THE "SOILING" OF SOUTHERN WOMANHOOD: THE SOUND AND THE FURY'S CADDY COMPSON

Abstract

While the Writer in Residence at the University of Virginia (1957-1958), William Faulkner was asked which book he considered to be his best. Faulkner responded, "The one that failed the most tragically and the most splendidly. That was The Sound and the Fury the one that I worked at the longest, the hardest, that was to me the most passionate and moving idea, and made the most splendid failure" (qtd. in Bleikasten 1). In his book, The Most Splendid Failure, Faulkner critic, Andre Bleikasten, wrote, "With The Sound and the Fury something happened to Faulkner that had never happened before and would never happen again. . . for the writer,. . . it was much more than a book: a crucial moment in his career, a unique experience in his life" (43). Bleikasten went on to describe The Sound and the Fury as a novel "about lack and loss, in which desire is always intimately bound up with death" (53). Much of what is lacking or lost is experienced by three brothers—Benjy, Quentin, and Jason Compson—with the primary catalyst for their loss being their sister, Caddy. Whether present or absent, Caddy Compson—Faulkner's "beautiful and tragic little girl" (qtd. in Bleikasten 53)—is a compelling character. Caddy Compson has been called "the veritable centerpiece of The Sound and the Fury" (Padgett, "Sound" np). Each of her three brothers views Caddy in a different light. She is "a caring, maternal figure to Benjy, a virgin/whore who upset his sense of the propriety of Southern womanhood to Quentin, and an object of envy and detestation. . . to Jason" (Padgett, "Sound" np). While her brothers' feelings for her may differ in sentiment, all three Compson brothers are obsessed with Caddy and what she as a girl/woman represents to each of them. These obsessions ultimately lead to tragic consequences for the entire Compson family.