From 1955 to 1962 William Faulkner several times
gave public interviews, and during them he was often questioned about the
composition of The Sound and the Fury. Basically, his answer was
always the same, that the novel had begun with an image of a little girl's
muddy drawers up in a tree, and that he had then intended the first part
of the novel, devoted to Benjamin Compson, as a short story. Subsequently,
he said, he tried telling the story from the points of view of Quentin
and Jason, and finally, in the fourth section, from his own. The details
of each reply vary a little, but in all the accounts it is clear that this
work in its early stages was not intended to be a novel. 1
The manuscript contains the four sections, with the dates, and in the sequence
described by Faulkner.2
Collation with the first edition reveals the authority of his statements
concerning the composition of the novel, primarily by showing that the
final form was the product of extensive revision, in the form of the addition
of links connecting the parts of the novel. These were added after the
completion of the manuscript, in the first section, in order to establish
connections between it and sections three and four.3
"Now, just listen at you," Luster said.
"Now, just listen at you." Luster said. "Hush up."
A consideration of the late addition of the birthday
passages is particularly relevant to the interpretation of the symbolic
significance of Benjy's age, and to all of the Christian aspects of the
novel.7 Their
late addition does not reduce their importance in later versions of the
first part, but it does suggest a high degree of deliberation, which is
consistent with Faulkner's own evaluation of the Christian references in
the novel - that they are important but not primarily for their religious
character. At the University of Virginia he was asked whether they represented
"conscious attempts." In his reply he repeated that he was trying to tell
the story of Caddy, and that the coincidence of Benjamin's age with Christ's
at the time of his death was "just one of several tools."8
They came to the flag. The boy took it out, and they hit with the sticks. They put the flag up again and the boys went on and they went to the table and he got on it, with his stick. "Fore, Caddy," he said. "I'll declare," Luster said . . . In the first edition this passage has been greatly expanded: They came to the flag. He took it out and they hit, then he put the flag back. "Mister." Luster said. He looked around. "What." he said. "Want to buy a golf ball." Luster said. "Let's see it." he said. He came to the fence and Luster reached the ball through. "Where'd you get it." he said. "Found it." Luster said. "I know that." he said. "Where. In somebody's golf bag." "I found it laying over here in the yard." Luster said. "I'll take a quarter for it." "What makes you think it's yours." he said. "I found it." Luster said. "Then find yourself another one." he said. He put it in his pocket and went away. "I got to go to that show tonight." Luster said. "That so." he said. He went to the table. "Fore, caddie." he said. He hit. "I'll declare." Luster said . . . Two short phrases in the portion of the scene which follows accommodate the tone of the whole passage to the addition, and provide a reason for Luster's sudden cruelty to Benjy. The phrases missing in the manuscript are: and: "Hush up. I the one got something to moan over, you aint. Here." (JC: 66; ML 73) By the addition of dialogue and one speaker to a
scene already present in the manuscript Faulkner rather simply transformed
the passage to make it serve the scheme of anticipation.
"Mr. Jason." "What." Jason said. "Let me have two bits." Luster said. "What for." Jason said. "To go to the show tonight." Luster said. "I thought Dilsey was going to get a quarter from Frony for you." Jason said. "She did." Luster said. "I lost it. Me and Benjy hunted all day for that quarter. You can ask him." "Then borrow one from him." Jason said. "I have to work for mine." He read the paper. (JC: 81f; ML: 85f) A secondary effect of this passage is to minimize Jason's positive qualities. Some of his phrases, in the third section, are a gross version of the epigrammatic wit of his father, and one can sympathize with much of his feeling of having been cheated of opportunity. In the long run, however, the sympathy one might have felt is converted into amusement and moral censure, because Faulkner has chosen to emphasize in the first section of the novel only two aspects of his character as a child: the image of the small fat boy with his hands constantly in his pockets, and after the revision of the manuscript, literal emphasis on his tight-fistedness. The part played by Quentin in the third section required, it would seem, little anticipation. Thus Faulkner added only two brief passages to her characterization as a pitiable and untrustworthy girl. These phrases were added to the scene in which Mrs. Compson drives to the cemetery: "Quentin." Mother said. "Dont let" "Course I is." Dilsey said. and in the next paragraph: "I'm afraid to go and leave Quentin." Mother said. "I'd better not go. T.P." (JC: 10; ML: 30) Immediately following the passage concerning Jason and Luster quoted
in the last paragraph occurs this addition to the manuscript:
"You didn't do nothing to his flowers?" Dilsey said "I aint touched his graveyard." Luster said "What I want with his things? I aint going to have no traffic with him." "You going to do just what he want you to, nigger boy," Dilsey said. "You hear me?" and the first edition: "You aint done nothing to his flowers." Dilsey said. "I aint touched his graveyard." Luster said. "What I want with his truck I was just hunting for that quarter." "You lost it, did you." Dilsey said. She lit the candles on the cake. Some of them were little ones. Some were big ones cut into little pieces. "I told you to go put it away. Now I reckon you want me to get you another one Mom Frony." "I got to go to that show, Benjy or no Benjy." Luster said. "I sent going to follow him around day and night both." "You going to do just what he want you to, nigger boy." Dilsey said. "You hear me." (JC: 68; ML: 75) The combination of allusions to the birthday celebration and the show naturally draws attention to the contrast between Jason's and Dilsey's ideas of generosity and of their responsibility to dependents. Nevertheless the number of passages which makes this connection is small in comparison to the total number of references to the show in the first section, so that one could hardly say that Faulkner was deliberately building up, during revision, a structure of thematic contrast among the various characters. One cannot fail to be impressed by the skill and apparent ease with which Faulkner made these additions. Long passages were inserted with no more rewording of the surrounding sentences than can be observed anywhere in the manuscript. While working on the first section Faulkner was already in the habit of making long marginal insertions:10 for example, nearly all of page JC: 51f; ML: 62 was inserted in the wide left margin of the manuscript, and the passage into which it was set is only lightly revised. Several series of pages in the first and second sections were renumbered so as to indicate both relocation of certain passages, and a general expansion of the manuscript. Although other types of revision did call for a great deal of cancellation of single words and phrases, the expansion of the manuscript so as to anticipate the last two sections did not. The style of the first section helps to explain the ease with which additions to the manuscript could be inserted. Even the scenes which Benjamin recalls in the first person are composed of the dialogue of other characters, so that their roles could be expanded without much effect on our conception of Benjamin himself. The speeches are nonsequential, in the sense that emotionally defined subjects occur and reoccur, with a resulting decrease of emphasis on the paragraph with an exclusive structure, or on logical dialogue. For example, Dilsey asks Luster why he cannot keep Benjamin away from Quentin. In the manuscript the passage reads: "Dont you know she aint got no time for him?" "Got as much time for him as I is," Luster sand. "He aint none of my uncle.'' One may observe, however, that the number of italicized
passages about doubled when the manuscript was typed, and more passages
continued to be italicized even after the printer had set the galleys.11
Most of the added italics occur in short passages, although neither the
group found in the manuscript nor the later additions concerns a special
character or event. The complex time scheme of the first section thus apparently
was not disordered by the inclusion of a considerable amount of new material.
In fact the letter to Ben Wasson concerning the means of indicating time
shifts in Benjamin's monologue12
shows that Faulkner intended the italics primarily as an accommodation
for the reader.
She smelled like trees. In the corner by her the dresser it was dark, but I could see the windows a little, and I held the slipper and squatted there. by . . . dresser was revised to read, in the first edition: She smelled like trees. In the corner it was dark, but I could see the window. I squatted there, holding the slipper. I couldn't see it, but my hands saw it, and I could hear it getting night, and my hands saw the slipper but I couldn't see myself, but my hands could see the slipper, and I squatted there, hearing it getting dark. (JC: 88f; ML: 91) Probably in the interests of consistency in Benjamin's characterization, Negro speech in the first section of the novel was revised so as to reduce somewhat its colloquial character, a tendency which may be observed by comparing revisions of the dialogue there with the relatively unrevised diction of the speech in the fourth or any other section.14 The table which follows is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to show the variety of words and speakers affected, and the care with which Faulkner singled out certain kinds of words wherever they appeared in the manuscript.
The Sound and the Fury was inspired by the image of Caddy as a child, and conceived of as her story. None of the revisions of the first section directly concerns her character or her image. Revisions which concern Luster or Quentin, for example, affect the degree of their involvement in the major actions of the novel. As an image, Caddy cannot, of course, be so involved, which may account for the fact that until she is engaged in action by Quentin, in the second section, she remains unchanged, Faulkner's "heart's darling." Faulkner's attitude toward Benjamin, whom he usually discussed as a device, sharply contrasts with the emotional statements he habitually made about Caddy. He said, for example, "The only emotion I can have for Benjy is grief and pity for all mankind. You can't feel anything for Benjy because he doesn't feel anything. The only thing I can feel about him personally is concern as to whether he is believable as I created him."15 The revisions which concern Benjamin, the addition of the birthday passages, the increased emphasis on his isolation, and the revisions of the diction of the speech he hears, are consistent with this attitude.16 Since this paper concerns only a portion of the whole novel, concluding remarks must be considered tentative. Although the connections between sections one and three are the most numerous, they suggest an idea of anticipation which seems highly conventional: that is, in the interest of economy of effect, it was wise to prepare beforehand for the traveling show, the event which deeply absorbed the Compson family in Jason's narrative. Moreover the show cannot be described as an experience, in the sense of being understood by the characters, and it is relatively bare of symbolic suggestion. While it is true that the hunger of Quentin and Luster for glamour is revealed by its tawdry attraction, the question may be raised, to what extent thematic links, between two parts of a novel one of which employs a chronological time scheme, in themselves provide a real departure from conventional narrative. Secondly, one might question why connections between the first and second sections scarcely exist. The fact that the events in Quentin's section occur eighteen years earlier is one possibility. Another is that the task of creating precise thematic links between two sections neither of which was written in chronological form might have been a much more complex undertaking. Although the relationship between sections one and four is probably the most fruitful for discussion, a final interpretation seems far from clear. Are the values of love and innocence, embodied in the two main figures of the static world in the first section, demonstrated in the actions of Dilsey on Easter Sunday? If so, the idea of innocence which Benjamin represents, since it is not specifically Christian, seems arbitrarily to anticipate, by the mere coincidence of his age with Christ's at the time of the Crucifixion, the events of Easter. At the same time, the revisions which establish the relationship between one and four differ from those concerned with the show, in that Faulkner attempted to provide a sphere of expanding significance for one aspect of the novel, the idea of innocence represented in the character of Benjy. Insofar as he wished to allow the symbolic suggestions of character to assume a significance comparable to characterization itself, this aspect of revision may be said to resemble other experiments with form in the modern novel. One might conclude that the structure of the novel appears to depend mainly on thematic connections among three of the four sections. Ulysses, with which The Sound and the Fury has often been compared as an experimental novel, differs essentially in composition and form: it was written with an overall plan in mind from the beginning, and although revisions in the service of motif were always important, exclusively so in late stages of the work, other types of revision linked one episode with another by alterations throughout the work, rather than in one episode solely.l7 In comparison, the expansion of Benjy's section so as to anticipate later portions of the novel does not seem a radical treatment of form, and the manuscript in general suggests a simpler scheme of revision. 1. Jean Stein, "An Interview with William Faulkner," Paris Review, XII (1956), 39-40. Cynthia Grenier, "An Interview with William Faulkner," Accent, XVI (1956), 172-173. Robert A. Jelliffe, ed., Faulkner at Nagano (Tokyo, 1956), pp. 103-105. F. L. Gwynn and J. L. Blotner, edd., Faulkner in the University (1959), pp. 1-2, and 84. Joseph L. Fant, III and Robert Ashley, edd., Faulkner at West Point (1964), pp. 109, 111. For example, Faulkner said during this interview that the novel had begun with an image of Caddy's muddy drawers, and that he had thought it was going to be "a ten-page short story. The first thing I knew I had about a hundred pages. I finished, and I still hadn't told that story. So I chose another one of the children, let him try. That went for a hundred pages, and I still hadn't told that story. So I picked out the other one, the one that was nearest to what we call sane to see if maybe he could unravel the thing. He talked for a hundred pages, he hadn't told it, then I let Faulkner try it for a hundred pages. And when I got done, it still wasn't finished, and so twenty years later I wrote an appendix to it, tried to tell that story." The skeleton of the answer is the same as on all other occasions. In this instance the variation is the description of the number of pages; the existing manuscript number 148 pages, and it is likely that Faulkner's use of numbers was a device to show the audience that the work expanded in scope during composition. 2. A full description of both the manuscript and the carbon typescript can be found in James B. Meriwether, "Notes on the Textual History of The Sound and the Fury," The Papers of the BSA, LVI (1962), 285-316. The typescript does differ from the first edition in some important respects, but the omissions discussed in this paper occur only in the manuscript. Quotations from the printed edition are from the first, published by Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith (New York, 1929). In the text pages references to this edition are identified as JC, and are followed by pages references to the more inaccurate but widely available Modern Library edition. 3. A large number of revisions of the manuscript fall under the various headings of verbal polishing. Faulkner sometimes tried a piece of dialogue or a phrase in more than once position, occasionally even assigning it first to one, then to another speaker. A few revisions make the use of certain images more consistent. A number of sentences are more rhythmic in the final version and reveal the sensitivity of Faulkner's ear to the music of speech. Finally, the changes of diction, of single words, are enormous in number. All of these revisions would properly be evaluate in full-scale discussion of the manuscript. 4. In an undated, four-page typescript fragment, probably written sometime in the early 1930's (See Meriwether, p. 306), Faulkner spoke of himself as "still reading by repercussion the books which I had swallowed whole ten years and more ago." The effect of reading upon his style is more evident in The Sound and the Fury than in any other of his works. 5. About twenty-seven single paragraphs in the manuscript were divided, occasionally into as many as eleven, in the first edition. In each case the new paragraph signifies a shift in person, and thus serves to distinguish dialogue from conversation remembered in interior monologue. The manuscript of the second section contains only nine italicized passages. The remainder were added in the typescript and first edition, and each use of italics serves to mark a shift in time. The tendency of this type of revision is to force a distinction between Quentin's active life and the life he lived in memory. A paper dealing with these and other revisions in the second section of The Sound and the Fury is forthcoming. 6. Permission to cite passages from the manuscript has kindly been granted by Mrs. Paul Summers. I am indebted to the American Philosophical Society and to Boston University for grants to cover travel expenses. 7. Christian references are largely absent from the second section of the manuscript as well. 8. Gwynn and Boltner, p. 17; and see also p. 68. Both Faulkner's reply and the evidence from the manuscript would make a primarily doctrinal emphasis on the Christian aspects of the novel seem arbitrary indeed. 9. John Faulkner, in My Brother Bill (1963) provides information of pp. 47f and elsewhere about Callie Barr, the Faulkner mammy who was the origin of Dilsey. 10. No manuscript of Soldier's Pay or Mosquitoes survives. The typescript of Mosquitoes, however, shows sixteen manuscript additions of some length, the longest about two hundred words. The manuscript of Sartoris (entitled "Flags in the Dust") shows several pages added in two places, and eight marginal additions; a few more passages were added in the margins of the typescript. 11. On the subject of the increased use of italics, see Meriwether, 298. The first italicized paragraph in the printer's sample octavo gathering, which is the second in the typescript and in the book and occurs on JC: 5; ML 26, coincides with the first italicized paragraph in the manuscript. 12. The letter is closely paraphrased by Meriwether, 294f. 13. Benjamin's failure to make a distinction between the world and his experience of it is nicely emphasized in a small revision of the final sentence of the novel. In the first edition it reads: "The broken flower drooped over Ben's fist and his eyes were empty and blue and serene again as cornice and façade flowed smoothly once more from left to right; post and tree, window and doorway, and signboard, each in its ordered place" (JC: 401; ML: 336); and in the manuscript: ". . . cornice and [balcony deleted] wall [interlined] and façade [each deleted] flowed smoothly once more across his mind from left to right, post and tree, lamp and sign and door each in its ordered place" (fol. 148). 14. Compare, for example, these forms from the fourth section: gwine, bofe, befo, de, hit cole dis mawnin, pastuh, case (because), cuiser (curiouser), yo egvice (your advice), vilyun (villain). 15. Paris Review, XII, 40f. 16. Benjamin is not, however, a mere abstraction. An Oxford model is described by John Cullen, in Old Times in the Faulkner Country (1961), pp. 79f. 17. Information about Joyce's methods of revision is contained in Joseph Prescott's "Stylistic Realism in Joyce's Ulysses," in A James Joyce Miscellany, Second Series, Marvin Magalaner, ed. (1959), p. 15-66; and A. Walton Litz, The Art of James Joyce: Method and Design in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake (1961), pp. 1-7 and notes. |