Allusion in The Sound and the Fury acts as a dense and interpretable device within the structure of the novel. The allusive references are almost completely referencing the bible, particularly the structural components of the New Testament. The four chapters of the novel correlate in several ways to the four gospels in the New Testament written by Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, one must be wary in navigating the four chapters of TSTF with the New Testament as the map. In doing so one may risk mistaking allusion for allegory in this novel, an important distinction. By definition, allusion is “a passing reference, without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person, place, or event, or to another literary work or passage”(Abrams 9).
Most allusions are used to illustrate or expand upon or enhance a subject, but some are used in order to undercut it ironically by the discrepancy between subject and allusion. An allegory is “a narrative, whether prose or verse, in which the agents and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived by the author to make coherent sense of the literal, or primary, level of signification and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signification”(5). The interpretive quality of allegory allows for every aspect of the story to be correlated to a second level of interpretation, in this case biblically. Allusion, on the other hand, may lean towards a specific deduction of meaning but never becomes equivalent to it. The advantage of allusion in TSTF is that while it makes reference to biblical interpretations of the story of the Compson family, it is also able to utilize biblical allusion to portray the irony of that allusion in the context of the novel and the comparison of the story Compson clan to a biblical tragedy.
Both the New Testament and TSTF are concerned with telling a tale of great loss. Both are concerned with sin and salvation. The last chapters of both these works, the Gospel according to John and the Dilsey chapter, respectively, are more concerned with theology and redemption than the previous three chapters. The gospel according to John and the Dilsey chapter are written from the most distant standpoint of all the others, whether it is chronologically or emotionally. All of these aspects serve as biblical allusion, with a sense of allegory, especially when concerning the structure of both the New Testament and TSTF. However, when examining the text closer it becomes apparent what other purpose biblical reference may have in the text. If one were to look at TSTF as an allegory of the New Testament then the Christ figure would have to be Caddie. The whole of the novel is about her life and figurative death within the Compson family. The three brothers, in their own way, relate the loss of their sister and her innocence.
Within the telling of their stories they resurrect her, just as Christ is resurrected after death. In the chapter entitled, “April Seventh, 1928” Benjy is recalling the moment that Caddie disappears into the tree during their Grandmother’s funeral, “He went and pushed Caddie up into the tree to the first limb. We watched the muddy bottom of her drawers. Then we couldn’t see her. We could hear the thrashing” (Faulkner 25). In the Benjy chapter, this scene represents the loss of Caddie’s innocence, and therefore existence, in the eyes of the Compson brothers. It is Caddie that is venturing into the forbidden world of the tree, leaving her brothers behind. Jason wants to tell on her, Benjy and Quentin are anxious at her disappearance. This scene is intertwined in Benjy’s mind with Caddie’s wedding day. He thinks of a funeral and a wedding within moments to reinforce the tragic loss of Caddie into trees, into the world of sex and men. Caddie’s wedding is the literal loss of her to this world. Benjy recalls looking at “the bottom of her muddy drawers”, which evokes a sense of dirtiness and filth to Caddie’s behavior. Her reckless behavior that day in trees and her upcoming reckless behavior with men taint her in the eyes of her family. This is manifested through the physical dirtiness of her drawers. The last lines of this passage “Then we couldn’t see her. We could hear her thrashing” foreshadows the role Caddie will play in all of their lives to come. She is physically absent from her lives, but her memory and the greatness of her loss continuously “thrashes” the quiet of their lives.
If this novel were to be allegorically interpreted, then this scene would be the equivalent to Christ’s death in the Gospel according to Mathew, Mark, or Luke. That is why it is imperative to refer to the relationship between the Bible and TSTF as allusive. If not, one would be stuck trying to interpret the paradoxical role of Caddie as the Christ-figure, decoding the various levels of meaning throughout the book in order to fit it into an allegorical representation of the Bible. Christ was a figure of ultimate purity and innocence. His death was not by his own hand, but was his will. His loss was greatly mourned, but his resurrection allowed for redemption and salvation. In Benjy’s depiction of the loss of Caddie she is still an innocent, pure girl. She has not yet been tainted by the world of men. Her figurative death was not by her own hands, but by her own will. Her “death” created a deep sense of loss among those that loved her. The wedding could represent her resurrection, her attempt to make right of her promiscuous wrongs. Weddings are religious ceremonies that represent the purity of the bride and the sanctity of sex between a man and a woman. In the New Testament Christ is often involved in weddings of some kind, performing miracles and offering blessings. However, the irony of Caddie’s marriage is that its sanctifying effects were more destructive than purifying. Caddie, unlike Christ, is not pure, innocent, or virginal. Her actions are motivated purely by physical temptation; something Jesus had spent a lifetime suppressing. Although the loss of Caddie is great, it is fueled by social constructs regarding southern womanhood. Her marriage, the final attempt at her salvation and resurrection, is wrought with lies and hatred. It causes a greater sense of loss than did the loss of her virginity, and eventually lead to Quentin’s suicide. Herein lies the inadequacy of the allegorical interpretation of TSTF.
When TSTF and the Bible’s relationship to each other are interpreted as allusive instead of allegorical, the reader is able to acknowledge the irony of biblical allusion within the novel instead of trying to decode it. The first three chapters of the novel are accounts of Caddie’s loss which all seem to be somewhat historically motivated. They are personalized to the experience of the writer and make no attempt at reconciling their loss. Dilsey’s chapter, on the other hand, makes a strong attempt at redemption and salvation. Reverend Shergog makes inadvertant references to the Compson family during his sermon, “I hears de weepin en de lamentation of de po mammy widout de salvation en de word of God”(184). This evokes images of Mrs.Compson. As aforementioned, the theological motivation of Dilsey’s chapter is an allusion to that of the gospel according to John. In this gospel John constantly exposes Christ as divine and makes known the deeper, spiritual truths of his life. One would expect Dilsey’s chapter to do the same sort of redeeming spiritual work on the Compson family, but that never happens. The ending alludes to spiritual salvation, but never delivers. Biblical allusion in TSTF leads the reader into believing that some sort of redemption is imminent for the Compson family, therefore when the story ends without such, the reader too feels a great sense of loss and despair.
Biblical allusions are approximate but not equivalent, and it is this approximation that allows for the ironic combination of the Compson family’s drama and the life and death of Christ to be compared. Through allusion, we are able to see the hopelessness of the Compson family and the tragedy that Faulkner views as the loss of southern womanhood. It is ironic that Caddie’s scene in the trees, with her muddy bottom, could so innocently foreshadow the loss of her purity in the eyes of men. However, the true irony lies in the aggrandized loss of the myth of southern womanhood being brought to the level of biblical proportion.
Works Cited –
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Harcourt Brace College Publishers: Fort Worth, 1999.
