Previous
Foil
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
The Sound and the Fury is a canonical example of literary fiction. Widely taught in high schools and colleges around the United States, it is also classic of American fiction. It’s particularly important as an example of the literature of the American South, a subgenre that often grapples with the legacies, triumphs, and injustices of the American experiment—particularly the history and aftershocks of slavery.
The Sound and the Fury is also an important example of modernist literature. While Modernism was a huge movement in England, American writers like Faulkner also made important contributions. Faulkner’s complex writing, innovative stylistic choices, and emphasis on stream-of-consciousness narration align with many British modernists like James Joyce or Virginia Woolf. Faulkner was a key figure in the development of these techniques, and turned them toward his quintessentially American themes in productive ways.
Because The Sound and the Fury is considered such a classic, it also raises important questions about what books should be treated as canonical and why. Faulkner’s writing is often stunning and his narrative structures are complex, creative, and compelling; but much of his work also toes the line of true racism, and he led a staunchly racist life. The Sound and the Fury is an excellent case study in what it means to engage with virtuosic books that also have complicated legacies.
Related Themes:
