Unscrambling William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury From A Psychoanalytic Perspective

William Faulkner is one of the greatest contemporary writers in the United States. People always associate him with the American South. The writer works hard on the"little postage stamp of native soil"for decades and writes enduring works one after another which win him worldwide fame. These works root in the American South and explore the fate of American society and even of the human beings. The Sound and the Fury is one of them. The novel focuses on an ever-prominent family– the Compsons in the American South in four chapters, by four very different voices and on four different days. The first three chapters are narrated by the three Compson brothers respectively, while the fourth chapter in the third person perspective. The distinctive feature of the novel is that the three Compsons are not only the narrators, but also the characters the writer describes carefully. As narrators, what they see and hear presents the course of the Compson family from prosperity to decay. As characters, their existence, characteristics and mentality reflect the decay of the family, even of the whole South.In this thesis, through studying Sigmund Freud'psychoanalysis and Carl Jung's archetypal theories, I unscramble Faulkner's creation psychology step by step and parse the dramatis personae's psychosis. Meanwhile, I probe into the essence of Depth Psychology and point out that Carl Jung's collective unconscious archetypal theories have positive meaning to modern civilization, which represents an unscrambling way to the psychic.Starting with the overview of psychoanalysis and its broad influence, the thesis set the foundation of its theory. First introduced to literary studies in the 1920s and 1930s, Freud's psychoanalytic criticism survives today. Although its methods have been challenged, revised and supplemented by sympathetic but somewhat rebellious followers such as A. Adler, C.G. Jung, psychoanalytic criticism provides a stimulating approach to literary analysis. As a mighty international thought, psychoanalysis has deeply penetrated in the blood of western culture.With the developments of the author's creation, Chapter Two follows up the scent of the occurring of his novels and the track of his psychology of creation, holding the opinion that there exists an intuitive psychological tendency in Faulkner's creation which the author is not aware of. It is the autonomous complex that leads the author to go beyond his limitations and to reflect a deeper collective unconsciousness. Faulkner's novels and their respective themes are closely connected with the inferiority complex caused by American culture, the author's physique and his living conditions. They are the results of his inferiority complex that accumulates into some kind of superiority complex. Because of the southern American's special history and politics and his sufferings Faulkner is deeply absorbed in the southern wasteland and invented Yoknapatawpha County, making it a place where he can do whatever he wants to do to counteract the lack in his real life.In Chapter Three, for better understanding the mentality of the three Compson brothers and the distorted love towards their sister, I put forward that Caddy in her brothers'eyes represents Anima. In the system of Jungian psychology, Anima and Animus are the important archetypal images. On the basis of the archetypal theories in analytical psychology rather than from any specific religion, my thesis offers a summation of the significance of Jungian archetypal images in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.There are other dominating archetypal images, that is, Shadow, Persona and Sagacious men. These archetypal images in Jungian psychology also play important roles in the interaction between human beings and environment. In Chapter Four, for further understanding the mentality of main women characters, I explore"shadow"and"persona"of Mrs. Compson and the"sagacious men"archetype in Dilsey.The Sound and the Fury presented the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself, and, ultimately, reflected the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths. My thesis is an innovative study of the novel by psychoanalysis.