“The virginity of which she was custodian”: the representation of Caddy Compson in The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner

Abstract

Our aim here is to offer a reading of the multiple voices in William Faulkner’s The sound and the fury so as to build up an interpretation about the silence imposed to Candance (Caddy) Compson in the narrative. To do so, we center our interpretation on the way the novel is narrated, using male voices to present the same events experienced by the Compson’s family. Thus, we highlight the fact that Caddy, the female character, is defined by the three male voices of the brothers Quentin, Jason and Benjamin, who command the three initial chapters of the narrative. As a consequence, it is denied to Caddy the right to tell her own version of the facts narrated by the three brothers. In addition, the text also constructs that female figure as the responsible for the ruin of the family. Our reading dialogues with works by Helloise Toller Gomes (1981), Susan Sontag (1987) and Susanna Hempstead (2020), among others.