Methods of Innocence in The Sound and the Fury

“Faulkner and the Theme of Innocence”
by Lawrence E. Bowling
The Kenyon Review, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 1958), pp. 466-487
Published by: Kenyon College
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4333892
In this fascinating article, Bowling explores the importance of the idea of innocence both to the novel’s creator, Faulkner, and to its important characters, Benjy, Quentin, Jason, Caddy, and on a smaller lever Miss Quentin and Mrs. Compson. The premise of the article is that Faulkner writes with a “point of view of a Christian feeling under the Southern experience,” and that he “presents his materials…in the form of a metaphor, which conveys its own kind of truth” (466). In this arena, Faulkner explores the “idea of innocence,” specifically “two traditional views of innocence which are in conflict with each other” (466). Bowling states that the two visions of innocence are the puritan view, which sees innocence as untainted moral purity and virtue, and the humanist view, which sees innocence as simplicity and silliness, a “neutral state before knowledge” (467). Both see the “opposite of innocence is knowledge:” but to puritan views knowledge is evil; to humanists, it is “ordinary knowledge and intelligence” (467). To Bowling, Faulkner is a humanist, and so his novel serves to illustrate the pointlessness of the puritan view of innocence and the failure of life when one cannot achieve the humanist view of knowledge.
Benjy is literally an innocent. “He cannot know…the world does not make sense but only sensation” (468). Benjy cannot distinguish between the present and the past. Although he can sense some things (death, Caddy’s actions), he cannot logically learn from and grow from his encounters. He experiences the past and the present all at the same time; he has no coherent knowledge of good and evil; he is unable to live life because of his complete and utter ignorance. In fact, he is trapped forever in personifying the humanist view of innocence; a being completely free of knowledge and experience.
Quentin, on the other hand, personifies the puritan view of innocence. He is “obsessed with the idea that the perfect state which one should strive to preserve or achieve is absolute purity” (468). This melancholy and futile mania of perfection shows up over and over again in Quentin’s section. He doesn’t like roses because they have a tint of color; he prefers the “virginal” white dogwood; he refuses the money that Herbert offers him because he sees it as tainted (469). Purity on a moral level is in fact reflected on the physical level for Quentin; this is displayed when he tries to stop Caddy from literally dirtying her clothes while they play in the stream and when he tries to stop Herbert, whom he sees as dirtying the family, from letting his cigar leave a mark on the mantel. He makes sure to remove the spots from his clothing; when he is preparing to commit suicide, he makes sure to brush his teeth.
The most obvious part of Quentin’s obsession with purity is embodied in Caddy. Quentin is constantly preoccupied with the “moral stain on Caddy’s character,” while he himself remains a virgin (470). He is desperate to erase the smirch on the family provided by Caddy’s promiscuity; he suggests that they both kill themselves or that they pretend to have committed incest. Quentin has trouble understanding that the real world will never live up to his moral expectations; this is shown through his obsession with shadows. These perhaps also show another layer of association with impurity; he watches shadows everywhere. This also connects with the passage in Macbeth that Faulkner draws the novel’s title and themes from; Shakespeare mentions that “life’s but a walking shadow” (473). Herbert provides a good parallel for Quentin’s character by calling him a “half-baked Galahad,” the “noblest and purest knight of the round table” (468). Galahad saw his duty as retrieving the Holy Grail, an almost impossible task, just as Quentin thinks it is his fate to “retrieve the family honor” (469). However, just as Galahad has no place in the modern world, neither does Quentin’s old-fashioned morality.
These attributes combine to place Quentin firmly in a useless state of innocence; the innocence of puritan morality. He cannot learn because he does nothing except live in fear of more stains on the family honor. Instead of working towards a better life or a more honorable future, he decides to kill himself. He has a “dedication to passivity” that does not allow him to grow or change, but to remain forever in a state of useless innocence (472).
The other characters in the sound and the fury also show the futility of innocence. Caddy, the obsession of all her brothers and arguably the most important character in the book, remains an innocent in Bowling’s eyes because she “acquires no spiritual depth” (478). Although she is a spirited, kindly girl who loves her brothers and attempts to help raise them, she never takes her place as the matriarch of the Compson clan. Caddy is clearly not an innocent to the puritan view. However, she is not guilty in the humanist sense even though she loses her virginity, becomes pregnant, and has an illegitimate daughter because she does not take many lessons away from her life. Jason is both guilty and innocent because he “willfully commits innumerable actions which he knows to be immoral and vicious; but he is innocent in the sense that he remains ignorant of basic human principles” (475). Although Jason certainly seems to think he has suffered and experienced, he has derived no knowledge from his life. He has no aspirations, no goals other than being an opportunist. He remains innocent of reality and goodness. Because of Jason, the Compson family has no future and he will constantly drag the family down. Mrs. Compson, too, is much like her son. She “holds the puritan view of innocence as virtue” and in fact thinks she is a perfect mother because she has never been sexually promiscuous and therefore has held by puritan virtue (478). Clearly, this is not true – Mrs. Compson is a horrible mother “thoroughly absorbed in petty bickering” and complaining (477). Because of her, the Compson family “has no center, no mother, no love” (478). Clearly, Faulkner does not support the puritan view of innocence.
The only character that Faulkner sees as having surpassed innocence through experience and reached knowledge is Dilsey. Instead of being passive and complaining, Dilsey faces her problems and searches for solutions; she is calm in the face of life’s difficulties and draws deep understanding from the world around her. Through her, Bowling believes, Faulkner shows “his conception of innocence [which] may be stated in the formula: Life is action, inaction is death” (480).
This article really served to help me understand more of the book as a whole, drawing together many small and confusing details to a broader picture. Although I believe that Faulkner’s message has a greater significance than simply a comment on the nature of innocence, the analysis of this concept was very helpful in classifying characters and drawing conclusions about different actions and results
(1,161)