Abstract：William Faulkner is a famous American novelist and the representative of the stream-of-consciousness novels, who is regarded as one of the most prominent modernist novelists after Joyce in the west. The Sound and the Fury is one of the most classic works of William Faulkner, which has been praised as an outstanding example of the English stream of consciousness in twentieth century. The novel tells the decline of the southern American landlord the Compson family through various perspectives.

In this novel, Faulkner changed the monotonous narration, and creatively connected the scattered plots into a whole, making the novel more thought-provoking. Many experts and scholars have studied The Sound and the Fury from various angles, such as the characters, feminism, psychological analysis and narrative features. This paper, based on the previous studies, will take Gérard Genette’s narrative focalization theory as the main theoretical basis, to study the multiple perspectives of the works. This paper will mainly analyze the internal focalization, the zero focalization and the external focalization in the novel through illustrating their application, so as to explore the inner world of the characters and understand the theme of the work. Then summarizing the characteristics of narrative perspectives in The Sound and the Fury, studying the effects and inspiration that the narrative techniques bring to the readers. Finally, this paper will summarize some limitations of this paper and give some advice for further research.

Keywords:  William Faulkner  The Sound and the Fury  multi-perspective narrative

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Chapter One Introduction-1

1.1 Introduction to William Faulkner-1

1.2 Introduction to the Novel-1

1.3 Literature Review-2

1.4 Aim and Structure of the Thesis-3

Chapter Two Theoretical Analysis-4

2.1 Origin of Narrative Focalization Theory-4

2.2 Genette’s Narrative Focalization Theory-4

2.2.1 Internal Focalization-4

2.2.2 Zero Focalization-5

2.2.3 External Focalization-5

Chapter Three Multi-perspective Narrative Features of The Sound and the Fury-6

3.1 Internal Focalization of Three Compson Brothers-6

3.1.1 Benjy’s Narration-6

3.1.2 Quentin’s Inner Monologue-7

3.1.3 Jason’s Confession-7

3.2 Zero Focalization on Dilsey-8

3.3 External Focalization in the Novel-8

Chapter Four Characteristics of Multi-perspective Narrative Techniques in The Sound and the Fury-10

4.1 Characteristics of Multi-perspective Narrative Techniques-10

4.2 Effects of the Multi-perspective Narrative Techniques-11

Chapter Five Conclusion-13

5.1 Major Findings-13

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research-13

References-15