It is undeniable that each family member of the Compson family holds their own twisted notion of gender, perceptions constituted by Southern power dynamics, ancient codes, and even psychosis. Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury presents the female body as a a construction of Southern identity, as a women’s sexuality is never freely hers but an embodiment of her family name, a vessel to be tamed. As I watched the havoc that was brought on by Caddy and Miss Quentin’s promiscuity, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a text from classical studies, “The Body Female and the Body Politic”, where the rape of ancient women brought on war in order to restore Roman identity. I found that the promiscuity of TSAF’s female characters had similar effects, as in using their bodies for pleasure we witness the rest of the Compsons, specifically Mrs. Compson, desperately scramble to uphold their good Southern name.
One can argue that the downfall of the Compson family can largely be alluded to Mrs. Compson’s contradictory relationship with the female body and sin. Mrs. Compson, who may at the outset appear as nothing but an archetypal Southern mother, ostracizes Caddy after she has a child out of wedlock. It isn’t necessarily Caddy, but her body, and how she used it to weaken their identity, that she shuns. Where war was brought on to correct unlawful sexual activity in the ancient world, Mrs. Compson attempts to correct Caddy’s sexual sins by erasing her from the family memory and burning her checks. As Mrs. Compson burns another one of Caddy’s checks, Jason points out that there are women worse than Caddy and that burning money is a shame, but she retorts, “Let me never see the day when my children will have to accept that, the wages of sin…I’d rather see you dead in your coffin first”. Mrs. Compson combats sin through destruction and the enabling of the same vicious cycle. Burning the checks and refusing to say Caddy’s name doesn’t restore their honor, however, but instead contributes to Jason’s burnt-out work ethic and Miss Quentin’s eventual running away from home. Mrs. Compson remains so intent on following these old codes that she doesn’t even seem to grasp the role she plays in kindling her family’s destruction.
Although Mrs. Compson constructs her identity around the idea of the controlled, modest female body, she still manages to contradict her perception of gender dynamics. In Reconsidering the Function of Mrs. Compson in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Ulrike Nüssler states, “Mrs. Compson’s brother wields power over her body, intellect, and speech, which should remain resting, passive, and banal…” (577). A letter from Uncle Maury discloses that “delicately nurtured” Southern women have no role to play in business, riffing on an ancient code to hide the fact that he’s taking money from her account. But still, this same passive women whose body supposedly belongs to men like Uncle Maury, insists on “keeping the keys”. Faulkner states, “From her pocket he tugged a huge bunch of rusted keys on an iron ring like a mediaeval jailer’s…” (325). The keys act as a symbol of the familial power that Mrs. Compson holds, despite her constant insistence that Jason is the head of the home. Despite presenting herself as passive and subordinate, Mrs. Compson’s shame for her daughter may be her only notion of gender that remains fixed throughout the novel. Mrs. Compson household power is not quite “delicate” or “nutured” but disastrous and contradictory, through the burning of checks, keeping of keys, and rebuffing of the past, she plays one of the largest roles in deteriorating the family unit.
One gets the feeling that the Compson household isn’t meant to be a striking example of the ideal Southern family, but instead a realistic, tragic picture of what can happen when generations fail to adequately transition between the old and new. The Compson family places an unfair amount of pressure onto Caddy and Miss Quentin, focusing on the sins of their female bodies as a way of dismissing and making sense of their faults. Mrs. Compson is so intent on judging Caddy’s past but fails to acknowledge how she failed as a mother. Quentin tricks himself into valuing the Southern honor system and seeking incest with Caddy as a way of making sense of his own confused perception of the world. Jason scrambles to tame Miss Quentin, but it’s all empty complaining with him, in truth he could care less about Southern honor codes. In truth, all of these characters have their own confused notions of gender, that only become more confused in Mrs.Compson;s attempt to restore an identity that never needed repairing.
