A False Finality

The final section of The Sound and the Fury wraps up the novel in several ways. Most important to me, however, is the fact that Faulkner really does not wrap up the novel at all. At the end of the last section, we do not know what has happened to Caddie; we do not know what will happen to Quentin. The mirrored uncertainty of mother and daughter serve to highlight the also unresolved fate of the characters left behind. Jason has not developed as a character; he is the same selfish, mean-spirited child he was as a boy. Benjy is incapable of change; he is stuck forever in a whirling miasma of time and loss. Mrs. Compson, too, languishes away waiting for something to happen to her. None of the characters are active; they passively saunter through life, adding nothing to and gaining nothing from the world around them. Dilsey only is a beacon of hope and positivity; her constancy is a good thing instead of a handicap. The final section sums up the experiences portrayed in the other sections of the novel to show that there are no true happy endings in the new world of the twentieth century, only small hints of change. In this way, Faulkner clearly makes his point about the degeneration of modern life and the inability of most people in modern-day life to find a wholesome center or make true meaning out of their actions. (242)