The Sound and the Fury

The Sound and the Fury is a novel by William Faulkner that chronicles the downfall of the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats, through four different narrative perspectives.

The novel is set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, and spans several decades.

It is narrated by the three Compson brothers—Benjamin 'Benjy' Compson, an intellectually disabled man; Quentin Compson, a Harvard student who commits suicide; and Jason Compson, a bitter and cynical younger brother—and concludes with a third-person omniscient narrative focusing on Dilsey, the family's devoted Black servant.

The novel explores themes of time, death, and the disintegration of traditional Southern values, using a stream-of-consciousness style that includes frequent chronological leaps and non-linear storytelling.