely about the present and the immediate future. He constantly tries to twist circumstances in his favor, almost always at the expense of others. Jason is very clever and crafty, but never uses these talents in the spirit of kindness or generosity. Though he clearly desires personal gain, Jason has no higher goals or aspirations. He steals and hoards money in a strongbox, but not for any particular purpose other than selfishness. On the whole, Jason is extremely motivated but completely without ambition.
Jason’s lack of achievement stems primarily from his relentless self-pity. Jason never forgives Caddy for the loss of the job at Herbert’s bank, and he is unable to move past this setback to achieve anything worthwhile in his later life. Ironically, Jason becomes the head of the Compson household after his father’s death—an indication of the low to which the once-great family has sunk.
Miss Quentin
Miss Quentin is the lone member of the newest generation of the Compson family. Many parallels arise between Miss Quentin and her mother, Caddy, but the two differ in important ways. Miss Quentin repeats Caddy’s early sexual awakening and promiscuity, but, unlike Caddy, she does not feel guilty about her actions. Likewise, Miss Quentin grows up in a meaner, more confined world than Caddy does, and is constantl
y subject to Jason’s domineering and cruelty. Not surprisingly, we see that Miss Quentin is not nearly as loving or compassionate as her mother. She is also more worldly and headstrong than Caddy. Yet Miss Quentin’s eventual success in recovering her stolen money and escaping the family implies that her worldliness and lack of compunction—very modern values—indeed work to her benefit.
Dilsey
Dilsey is the only source of stability in the Compson household. She is the only character detached enough from the Compsons’ downfall to witness both the beginning and the end of this final chapter of the family history. Interestingly, Dilsey lives her life based on the same set of fundamental values—family, faith, personal honor, and so on—upon which the Compsons’ original greatness was built. However, Dilsey does not allow self-absorption to corrupt her values or spirit. She is very patient and
selfless—she cooks, cleans, and takes care of the Compson children in Mrs. Compson’s absence, while raising her own children and grandchildren at the same time. Dilsey seems to be the only person in the household truly concerned for the Compson children’s welfare and character, and she treats all of the children with love and fairness, even Benjy. The last chapter’s focus on Dilsey implies a hope for renewal after the tragedies that have occurred. We sense that Dilsey is the new torchbearer of the Compson legacy, and represents the only hope for resurrecting the values of the old South in a pure and uncorrupted form.
Themes, Motifs & SymbolsThemes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Corruption of Southern Aristocratic Values
The first half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of a number of prominent Southern families such as the Compsons. These aristocratic families espoused traditional Southern values. Men were expected to act like gentlemen, displaying courage, moral strength, perseverance, and chivalry in defense of the honor of their family name. Women were expected to be models of feminine purity, grace, and virginity until it came time for them to provide children to inherit the family legacy. Faith in
God and profound concern for preserving the family reputation provided the grounding for these beliefs.
The Civil War and Reconstruction devastated many of these once-great Southern families economically, socially, and psychologically. Faulkner contends that in the process, the Compsons, and other similar Southern families, lost touch with the reality of the world around them and became lost in a haze of self-absorption. This self-absorption corrupted the core values these families once held dear and left the newer generations completely unequipped to deal with the realities of the modern world.
We see this corruption running rampant in the Compson family. Mr. Compson has a vague notion of family honor—something he passes on to Quentin—but i
s mired in his alcoholism and maintains a fatalistic belief that he cannot control the events that befall his family. Mrs. Compson is just as self-absorbed, wallowing in hypochondria and self-pity and remaining emotionally distant from her children. Quentin’s obsession with old Southern morality renders him paralyzed and unable to move past his family’s sins. Caddy tramples on the Southern notion of feminine purity and indulges in promiscuity, as does her daughter. Jason wastes his clevern
ess on self-pity and greed, striving constantly for personal gain but with no higher aspirations. Benjy commits no real sins, but the Compsons’ decline is physically manifested through his retardation and his inability to differentiate between morality and immorality.
The Compsons’ corruption of Southern values results in a household that is completely devoid of love, the force that once held the family together. Both parents are distant and ineffective. Caddy, the only child who shows an ability to love, is eventually disowned. Though Quentin loves Caddy, his love is neurotic, obsessive, and overprotective. None of the men experience any true romantic love, and are thus unable to marry and carry on the family name.
At the conclusion of the novel, Dilsey is the only loving member of the household, the only character who maintains her values without the corrupting influence of self-absorption. She thus comes to represent a hope for the renewal of traditional Southern values in an uncorrupted and positive form. The novel ends with Dilsey as the torchbearer for these values, and, as such, the only hope for the preservation of the Compson legacy. Faulkner implies that the problem is not necessarily the values of the old South, but the fact that these values were corrupted by families such as the Compsons and must be recaptured for any Southern greatness to return.
Resurrection and Renewal
Three of the novel’s four sections take place on or around Easter, 1928. Faulkner’s placement of the novel’s climax on this weekend is significant, as the weekend is associated with Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday. A number of symbolic events in the novel could be likened to the death of Christ: Quentin’s death, Mr. Compson’s death, Caddy’s loss of virginity, or the decline of the Compson family in general.
Some critics have characterized Benjy as a Christ figure, as Benjy was born on Holy Saturday and is currently thirty-three, the same age as Christ at the crucifixion. Interpreting Benjy as a Christ figure has a variety of possible implications. Benjy may represent the impotence of Christ in the modern world and the need for a new Christ figure to emerge. Alternatively, Faulkner may be implying that the modern world has failed to recognize Christ in its own midst.
Though the Easter weekend is associated with death, it also brings the hope of renewal and resurrection. Though the Compson family has fallen,
Dilsey represents a source of hope. Dilsey is herself somewhat of a Christ figure. A literal parallel to the suffering servant of the Bible, Dilsey has endured Christlike hardship throughout her long life of service to the disintegrating Compson family. She has constantly tolerated Mrs. Compson’s self-pity,
Jason’s cruelty, and Benjy’s frustrating incapacity. While the Compsons crumble around her, Dilsey emerges as the only character who has successfully resurrected the values that the Compsons have long abandoned—hard work, endurance, love of family, and religious faith.
The Failure of Language and Narrative
Faulkner himself admitted that he could never satisfactorily convey the story of The Sound and the Fury through any single narrative voice. His decision to use four different narrators highlights the subjectivity of each narrative and casts doubt on the ability of language to convey truth or meaning absolutely.
Benjy, Quentin, and Jason have vastly different views on the Compson tragedy, but no single perspective seems more valid than the others. As each new angle emerges, more details and questions arise. Even the final section, with its omniscient third-person narrator, does not tie up all of the novel’s loose ends. In interviews, Faulkner lamented the imperfection of the final version of the novel, which he termed his “most splendid failure.” Even with four narrators providing the depth of four different perspectives, Faulkner believed that his language and narrative still fell short.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Time
Faulkner’s treatment and representation of time in this novel was hailed as revolutionary. Faulkner suggests that time is not a constant or objectively understandable entity, and that humans can interact with it in a variety of ways. Benjy has no concept of time and cannot distinguish between past and present. His disability enables him to draw connections between the past and present that others might not see, and it allows him to escape the other Compsons’ obsessions with the past greatness of their name. Quentin, in contrast, is trapped by time, unable and unwilling to move beyond his memories of the past. He attempts to escape time’s grasp by breaking his watch, but its ticking continues to haunt him afterward, and he sees no solution but suicide. Unlike his brother Quentin, Jason has no use for the past. He focuses completely on the present and the immediate future. To Jason, time exists only for personal gain and cannot be wasted. Dilsey is perhaps the only character at peace with time. Unlike the Compsons, who try to escape time or manipulate it to their advantage, Dilsey understands that her life is a small sliver in the boundless range of time and history.
Order and Chaos
Each of the Compson brothers understands order and chaos in a different way. Benjy constructs order around

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