Decay Of Southern Values In William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury
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The Decay of Southern Values
In The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Faulkner explores the Compson family and their lack of morality. He shows the family’s vices, and the stains on the family name. In doing so, Faulkner also explores the decline of the Aristocratic South, and demonstrates it through the Compson family. He represents modernism is his exploration, as he shows the loss of innocence to illustrate the decline of morals.
First, the section, April 7, 1928, illustrates the decline of morals by a quick memory of Benjamin Compson. He delivered a love letter from his Uncle Maury to the neighbor Mrs. Patterson (Faulkner 14). Mr. Patterson saw Benjamin delivering the letter and chased him with a hoe. This affair in the Compson history begins the spiral downward into immorality. The theme of losing sexual purity repeats throughout the course of The Sound and the Fury.…show more content… Caddy is pregnant outside of marriage and tries to hide it by marriage to a northerner. This loss of innocence and virginity is a sin in the Aristocratic South but Mr. Compson says, “purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature” (Faulkner 121). His flippant attitude of virginity is the biggest slap to the morals of the Aristocratic South. Quentin Compson, Caddy’s brother, claiming that the child is his, follows it in severity (Faulkner 85) . After the loss of innocence, the trend of immorality continues with Jason Compson. He is also not sexual pure, but his major faults come with money. On page 241 of The Sound and the Fury, Jason admits to stealing one thousand dollars from his mother to buy a car, and asks his employer, “When are you going to spread the news that I stole it from my mother?” (Faulkner). He also is flippant, like his father about