earticle

영어

During the roaring twenties, Americans were aware of the serious tensions that pervaded their lives. The contradictions in pattern of actions, beliefs, and behaviors, in values and ideals were noticeable in everyday lives. Most of all, Americans in the period were interested in the concept of civilization, which was synonymous with advance and progress. Especially the excessive land speculation and overheated stock markets made many people believe that progress could be achieved truly and infinitely on the basis of rationality and reason. William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury as a minor literature subverts and deconstructs the concept of infinite progress. Its experiments of points of view which unfold the characters’ lives in space rather than in time reveal the impossibility and absurdity of mechanical and linear concept of time toward the infinite evolution. Five different views about Caddy Compson, the missing center of the novel, including Faulkner’s “Appendix”, show the impossibility of narrative unity and the limitation of rationality and reason, as the narrative unity within each section of the novel is disrupted by the start of another section with a different point of view. In addition to the experiments of time, Caddy and Benjy as minors question the authenticity of rationality and shows the limitation of a singular system which excludes the others and minors. Idiot Benjy as an eternal child shows family institutes based on rationality is not rational at all, foreshadowing the failure of his drunken parents. Caddy puts more emphasis on acts than empty words, showing the limitations of languages that are short of true reality. In addition, Caddy as a giver tries to overcome the limitations of rational economic relations.