Any reader of The Sound and the Fury becomes aware that its first section consists of a considerable number of scenes, or fragments of scenes. These are scrambled in time, but certain ones obviously are to be grouped with certain others into chronological continuities. Even the most careful reader, however, is unable to make all these connections by any process of mere reading. The present study, in the interest of an eventual better understanding of the book, attempts to identify and arrange these fragments.¹

     The evidence available for the study is almost wholly internal, i.e., the text itself.² Here may be included, however, not only the text of the first part, but also that of the other parts of the novel. No initial assumption was made that all four parts would prove to he equally authoritative; but, as the study progressed, the evidence became certain that the novel was a unified work of art, and that the whole text could be employed without reservation to explain the first part.
     On the other hand, the so-called "Appendix,"³ though written by Faulkner, has to be used with extreme caution, if at all. First published in 1946, seventeen years after the novel, and somewhat altered before it was reprinted as an introduction, it contains several inconsistencies with the text. Some of these seem intentional on the author's part. For example, in the novel, young Quentin makes her escape from the Compson house by way of a pear tree. In the first version of the "Appendix," she is still reported - in four different instances - as thus escaping. But in the later version, the pear tree has been four times transformed into a rain pipe. Similarly, the hiding-place of Jason's money has been altered, and Luster's age is given as fourteen, whereas he must be seventeen if we accept the evidence of the text. Therefore we have based no conclusions upon the unsupported evidence of the "Appendix."
     Two other fictional works by Faulkner dealing with characters who appear in The Sound and the Fury are of some importance in the study - the short story "That Evening Sun Go Down" (1931) and the novel Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Since these are independent works, evidence drawn from them cannot be used to controvert anything in The Sound and the Fury (1929). But both seem to have been written with this earlier novel in mind, and thus to attain the status of an author's commentary.
     Like the "Appendix," "That Evening Sun Go Down" actually achieves, with relation to The Sound and the Fury, little more than some additional obfuscation. Some readers, for example, have been misled by the duplication of the name Nancy. In the short story, Nancy is obviously and certainly a woman. In the novel, Nancy is certainly, though less obviously, a mare.⁴
     The advantage of this confusion is to warn the investigator of the pitfalls that may lie ahead. The author, we are forced to conclude, may have to be conceived, not as a friendly helper or as a neutral, but as a playful opponent, masking his moves and setting his booby traps. By analogy, the investigator is confronted by a carefully constructed but finally solvable puzzle.
     Absalom, Absalom! further illustrates the point. Near the middle of this book occur a few words which, we believe, resolve a difficulty that is not to be explained by the text of The Sound and the Fury itself. . . . Thus a certain detail of the puzzle can be solved - but only by the aid of a book published seven years after the one under consideration! . . . .

 . . . .
     The establishment of the levels demanded a more and more detailed examination of the subject matter of each unit. This examination, in turn, led to the discovery of what we might call a system of "clues"- that is, odd bits of information that reappear in certain related units. With a realization of this system, a puzzle-solving technique became possible, and, with its application, the clue-system was found to be indispensable in linking units together.
     These clues were sometimes the presence of a certain character - or animal - within several units. Sometimes, the clue was the designation of a significant object, such as Caddy's veil, which is mentioned twice in [Caddy's wedding sequences]. Most often, some secondary action served as the clue- such as the "sassprilluh" drinking-bout. . . which takes place simultaneously with the wedding. . . .
     Most of the clues, of course, were not readily discernible as such, but had to be searched out from among an entangled mass of obscuring detail; they often lay many pages apart, to be discovered only after a thorough familiarity with the text had been attained. . . .
     The date of other levels required much more complicated deduction-as in the case of Mr. Compson's Death. . . . The most definite indication of the date for this death is to be found far away from the account of it in Benjy's section-that is, on page 215, in Jason's section. Here, Mrs. Compson remarks at the time of her husband's funeral that there have been two deaths in less than two years-thus indicating that the interval between Quentin's death in June, 1910, and Mr. Compson's death has been almost two years.
     This indication is borne out - during the account in Benjy's section - by a hitherto incomprehensible remark of Roskus on page 50: "That's three, thank the Lawd.... I told you two years ago." Thus, from indirect references on pages 215 and 50, we can place Mr. Compson's death, which occurs on page 53, at some time approaching two years after June, 1910 - let us say between January and May, 1912. We can then become more specific.
     The weather at the time of Mr. Compson's death was warm enough for Benjy to be outdoors at night without a coat and for the cow and the pony Fancy to be in pasture. Considering the climate of northern Mississippi for the five-month period to which we have limited the time, we can tentatively rule out January and February as being too cold. Thus, we can specify March, April, or May, 1912. We can now go farther to discover the day.
     From Jason's section (pp. 215 and 223) we can deduce that Mr. Compson's funeral was held on a Friday, the 26th of some unnamed month. This piece of intelligence becomes useful only after we have narrowed the number of months to a certain few within a certain year - and after a calendar check against other dates in the novel has proved these dates accurate; for example, April 6, 7, and 8, 1928, the novel's present, constituted Easter season in fact as well as fiction.9 We can thus treat the novel as a historical document, and check further to see whether March, April or May, 1912, had a Friday the 26th. When we find that one of them did, we can date Mr. Compson's funeral exactly as April 26, 1912.
     After achieving this date, we can confirm it on novelistic grounds. From the evidence found . . . in Jason's section, we have already deduced that Mr. Compson died at night; he was presumably buried on the second day following. When we know that his funeral was April 26, we can then put his death in he small hours of April 25 - that is, the second anniversary of Caddy's ill-starred marriage. Considered novelistically - particularly Faulkneresquely - this hidden "coincidence" becomes readily acceptable; its very patness stimulates further investigation.
     So, we should not be too surprised to discover that the date of Mr. Compson's funeral, April 26, is also significant, being Mississippi's Memorial Day. The time of Mr. Compson's passing marks not only one of the final phases of his daughter's degeneration, but also the tragedy of the Confederacy.
Thus . . . the process of dating serves to emphasize a theme of degradation and decay. The special significance of these dates, however, could not be determined until the establishment of year and season had been supplemented by the more particular but theretofore useless information: the day of the week and date of the month.⁵

     The present study does not appraise the artistic ends attained by the scrambling of time, as here analyzed. The authors, rather, present their work as a basis for further criticism.⁶ They wish now, however, to close with a few general items.

     1. A natural question at this point is: "Was the section written as it now stands or was it written in chronological order and then scrambled?" The authors believe that either method would have been possible, and that they have uncovered no conclusive evidence on this point. Mr. Faulkner himself, in Faulkner at Nagano (pp. 105-106) has been quoted in some statements bearing on the subject but by no means settling it.
     2. In the preceding pages the analogy of the puzzle has been suggested, and also, with the use of the terms "clue" and "false clue," the analogy of the mystery story. After full consideration the authors continue to maintain these analogies. The evidence seems to show that the section was consciously constructed as a puzzle or a mystery story, or both combined. Otherwise, it would seem impossible that the scattered and often brief units could be conclusively placed in the whole structure. Also striking is the way in which Mr. Compson's death-date can be pinned to a significant day by a concatenation of evidence; this cannot be accidental.
     3. The author-reader relationship also calls for attention. If the section is to be considered a puzzle, we must assume that Mr. Faulkner, in full consciousness (a) rendered it difficult and (b) rendered it solvable. This seems to be exactly what he has done. In the action itself we may say that he has always played fair, that is, he has not introduced any inconsistencies, though he may have used false clues and may have concealed the true clues among the verbiage.
     In later writings his relationship to The Sound and the Fury becomes more ambiguous. In "That Evening Sun Go Down" there is no reason, except conscious desire to create confusion or a mere sense of playfulness, that the Negro woman whose death is associated with a certain ditch should bear the same name as a mare whose death is associated with the same ditch.
     On the other hand, in Absalom, Absalom! the use of the name Luster and the specification of that minor character's age seem rather to be aimed at supplying a solution for a detail in the earlier novel.
     Most puzzling of all is the "Appendix." The statement that Luster is fourteen may be the result of mere forgetfulness; the sentimentalizing of his character may be the result of an unconscious change of attitude on the author's part with the passing of some years. The change from pear tree to rain pipe and the change of the hiding place of Jason's money, both introducing errors with respect to the text, can scarcely be credited to forgetfulness.
     At the end, we should explain our title. It is composed of the last five words of the novel. The final sentence should not he passed over too lightly. Let us quote its latter part:
 

as cornice and facade flowed smoothly once more from left to right; post and tree, window and doorway, and signboard, each in its ordered place.

We have attempted to work out why things should be flowing in that special direction, and have failed to determine why - unless the author is speaking in cryptic terms about his book itself and the smooth flow of type from left to right. Why also the emphasis upon "signboard," unless to supply a hint that we should note the signboards in the text ? Then the final words - we have taken them for the title because we also take them for a clue that each part of the seemingly confused book can be put "in its ordered place."
 
 
 

NOTES 

1. This project was originally undertaken as a project in English 208 at the University of California (Berkeley) in the spring of 1956. It was later carried to completion as a collaboration between the two authors. In addition to Mr. Backus the students in the class were A. M. Boardman, R. J. Harlan, W. V. Lawson, H. J. Lieberman, Eleanor Matheu, J. B. Newman, Rena Root, Judith Shatnoff. All of these participated in the earlier stages of the work, and thus contributed to the final results.

2. See note 5 for previous scholarship. All references to the text are to the Modern Library edition. As far as can be determined from a considerable amount of collation and from a careful checking of critical passages, this does not differ significantly from the first edition.

3. This was written for The Portable Faulkner, and printed as an introduction to The Sound and the Fury in the Modern Library edition and The Faulkner Reader.

4. In The Sound and the Fury, Caddy recalls "when Nancy fell in the ditch and Roskus shot her" (pp. 52-53). This seems conclusive evidence that this Nancy was not a woman.

5. In confirmation it should be noted that Quentin's death may also be established as occurring on a significant date. His section is dated June 2, 1910; but he was still alive after dark on that day and drowned himself sometime during the night - therefore on June 3, which is the birthday of Jerrson Davis and a Memorial Day in many Southern states. Quentin's death, like his father's, is symbolically dated. According to what seems to be Faulkner's usual method in the novel, the date June 2 serves to obscure - and yet finally to reveal - the significance.

6. During the progress of their work the authors have become convinced that a study of the story chronologically throws much light upon it. For instance, their scrutiny of the developing relationship between Caddy and Benjy has led them to believe that a very important element of the story - especially significant in the degradation of the Compsons - is the incest between the two. . . . The evidence was presented in a paper read by the authors before the English Conference of the University of California, November 13, 1953.