In the short monologue from William Shakespeares tragedy, Macbeth, the title character likens life to a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Benjy, a thirty-three year old idiot, begins to relate William Faulkners unfortunate tale of the Compson family in The Sound and the Fury. Just as it is a story told by an imbecile, it is one characterized by sound and fury. Benjys meaningless utterances and reliance on his auditory senses, the perpetual ticking of clocks, Quentins mysterious bantering, the insignificant accompaniment. Jasons lust for power and control, the inescapable nemesis of time, Miss Quentins rebellious attitude. The Compson family in its entirety is that poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage. Their lives are so full of worries, confusion, sound, and fury that life becomes short and unimportant, signifying nothing. However, Faulkners The Sound and the Fury is not limited to any one point of view, even to that of Benjy. By delivering his novel from four entirely different perspectives, Faulkner is able to create an intricately woven plot that centers on the only Compson daughter, Caddy, and allows one to crawl inside the minds of his deeply disturbed characters. April seventh, nineteen-hundred-and-twenty-eightor is it? Benjamin, formerly Maury, presents a disjointed account of his life between his early childhood just around the turn of the century and up until 1910, mainly focusing on his relationship with his sister, Candace. His sense of time is nonexistent: he confuses the past with the present. He is literal: he has no knowledge of connotation. His descriptions are that of a small child and represent the world as it might seem to a person who has been cut off from all things civilized. One of Benjys most vivid memories is drunkenness: I ran into the box. But when I tried to climb onto it it jumped away and hit me on the back of the head and my throat made a sound (Faulkner 40). His interpr...
