A Study on the Motifs of Shadow and Water in William Faulkner’s the Sound and the Fury

Abstract

William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is among the best novels of the 20^th century. Although Faulkner is an American novelist, his focus has always been on the Southern part of American society. America faced a major financial crisis in 1929 and the world termed it the “Depression Period”. It was about this time the novel; The Sound and the Fury also was published. Considered his masterpiece, contains a whole plethora of themes that have become universal. Faulkner has himself claimed in one of his interviews that the influence that he had garnered for his writings were from The Bible and the Greek Tragedies. Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury serves as a testimony to the degeneration of the once powerful and wealthy white families into a period of turmoil ravaged by decadency. The Compson Family is given the complete focus in the novel. This paper attempts to study on the motifs of shadow and water employed by Faulkner in the novel. The goal of any writer is to reach out to the common reader through his ideas on life, society or values that are considered valuable to him/her and through one’s writings in turn inform the world. Motifs supplement the effect provided through symbolism in Literature. It is a device, which supplies the reader with inferred meanings and is also the technique of the writer to connect to the minds of his readers. Motifs serve as a catalyst towards a change or it creates causes destruction depending on the various circumstances the writer offers to the readers. This aspect reaches a superior motive when a writer of Faulkner’s status has mastered the technique of symbolism and has successfully employed them in the novel.

Keywords: William Faulkner, Motifs, Shadow, and Water.