In the above-cited article, Eben Bass explores the significance of some of the more important images in The Sound and the Fury with respect to time. Bass begins the article by discussing the concept of time in the novel and how Faulkner’s fragmented time is used to create four different viewpoints in the four different parts of the novel. The first part of the story is told through the broken concept of time due to Benjy’s disability. Time in Quentin’s narrative is more orderly but halted when he commits suicide. In the third part of the novel, Jason changes time when he goes back in time to get “revenge on his sister Caddy through her daughter Quentin.” It is not until the fourth part of the novel that time moves forward in a more normal fashion. However it is all four of these parts that work together to piece each other’s broken segments of narration together into one coherent story. Bass then proceeds to explain how the images of Caddy’s wedding slippers, the pear tree, Benjy’s weed in a bottle, the mirror Benjy sees in the library, and the flames Benjy sees in the kitchen stove serve as memory-triggers for the characters to begin their narrations and ultimately help to piece the story together.
I found Bass’s concept of time in the story being relative to the character narrating it very interesting because this relativity (in fact the theory of relativity) is a present and inescapable truth in our everyday lives. If we can set the way we view time when our lives are following their most normal order as a standard, we have a basis off which to relate our perception of time when our lives do not follow such a normal order. For example, when we are under a great deal of stress and exertion, our minds speed up and we perceive time to be moving slower than it is actually moving (based on our pre-established norm). Consequently, when we are resting with nothing to do or think about, our minds slow down and we perceive time to be moving faster than it is in fact moving. Last year, Andrew Charlson summed up this theory of relativity very well in his senior speech (and this is a rough estimate of his exact words), “For most of you out there, my speech has been going on for a minute and a half. However, for me it has felt like half an hour on this stage. And it’s only been about thirty five seconds for Guy Gamble sleeping in the front row.” I have no idea how I remembered this quote.
Yet for the troubled characters of Faulkner’s novel, the warping of time in the mind does not end at the theory of relativity, it is also warped by their disabilities (whether diagnosed or not) to not only slow down or speed up, but also to change order and mix itself up. It can be triggered by something as simple as a familiar sight or sound, as in the case of Benjy’s scrambled narration, or abruptly ended by an event such as Quentin’s suicide. Ultimately, perhaps it is Faulkner’s use of a mixed time sequence that makes his novel so interesting. It is something the novel’s readers can relate to, yet it pushes the limit of our understanding of time and makes us think. (608)
