“There was something terrible in me sometimes at night I could see it grinning at me I could see it through them grinning at me through their faces it’s gone now and I’m sick”: Diagnosing Insanity and Neurosis in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury

Volume 3 Issue 2 Monsoon Edition 2023

Abstract

Aim: This paper will try to delve deep to unearth the psychological issues of the characters. The present paper will also try to show how lack of one or more mental disposition in a man/woman creates mental derangement and psychological illness in the characters. Approach: Using the American Scientologist Ron Hubbard’s theory of “dianetics”, this paper will try to delve deep to unearth the psychological issues of the characters of Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury (1929) Outcome: Among other recurrent issues of “sickness”, Faulkner also deals with psychological and neurological issues in this novel. Quentin Compson, the eldest son of the Comps on brothers embodies all the key elements of madness. Employing a stream of consciousness technique and non-linear fractured narrative, Faulkner narrates the gradual downfall of a completely dysfunctional family. Conclusion: Faulkner shows the reader how the inability to cope up with the natural changes in the flow of time can dislodge one out of his mental sanity.