Faulkner’s Representation of Time Faulkner’s representation of time in As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and The Sound and the Fury is tangled and inconsistent. He switches back and forth between the distant past, the recent past, and the future, so it is sometimes difficult for the reader to keep track of the events happening within the novel. Why does Faulkner make the reader reach so far just to understand a story? Why do people read Faulkner if it is so dense and far-reaching? When you have to invest so much of yourself into the reading, you can become more involved with a book and its characters.The best example of time confusion is in The Sound and the Fury. The past is represented in short bursts that are often distorted. In Benjy’s section, it is hard to tell when he is talking about past or present events. The only real clue we have is when the type changes from Roman to italics, and even then it can be tricky. Since Benjy thinks differently than everyone else, his words are further distorted. For the first 75 pages of The Sound and the Fury, we don’t know what time it is, or what has happened and what has not.Quentin has a further obsession with time that is complemented by Faulkner’s time confusion. The beginning of his section demonstrates his life’s obsession:“When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said...I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought.” (Page 76)This statement, made by Quentin’s father, gives Quentin’s battle words. Quentin actually spends his whole life fighting against time and losing the battle. Quentin...
