The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner centers around the dysfunctional Compson family, a Southern family who are struggling with their deteriorating reputation and financial situation. The main narrator of the beginning section of the novel (labelled April 7th, 1928) is Benjy Compson, the fourth child who is just turning 33. Benjy is mentally disabled and cannot speak, but the reader can understand some of his thoughts. Despite the time being stated at the start of the chapter, the narrative jumps around in time quite a bit, highlighting the strangeness and confusion of the speaker. Benjy shifts between several moments in his life, such as sharing experiences when he was a young boy and in the present without much notice. This structure makes this chapter rather difficult to comprehend. However, most readers are used to consuming narrative through the able-bodied individual, so reading from Benjy’s point of view is surprising yet also extremely effective in creating the unique tone of the novel. The incoherence of the chapter is frustrating, but looking at the story from a disabled character’s perspective forces the reader to view life in Benjy’s disabled body.
We learn of Benjy’s various attachments such as his sister, Caddy, the only character who takes time to listen to Benjy, and how he is cared for by various characters throughout his life. Benjy has been said to have been “three for thirty years” and he struggles to communicate in many ways other than bellowing or moaning. The struggle of communication for Benjy reflects the entire family who refuse to listen to each other. Benjy uses his other senses to make sense of the world as illustrated by his reaction to smells and Caddy showing him how cold feels. Benjy cannot speak words, but he seems to be the only one who notices the declining state of his family. Benjy understands his sister’s name and her love for him, but he is othered by Frony, and several other characters who say he doesn’t understand anything, let alone a name. The only moment when Benjy is understood in this first chapter is when Caddy wears perfume, which upsets Benjy because she usually “smells like trees.” Caddy understands this after showing Benjy the perfume to react to. As the reader, we are frustrated when Benjy is not understood because it is written in first-person perspective, which inserts the reader in his shoes.
In many ways, there are similarities between Benjy and Lenny from the novel Of Mice and Men. Both of these characters are largely mistreated as simply bumbling idiots due to the insensitivity of the time periods the stories take place in and other characters. Both of these novels are structured to make disabled characters into sympathetic figures who are illustrated to be burdens to the people around them despite their good intentions. Looking at disabled characters this way is simultaneously problematic and important. Both of these works feature disabled individuals as main characters, and they are demonized by other characters, but not intended to be seen negatively by the reader. In spite of being generally positive forces, they both meet unhappy or tragic fates, Lenny’s death and Benjy’s castration. Benjy’s perspective as a disabled person enhances the novel’s narrative structure despite its confusing nature. The insight on his treatment and his observations capitalize on Faulkner’s themes of communication and family in The Sound and the Fury.
I pledge that I didn’t cheat and stuff
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