abstract
caddy was the central character in the sound and the fury. there was no separate chapter to express her thoughts, but everything was connected with her. from benjy to jason, the narration of each of them reflected what caddy’s life was like. caddy was a tragic character in the novel.
in the novel, faulkner used multiple-angled narration to express caddy’s tragedy, and the causes of it mainly came from two aspects. one was the pressure from her family, benjy, her youngest brother’s complete dependence on her. quentin, her elder brother, who had a special affection for caddy, thought excessively highly of her virginity. what caddy had suffered caused his loss of mental balance; at last, he chose to commit suicide. besides, her mother and brother jason treated her heartlessly. the other cause was the backward feudalism and traditional code. all of these turned caddy into a promiscuous, degenerate woman from a pure girl.
however, caddy’s tragedy showed a fact that women had a low social position and were treated unfairly in the early 20th century. at that time, women got only few economical, political and educational rights, they could not enjoy equal rights with men and they were not respected by society.
key words
caddy; tragedy; code; women’s right
摘 要
在小说中， 凯蒂是整个故事的中心，虽然没有以她的观点为中心的单独的一章， 但是所有的都与她息息相关，从班吉到杰生，他们每个人的叙述都反映出了凯蒂的生活。www.11665.Com她所扮演的是一个悲剧角色.
在小说中，福克纳运用了多角度的叙述法来表现凯蒂的悲剧。而凯蒂的悲剧主要来自两方面。一方面来自她的家庭的压力，小弟班吉对她的完全依赖，而哥哥昆丁对凯蒂有一种特殊的感情，他过分看中凯蒂的贞节 ，凯蒂所遭受的一切使他在精神上失去了平衡，最后，他选择了自杀。另外，她的母亲以及大弟杰生对她冷酷无情。另外一个原因就是落后的封建主义以及传统的准则。所有的这些原因使凯蒂从一个纯洁的女孩变成了一个轻佻浪荡的女人。
然而，凯蒂的悲剧揭示了一个事实，在20世纪初期，女性的社会地位极端的低下，而且她们不能得到公平的对待。在那个时代，女人只能享有极少的经济，政治以及教育的权利。她们不能与男性享有平等的权利，也得不到社会的尊重。
关键词
凯蒂；悲剧；行为准则；女性权利
introduction
the sound and the fury, faulkner’s fourth novel, was his first masterpiece, and was considered his finest work. it was recognized as one of the most successfully innovative and experimental american novels of its time and one of the most challenging to interpret. the novel dealt with the downfall of the compsons, who had been a prominent family in jefferson, mississippi, from before the civil war.
although there was not a separate chapter of caddy in this novel, everything was related to her. just because of the pressure that her family gave, and the traditional, idealized southern code, she became a promiscuous, degenerate woman from a pure girl.
this thesis first gives a brief introduction to the author and the work, and then analyzes the causes of caddy’s tragedy from two aspects, namely, the pressure from her family and the backward feudalism and the traditional code.
lastly, the thesis analyzes women’s social status reflected from caddy’s tragedy. in short, caddy’s tragedy showed how backward the feudalism of the south america was. meanwhile, we can see that women at that time could not be respected by the society, and their social status was very low, it was unfair for them.
ⅰ. a brief introduction to william faulkner
william faulkner was born in 1897 in new albany, mississippi, a prominent southern family. a number of his ancestors were involved in the mexican-american war, the civil war, and the reconstruction, and were part of the local railroad industry and political scene. faulkner showed signs of artistic talent from a young age, but he became bored with his classes later and never finished high school.
faulkner grew up in the town of oxford, mississippi, and eventually returned there in his later years and purchased his famous estate. oxford and the surrounding area were faulkner’s inspiration for the fictional yoknapatawpha county, mississippi. these locales became the setting for a number of his works. faulkner’s “yoknapatawpha novels” include the sound and the fury, as i lay dying, light in august, absalom, absalom! the hamlet, and go down, moses (li wenjun, 2) .
faulkner was particularly interested in the decline of the south after the civil war. many of his novels explored the deterioration of the southern aristocracy after the destruction of its wealth and way of life during the civil war and reconstruction. faulkner populated yoknapatawpha county with the skeletons of old mansions and the ghosts of great men, patriarchs and generals from the past whose aristocratic families fail to live up to their historical greatness. beneath the shadow of past grandeur, these families attempt to cling to old southern values, codes, and myths that are corrupted and out of place in the reality of the modern world. the families in faulkner’s novels are rife with failed sons, disgraced daughters, and smoldering resentments between whites and blacks in the aftermath of african-american slavery (gao wei, 129) . faulkner’s reputation as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century was largely due to his highly experimental style. faulkner was a pioneer in literary modernism, dramatically diverging from the forms and structures traditionally used in novels before his time. faulkner often employs stream of consciousness narrative, discards any notion of chronological order, uses multiple narrators, shifts between the present and past tense, and tends toward impossibly long and complex sentences. not surprisingly, these stylistic innovations make some of faulkner’s novels incredibly challenging to the reader. however, these bold innovations paved the way for countless future writers to continue to experiment with the possibilities of the english language. for his efforts, faulkner was awarded the nobel prize in literature in 1949. he died in mississippi in 1962(li wenjun, 3).
the novel the sound and the fury, was first published in 1929, faulkner described the human experience by portraying events and images subjectively, through several different characters’ respective memories of their childhood (gao wei, 130). the novel’s stream of consciousness style is extreamely opaque. despite its formidable complexity, the sound and the fury was an overpowering and moving novel. it was generally regarded as faulkner’s most important and remarkable literary work.
ⅱ. a brief introduction to the novel
the sound and the fury, faulkner’s fourth novel, was his first masterpiece, and was considered his finest work. depicting the decline of the once-aristocratic compson family, the novel was divided into four parts, each told by a different narrator. according to faulkner, the story began with a vision of a little girl’s muddy drawers as she climbed a tree to look at death while her brothers lack the courage. the first section was told from the point of view of benjy compson, a thirty-three-year-old idiot, and recounted the earliest events in the novel use flashback. as an idiot, benjy was the key to the novel’s title, which alluded to shakespeare’s tragedy macbeth. for the most part, his language was simple—sentences were short, the vocabulary was simple. it was not difficult to read this section. however, sensory stimuli in the present brought him back to another time and place in his past instantly because the idiot had no concept of time or place. most of his memories involved his sister, caddy, who was the central character of the novel. benjy’s earliest depicted memory, from 1898 (when benjy was three years old), established the essence of her character—the children were ignorant of the death of their grandmother, damuddy, and caddy was the only compson child brave enough to climb the pear tree and looked through the window at the funeral wake while her brothers standed below, gazing up at her muddy drawers, which were soiled earlier when they were playing in a creek adjoining the compson estate. most of benjy’s other memories also focused on caddy, who alone among the compsons genuinely cared for benjy. key memories regarding caddy include a time when she used perfume, when she lost her virginity, and her wedding. benjy also recalled his change of the name (from maury to benjamin) in 1900, his brother quentin’s suicide in 1910, and the sequence of events at the gate, which leaded to his being castrated, happened also in 1910. the second section recounted the story from quentin compson’s perspective. even though the present-day of this section was almost eighteen years prior to the present-day of benjy’s section, it nevertheless followed roughly the chronological development of the novel, for while many of benjy’s recollections were of their early childhood, most of quentin’s flashbacks recorded their adolescence, particularly caddy’s dawning sexuality. quentin’s section took place on the day he commited suicide, and the present we followed his wanderings around boston (he is a student at harvard university) as he fastidiously prepared for his death. like benjy, he was obsessed with the past and frequently lapsed into flashbacks. unlike the fairly discrete narratives of benjy’s multiple memories, quentin’s were much more fragmentary—a repeated word or phrase early in his section often recured later with greater detail and embellishment. quentin’s flashbacks also were much more intellectual than benjy’s. benjy recorded mainly sensual impressions, quentin often delved into more abstract issues such as character motivation, guilt, honor, and sin. the source of quentin’s horror was caddy. hearkening back to antebellum views of honor, southern womanhood, and virginity, quentin could not accept his sister’s growing sexuality, just as he cannot accepted his father’s notion that “virginity” was merely an invention of men. most of his flashbacks concerned directly his involvement in caddy’s sexual maturing, but ironically they depicted also just how ineffectual quentin was. in an attempt to restore “honor” to caddy and to the compson family, for example, he confronted dalton ames, who may be the man who impregnated caddy, but quentin was easily overpowered by ames—and in the present, when he mistook a fellow student for the adversary of his flashback, quentin was beaten up. in another incident, quentin proposed a suicide pact with caddy, but ultimately he could not go through with it. section three was told by the third compson brother, jason, and was set on good friday. unlike his brothers, jason cared much more on the present, offering fewer flashbacks. the tone of jason’s section was set instantly by the opening sentence: “once a bitch always a bitch, what i say.”(faulkner 192) jason was a sadist, and his grimly humorous section revealed just how low the compson family had sunk—from quentin’s obsessions over heritage and honor and sin to jason’s near-constant cruelty and complaints. the fourth and final section was told from an omniscient viewpoint. it was sometimes known as “dilsey’s section” because of her prominence in this section, but she was not the sole focus in this section—a long sequence follows jason as he pursues his niece, who had stolen about $7,000 from him, to “mottson.” the focus here was entirely upon the present-day, easter sunday, and to that end, all traces of caddy, including her daughter and even the very mention of her name, had been removed.the two main narratives presented in this section were fairly straightforward: jason’s pursuit of his stolen money and his inevitable come-uppance when he insulted the wrong man in mottson; and dilsey’s attendance at an easter church service, at which a preacher from st. louis, reverend shegog, delivered a sermon which stirs in dilsey an epiphany of doom for the compson family. as she said, following the service, “i’ve seed de first en de last ... i seed de beginnin, en now i sees de endin.”(faulkner 254)
ⅲ. the causes of caddy’s tragedy
all the readers of the sound and the fury know that caddy was a tragic character in this novel. though there was not a separate chapter of caddy, she was the central character in this novel; and the cause of the tragedy of caddy mainly came from two aspects.
a. the pressure from the family
this story was about the compson family, which was a prominent one in jefferson, mississippi of the south america. caddy was the only daughter of this family. the first section narrated by caddy’s youngest brother benjy, an idiot, who depended too much on her; he thought repeatedly that caddy smells like trees. most of his memory was centered about her. for example, at the beginning of this section, luster leaded benjy to a nearby course, hoping to earn back his lost quarter by fetching lost golf balls from the rough. the golf course lay on a stretch of what used to be the compson pasture, which had been sold to developers by mr.compson to pay for his son quentin’s education at harvard. when benjy heared one of the golfers calling out to his caddie, he moaned because the sound of the word “caddie” reminded him of his sister. in his memory, benjy and t.p., one of the compsons’ black servants, had gotten their hands on some champagne from the wedding, though t.p. thought the beverage was merely “sassprilluh.” the two boys were drinking and keeping falling down when they watched some cows cross the yard. t.p. and quentin got into a fight because t.p. had been teasing quentin about caddy. the fighting and the alcohol threw benjy’s world into chaos, and he began to cry. versh carried benjy up the hill to the wedding party. moreover, in the present, luster was still standing with benjy as he played in the stream. luster told benjy not to approach the nearby swing because miss quentin was there with her boyfriend, the man with the red tie. this made benjy recall a time years ago when he saw caddy and charlie, her first suitor, kissing on the swing. in his memory, benjy began to cry very loudly when caddy’s suitor approached. charlie growed angry at benjy’s intrusion, which upseted benjy even more. caddy took benjy back to the house and cried, because she knew benjy was upset with her for kissing charlie. caddy apologized to benjy and washed her mouth out with soap. the gate and schoolgirls reminded benjy of a day in 1910, when he ran out of the house to look at some girls who were walking through the same gate. in his memory, benjy managed to open the gate and run through it, he wanted to tell the girls how much he missed caddy, he catched up with one of them. the girl screamed in terror. the scene ended with an unspecified assailant—presumably the father of one of the girls—attacked benjy. that night, mr. compson wanted to know how benjy got past the gate. he and jason mulled over the idea of having benjy castrated as a precaution. all of these things show how pitiful benji was! meanwhile, this was also the tragedy of caddy, because from the childhood to the age hood, there was only caddy caring for benjy. when she divorced, their mother and jason did not allow her to go home and meet her daughter, quentin. but she also cared for benjy very much; caddy afraided that after their father’s death benjy would be put in the mental hospital in jackson by jason.
caddy’s eldest brother quentin compson, who had a special feeling with her, he connected the honor of the family with his life. before his suicide, he had a memory of his sister, caddy’s wedding announcement: “mr. and mrs. jason richmond compson announce the marriage of....” (faulkner 112) caddy got married in april, just two months ago. he went through a series of painful memories, thinking of her promiscuity and her marriage to herbert head. he remembered his mother’s letters about caddy and herbert, and herbert’s promise to give jason a job in his bank. he thought vaguely about his mother’s pride and emptiness, musing that caddy never had a real mother and that he himself could never turn to his mother in times of need. and he remembered the time he told his father he had committed incest with caddy, though he never actually had sexual relations with her, and that his father did not believe him. besides, his father told him that the only reason he was upset at caddy’s pregnancy was because he himself was still a virgin. mr. compson was relatively unconcerned with caddy’s pregnancy because he said that virginity was just a meaningless concept invented by men. from these memories, we can see clearly that the main thrust of quentin’s section was his struggle against caddy’s promiscuity. quentin was horrified by caddy’s conduct, and he was obsessed by the stain, which had left on the family’s honor. quentin, like benjy, had a strong sense of order and chaos. benjy’s order was based on patterns of experience in his mind; however, quentin’s order was based on a traditional, idealized southern code of honor and conduct. this code was a legacy of the old south, a highly paternalistic society in which men were expected to act like gentlemen and women like ladies. quentin believed very strongly in the ideals espoused under this traditional code: family honor; gentlemanly virtue, strength, and decency; and especially feminine purity, modesty, and virginity. caddy’s promiscuity deeply hurted quentin because he viewed it as dirty and shameful, a blatant violation of the ideal of femininity found in his southern code. quentin took his code very seriously, as it forms the basis of order in his world. when caddy’s promiscuity broke the code, quentin attempted to maintain his sense of order by responding in a manner he considered honorable. thinking that suicide was the only way to salvage the family name, quentin told caddy that he would kill himself if she did the same. when she was uninterested, quentin’s next idea was to falsely accept the responsibility for fathering caddy’s child—a lie, but one he considered honorable and gentlemanly. quentin’s struggle to reconcile caddy’s actions with his own traditional southern value system reflects faulkner’s broader concern with the clash between the old south and the modern world. like a medieval code of chivalry, the old south’s ideals are based on a society that has largely disappeared. just quentin’s traditional, idealized southern code of honor and conduct fettered caddy. and at that time, women’s right was improving, but her thought contradicted her family，so caddy became a promiscuous, degenerate women. and because of quentin’s suicide, caddy became more and more promiscuous.
another cause came from her mother and another brother jason. herbert head had offered jason a job at his bank before caddy married him, but rescinded that offer when he divorced caddy. because he knew that caddy’s unborn child was not his. this retraction left jason no choice but to work at the local farm-supply store. however, after caddy divorced, her mother did not allow caddy come back home, at last, they took in caddy’s daughter miss quentin, but caddy could not meet her. during quentin’s growing time, jason took away the money, which caddy gave to quentin, as his own. in order to meet her daughter, caddy would like to be controlled by jason; jason asked caddy to pay him a thousand dollars for seeing quentin a minute. from these things we can see that caddy had no right since she divorced, in her mother’s eyes, she was only an exchange condition with jason’s job. under the backward southern feudalism, caddy was doomed to be a tragic person.
b. backward feudalism and the traditional code
after the civil war, the northern capitalism defeated the southern feudalism. but there was still the residue of the feudal serf system in the south america. and there was a traditional, idealized southern code of honor and conduct, which was a legacy of the old south, a highly paternalistic society in which men were expected to act like gentlemen and women like ladies. in the sound and the fury, caddy was just expected to act like a lady and quentin like a gentleman. however, caddy was not a person without thought, she was eager for freedom, so she became severely rebellions. in her teenage, she became very promiscuous. however, her brother quentin believed very strongly in the ideals espoused under this traditional code: family honor; gentlemanly virtue, strength, and decency; and especially feminine purity, modesty, and virginity. men like quentin, who attempted to cling to these increasingly outdated southern ideals, sensed that their grasp was slipping and their sense of order was disappearing. their reliance on a set of outdated myths and ideals left them unequipped to deal with the realities of the modern world. several characters in the sound and the fury embodied this changing of the guard from old ideals to modern realities. damuddy, the lone representative of the old south left in the compson family, died before any of the other action in the novel took place. miss quentin, the lone member of the compsons’ new generation, was not only a bastard child, but had continued in caddy’s promiscuous ways without displaying any of the guilt that caddy felt about something did wrong. but caddy’s promiscuity broke the code, quentin attempted to maintain his sense of order by responding in a manner he considered honorable. thinking that suicide was the only way to salvage the family name, at last, he preferred the suicide. no doubt his behavior gave caddy psychological pressure and made her feel ashamed, so that her life style was affected afterwards.
ⅳ. women’s social status reflected from caddy’s tragedy
from caddy’s tragedy, we can see that the social status of women was very low in the early of the 20th century.
a. women having fewer rights at that time
throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women’s most significant professions. in the 20th century, however, women in most nations won the right to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities. perhaps most important, they fought for and to a large degree accomplished a reevaluation of traditional views of their role in society. but in the south america, there is a traditional, idealized southern code of honor and conduct. this code is a legacy of the old south, a highly paternalistic society in which men were expected to act like gentlemen and women like ladies. just like caddy, since she was a child, who was taught that she was expected to act as a lady. they could not do something obey the code. in the end of the 19th century, women began working outside their homes in large numbers, notably in textile mills and garment shops. in poorly ventilated, crowded rooms women (and children) worked for as long as 12 hours a day. great britain passed a ten-hour-day law for women and children in 1847, but in the united states it was not until the 1910s that the states began to pass legislation limiting working hours and improving working conditions of women and children. but it had not changed the condition yet. and the myth of the natural inferiority of women greatly influenced the status of women in law. under the common law of england, an unmarried woman could own property, made a contract, or sue and be sued. but a married woman, defined as being one with her husband, gave up her name, and virtually all her property came under her husband’s control. during the early history of the united states, a man virtually owned his wife and children as he did his material possessions. if a poor man chose to send his children to the poorhouse, the mother was legally defenseless to object. some communities, however, modified the common law to allow women to act as lawyers in the courts, to sue for property, and to own property in their own names if their husbands agreed. besides, in the early of the 20th century, women had no right in politics. women were outsiders to the formal structures of political life -- voting, serving on juries, and holding elective office – and they were subject to wide-ranging discrimination that marked them as secondary citizens. in 1900, women’s legal standing was fundamentally governed by their marital status. they had very few rights. a married woman had no separate legal identity from that of her husband. she had no right to control her biological reproduction, and no right to sue or be sued since she had no separate standing in court. she had no right to own property in her own name or to pursue a career of her choice. women could not vote, serve on juries, or hold public office. according to the supreme court, they were not “persons” under the fourteenth amendment to the constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law. american women have had the right to vote since 1920, but their political roles have been minimal. there were only several women played roles in politics. for example, jeanette rankin of montana, elected in 1917, was the first woman member of the united states house of representatives. wives of former governors became the first women governors miriam a. ferguson of texas and nellie tayloe ross of wyoming.
b. women’s unfail treatment
women were long considered naturally weaker than men, squeamish, and unable to perform work requiring muscular or intellectual development. in most reindustrialize societies, for example, domestic chores were relegated to women, leaving “heavier” labor such as hunting and plowing to men. this ignored the fact that caring for children and doing such tasks as milking cows and washing clothes also required heavy, sustained labor. but physiological tests now suggest that women
have a greater tolerance for pain, and statistics reveal that women live longer and are more resistant to many diseases. maternity, the natural biological role of women, has traditionally been regarded as their major social role as well. the resulting stereotype that “a woman’s place is in the home” has largely determined the ways in which women have expressed themselves. traditionally, a middle-class girl in western culture tended to learn from her mother’s example that cooking, cleaning and caring for children were the behavior expected of her when she grew up. and formal education for girls historically has been secondary to that for boys. in colonial america, girls learned to read and write at dame schools. they could attend the master’s schools for boys when there was room, usually during the summer when most of the boys were working. besides, some of these labor laws were seen as restricting the rights of workingwomen. for instance, laws prohibiting women from working more than an eight-hour day or from working at night effectively prevented women from holding many jobs, particularly supervisory positions that might require overtime work. laws in some states prohibited women from lifting weights above a certain amount varying from as little as 15 pounds again barring women from many jobs. in colonial america, women who earned their own living usually became seamstresses or kept boardinghouses. in 1900s, women constituted about 5 percent of the total doctors in the united states. women also had not greatly improved their status in other professions. moreover, women were unfair in morals. for example, if a man had slept with many women, he would not be condemned by the society, if a woman did that, just like caddy of the sound and the fury, she would be regarded as a promiscuous, degenerate woman.
in a word, women could not get fair and enough rights in the early of the 20th century. many feminists believe that a cooperative society based on social economic principles would respect the rights of women.
conclusion
from the sound and the fury, we can see the high recognition and summary ability of william faulkner’s view about life and history. his work appeared confusing, and sometimes it just likes the moron talking nonsense. but in fact, it was analysis of an old family’s disintegration and turn to death. it really stated an aspect about the change of the south america’s history. the sound and the fury embodied this aspect of faulkner’s mature aesthetic; his paradoxical descriptions are not pointy less riddles but rather terse formulate to describe the subversion of resolved meaning, closed form, and full represemation by the language that aspires to those achievements.
nearly every reader agreed that caddy compson was a key, though critics differ in how prominent her role should be. however, she was a tragic character. her tragedy pierced through the whole story. we have to have a pity for her. just because of her family and the backward feudal serf system and the traditional, idealized south code, caddy became a promiscuous, degenerate woman from a pure girl. in the novel, quentin’s struggle to reconcile caddy’s actions with his own traditional southern value system reflects faulkner’s broader concern with the clash between the old south and the modern world. like a medieval code of chivalry, the old south’s ideals were based on a society that has largely disappeared.
from caddy’s tragedy, we can see that women only had fewer rights at that time, women got only fewer legal economical, political, and educational rights, they could not enjoy equal rights with men and they were not respected by society. however, at present, the statuses of women have already improved in many aspects, but some women are still treated unfairly. so, we must pay more attention to women’s status, no matter in the past or in the modern society, women’s rights are always an important matter. we believe that a cooperative society based on social economic principles would respect the rights of women.
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