A study on 'time' in the second section of The sound and the fury
著者(英) Nobuyoshi Saito
journal or
publication title
Core
number 5
page range 54‑67
year 1976‑03‑31
URL http://doi.org/10.14988/pa.2017.0000016376
54
A S t u d y on Time' i n t h e S e c o n d S e c t i o n o f Theゐundand t h e Fury
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Once Faullm巴rremarked on The Sound and the Fury as follows: 1 wrote the same story four tImes. None of them were right
,
but 1 had anguished so much that 1 could not throw any of it away and start over,
so 1 printed it in the four sections.(1)This remark is backed up by the wide di妊erence between each of four sections巴xcept between the middle two sections
,
which hold a relative similarity to each other as 'the counter points' in the author's words. For this reason it is not so unreasonable nor destructive to take up and examine each of the four sections separately, 且sif th巴y were four different stories. The four sections are,
in other words,
the four angles from which the author tells the story of the fInal degeneration of a family,
which is patheticallyc 1
ear to see,
but hard to understand and hopeless of survival and reconstruction. The whole view of the degeneration will be obtained only when each reality revealed from each angle is gathered around one spot,
that is,
the heart of the degeneration.In the second section of the book is revealed the world in which
A Study on Time' in the Second S巴ctionof The Sound mul the Fury 55 Quentin
,
the romanticist incapable of getting over trifle setbacks,
dι stroys himse1 f
and the fami 1
y. Quentin's love for his sister,
sens邑 of pride and honor,
of humiliation and impotence,
trial and error and so on,
entangle his mind on the day of suicide,
and form a chaotic mental wor I
d. But when this chaotic world is disentangled,
one can 五ndat the bottom a phi 1
osophical dialogue about time between his father and hith. It is of crucial importance for understanding this section,
for Quentin thinks that his setbacks and humliation,
the very beginning of his tragedy,
are caused by time itself, 呂
ndhis father suggests to him a method to get them over,
which is also concerning with time. Hereafter shall be traced back a course of their dialogue about time,
which brings Quentin to his conclusion,
that is,
his suicide.2
Quentin has the past of defeats. This means that he has some rigid sense of value to be defeated. He dedicates his humanity to an idea of value so entirely that once the order which he has bui
1 t
with the idea is destroyed,
h巴feelshe has no other aI t
ern且tivebut to be de‑ stroyed al1 together with it. This is the essence of Quentin's fault. For humanity is an organism which cannot be reduced to an abstract idea of value and has the dignity of its own that affords infinite hope until its physical death. But Quentin believes in an idea of value rather than in humanity.I t
is natural that Quentin Is under an obsession of time. Once he found his ideal order at a certain period of time,
whatever change,
which Is inevitable from the nature of time,
appears to him to be56 A Study on 'Time' in the Second Section of The Sound and the Fury unacceptable disorder and corruption. Thus he thinks that the cause of disorder and corruption should be time itself
,
and abhors time trying to get free from it.His hopeless battle against time is comical as we
l 1
as tragic,
because his losing the battle is infallible while the reason why he feels he has to iight time is quite understandable from his past experiences.There are two persons who defeat Quentin: Herbert Head and Dalton Ames.
Herbert defeats Quentin by the power of his money. For the power of money rules the actual world
,
where the virtues like justice,
prudence,
temperance,
etc.,
the ideas of which Quentin loves,
are completely neglected under a genteel guise of respect.Quentin cannot stand his sister's marrying a contemptible man like Herbert
,
who isA liar and αscoundrel . . . was dropped from his club for cheating at cards got sent to C(Y()entry caught cheating at midterm exams and expelled. (p. 113)(2)
But he feels forsaken when Caddy says
,
Well what about it I'm not going to play cards with." (p. 113),
showing that she does not share in the least hisr igid and inflexible idea of justice. His sense of being defeated and forsaken is completed by Mrs. Compson's saying,
"lt's her car aren't you proud of your little sis防 御 前firstauω
in town Herbert his present.円 (p.87) Al 1
he can do is to repeat like a curse,
Quentin has shot Herbert
, "
which actually he can never do. Here it must be noticed that Quentin half‑consciously attributes the defeat of justice to the iinancial fall of the family,
and the fall to timeA Study on Time' in the Second Section of The Sound and the Furツ 57 itself. In the incident with Dalton Ames can be seen more clear1y his basic tendency to attribute all the disasters to time Itse1f.
Dalton Ames is speaking of the severe truth when he says to Quentin
,
listen no good taking it so hard its not your fault kid it would have been some other fel1ow." (p. 145) Caddy's 10ss of vir司ginity is unquestionably a matter of the natural course of h町 、life, and五gurative1y speaking
,
Dalton Ames is an agent of time itself. That a girl shall have a Dalton Ames some time is a thing that cannot but be accepted. Caddy understands and accepts it obediently, saying,
yes 1 hate him 1 would die for him Ive already died for him 1 die for him over and over again every time this goes.円 (p.137) She speaks of a sense of impotence and fear,
as follows:71wre was sorrwthing terrible in rrw sometimes at night 1 could see it grinning at me 1 could see it through them grinning at rrw through their faces iγs gone now. .. (p. 104)
But what dies, what is 'grinned at' is her virginity, not her human同 ity. To save her humanity she discards a myth of virginity which is after all a condition of humanity at a certain period, and accepts change of humanity.
But Qunetin wou1d not accept this severe truth. He asks his sister
,
Caddy you hate him dont you dont you, "
(p. 137) or do you 10ve him now." (p. 143) The fact that he 100ks at her change,
that is,
the 10ss of her virginity on the level of hate and love shows his at‑ titude in which he tries to redeem man's sense of impotence about inevitable changes taking place in him regardless to his will or feeling, by considering the changes to be results of man's free choice.
58 A Study on Time' in the Second Section of The Sound ωul the Fury On the other hand
,
Caddy,
who knows very well that the will,
or the fee1ing or anything of man does not matter at all,
answers to her brother's questions,
I dont know." (p. 143) Indeed,
when the way how man feels about change and time does not matter at all,
no one would say that he hates or loves time. But Quentin cannot bear such impotence of man. Here he feels alienated from Caddy,
who dares to bear it."¥Vhy does Caddy's 10ss of virginity appear to him to be a dead end that forces him to ki1l her and himself? Because he loves Caddy not as a whole humanity
,
but as a symbol of virginity,
which is only a temporal phase or condition of her humanity,
and therefore to him Caddy's 10ss of virginity equals the 10ss of Caddy herself. Thus he tries to kill Caddy and himself,
which he cannot do,
and then tries to kill Dalton Ames,
which he can do neither. He fee1s defeated,
cursing the smell of honeysuck1e,
which is the symbo1 of sexua1 awakening that time has brought to his sister and him as they grow.The defeats and depressions thus repeated are not enough to drive him to commit suicide
,
for there may be always a way to deal reconci1e and coexist with,
any despair. Such a way Quentin invents at this stage is the i1lusion of incest:1f it could just be a hell be
: y
ond that (i. e. the runnm凶立ロI凶1吋i昭n1沼g water of a s抑t甘re伺am吋J :
t恥h恥eclたee仰aηThen
: y
ou τ助v的なJiZμZhねZαω仰ψ抑eo仰nlか : : y
me t幼he,仰η7l Oωnか
Jか ' : y
mc t佐henthe two ザQfuωsa仰m仰1勾ifぜd d the 1ρうω~nt“ingωandt幼hehor庁roωrbe: y
ond the clean flame. (p. 108),
Beyond that ' virtually means beyond time,' so it is easily understood that the incest imp1ies his victory over time in an eterna1 hell. 'C1ean flame ' speaks most e10quently of his antinomic image of what can beA Study on Time' in the Second Section of The Sound and the Fury 59 called a 'blessed hell' or damned paradise,' the only place where he would be able to obtain peace of mind
,
if it is unlikely to last long.Quentin wants to reach a place where there Is no room for Her‑
bert's impudence
,
the Compsons' humiliation,
or a man with whom Caddy loses her virginity,
or oppressive smell of honeysuckle: he wants a refuge from time for Caddy and himself. For all of these awful changes of things are,
he thinks,
caused by time. But his image of a utopia with Caddy is pathetically distorted by the memory of his repeated crushing defeats. In the image of incest are reflected the undeniable sexual awakening of his own and the bare fact that Caddy is a virgin no more. In his imaginary utopia there is no time in the sense that the place is damned forever; and there is no other person but Caddy and he simply because it is the heIl so horrible that no one would dare to get near it.Quentin's unyielding idealism and actual complete defeats would be reconciled in an abnormal form of incest. Apart from the question whether he
,
who is very strict in morality,
can su妊erthe sense of sin after having actually committed incest,
here it must be noted that his i1lusion of incest is a hope for him to live with,
anyway.Quentin has a romantic concept of time in that he believes in the singleness and unchangeableness of meaning of each moment. He holds the memory of a set of moments
,
each given by him a certain de1Inite meaning,
for example,
the moment when Caddy was a virgin (the durative period during which she was a virgin equals one moment in the singleness of its meaning to Quentin),
the moment when she 10st her virginity,
the moment his sense of justice was de‑令feated
,
etc. It is possible for him to regard the incest as an in五nite60 A Study on ζTime' in the Second Section of The Sound and the Fury damnation only because he believes in the infInite meaning of the moment of incest.
His memory is of an assemblage of moments
,
not of an order of moments.I f
he had arranged the moments in a chronological order leading up to the present,
he could have obtained correct notions ofchange
,
duration and the present,
namely of time itself,
and the past would have been properly disposed of as it should be. But the as‑ semblage of moments stored in him lacks the perspective of time : any moment does not fade away into the background of the past to weaken its meaning according as it loses immediate importance to the present. And changes,
which are inevitable from the nature of time,
come and remain in his timeless worlds without a proper per‑ spective of time to be eternalized and to produce the conflict and the chaos,
as it were,
on the same stage of his mind. This is the essence of Quentin's chaos of the present and the past.Mr. Compson's antiromantic concept of time is sharply in opposition to Quentin's romantic conc巴pt. 1t can be generalized in short that Mr. Compson's timeless world is attained by forgetting everything
,
whereas that of Quentin is attained by remembering everything.Mr. Compson refutes the romantic ideas of his son one by one. He criticizes Quentin's romantic idea of virginity
,
as follows:He (i. e. Mr. Compson] said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which the others are left and 1 said
,
But to believe it doesn't matter and he said,
That's what's so sad about anything. (p. 75) Re speaks against Quentin's last and paradoxical hope,
that is,
thei 1 l
usion of eternal hell of incest,
as follows:A Study on Time' in the Second Section of The S.仰ndand the Fur二y 61
I f
we (i. e. Quentin and CaddyJ
could have just done some‑thing so dreadful and Father said That's sad too
,
people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today and 1 said,
Y ou can shirk all things and he said,
Ah can you. (p. 76)And briefly he says
,
tragedy Is second‑hand.円 (p.107)Mr. Compson is fully aware of the nature of time. But the bitterest irony is that in his case complete awareness of one aspect of the nature of time is equal to complete ignorance of the other aspect.
Time
,
as Mr. Compson understands it,
passes away every second leaving no trace behind. Figuratively speaking,
he is in the n邑xt morning of despair,
whereas Quentin,
unable to look on the sunset,
waits rather perversively for the night of despair. Time passes,
paying no attention to man's hop巴orjoy,
or even to his suffering or despair. Then what is the use of cherishing hope,
crying for joy,
suffering pain,
or enduring despair,
when all of these things are just temporal? All of these are childish and sentimental things to do. He does shirk all things.'The philosophy of transi巴ncyof the world is wholesome and even useful
,
but only when it is orient巴d to the past. When he applies this philosophy to the present and the future,
he misses the other aspect of time. When the present and the future are seen from this philosophy that time passes,
they are not the present or the future any more,
but a part of the past: they finish before they begin. When one is thoroughly aware of the transiency of the world,
how can one think about something seriously or feel something passionately at this very moment? And when the very present do巴snot exist,
62 A Study on Time' in the Second Section of The Sound and the Fury how can one make a plan and anticipate its realization
,
waiting for the moment when the future becomes the present? Thus Mr. Comp‑son loses both of the present and the future. What is ahead of him is not the future but the eternity of time passing forever for its own sake.
l'.1r. Compson concludes that a human being possesses only his past
,
and that his past alone de五neshis existence. But since the past con‑ sists of what once was the present and a human being is deprived of the very present,
the p且st which he thinks he possesses is actually not his own past,
but the past of time itseH,
which passes forever for its own sake. The past experiences are not those of証human being
,
but those of time its邑lf,
which is perceived by a human being to pass within the human society,
that is,
the climate. What really defines a human being is the past having such kind of ex‑ penences.The two following quotations speak of this logic of Mr. Compson's thinking about time:
Man the sum of his climatic experiences Father said. Man the sum of what have you. A problem in impure properties carried tediously to an unvarying nil: stalemate of dust and desire. (p. 114)
all men are just accumulations dolls stu妊ed with sawdust swept up from the trash heaps where all previous dolls had been thrown away the sawdust flowing from what wound in what side . .. (p. 159)
There is an adage that time heals all troubles. In the case of Mr.
Compson time heals his trouble so well that he is finally incapable of
AStudy on Time' in the Second S巴ctionof The Sound and the Fuη 6 3 any trouble. His conclusion makes even despair impossible and asserts that if despair is possible in any way
,
it is paradoxically only theimpossiblity of any despair. This conclusion is so dreadful to accept that no one hasanything to do but wait for one's natural death
,
drinking everyday.Quentin says to his father
,
suppose realize what you be1ieve will realize up there next weekor next month.円 (p.161) He does not realize his father's be1ief in the end,
and commits suicide,
be‑ cause his romanticism r巴fuses the thorough antiromanticism of his father. Quentin's timeless wor 1
d and that of Mr. Compson are seem‑ingly very similar to each other. But the two are strikingly different in that Quentin believ巴sin the meaning of乱 moment
,
whereas Mr.Compson rejects the be!ief as falsity
,
or,
in other words,
that the for‑ mer hopes a moment should last forever,
wher邑as thεlatter knows very we, 1 l
perhaps from his own experiences,
that such hope is vain and foolish.The 'reducto absurdum of all human experience' (p. 73) that Mr.
Compson teaches Quentin is a philosophy that the belief in any passion
,
which is just temporal and wi1l be passionno more a moment later,
is a falsehood based on a romantic impulse to eterna1ize the passion in a moment. He gives a watch to Quentin so that he may dismiss his false romantic concept of time,
saying:1 give it to you not that you may remember time
,
but that you might forget it now and then for且 momentand not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle lSεver won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and ,despair,
and victory Is64 A Study on Time' in the Second Section of The Sozmd a河dthe F.抑ツ an
i 1 1
usion of philosophers and fools. (p. 73)Mr. Compson has learned the 'reducto absurdum of all human ex‑ perience' by observing the mercilessly unceasing movement of hands on a watch: he has attained the timeless world by becoming aware of the absolute and perpetual flux of time.
Qu巴ntincannot attain the timeless world like that of his father
,
where the despair and the hel 1
he believes in are regarded as nothing but a temporal and falsei 1 1
usion,
and are devoured into the flux of time,
as if they were only a foam of no significance to any human being. He breaks the watch as an attempt to attain the timeless world as of Mr. Compson and at the same time as an experiment to see if in such a timeless world his despair wi 1 l
real 1
y turn out to be,
as his father thinks,
a mere sentimentali 1 1
usion which he himself cannot remember even just a moment later.Then appears his shadow. The shadow symbo
1 i
zes the entity of human existence,
which is supposed by恥1r.Compson to be delusive,
revealing itself within the time of the sun. Quentin tries to laugh at his shadow after the manner of his father. But he is laughed back and scared by it,
because at the bottom of his heart he believes in the entity of human existence. Therefore when he says,
how 1 had tricked it" (p. 87) or trampling my shadow's bones into the concrete with hard heels円 (p.90),
if he smiles at all,
th巴 smi 1
e may not be triumphant like his father's,
but feeble and incredulous,
like that of a man who succeeded in something unexpectedly by means he did not believe in at all.In various aspects is seen Quentin's conflict between the romantic and antiromantic concepts of time
,
or between the ideas of the entityA Study on 'Time' in the Second Section of The Souud and the Fury 65 and the delusiveness of human existence.
and
,
a gu
l 1
motionless in mid‑air,
like on an invisible wire between the masts,
(p. 84)and then 1 saw a shadow hanging like a fat arrow stemming into the current. ... The arrow increased without motion
,
then in a quick swirl the trout lipped a :fly beneath the sur‑ face with that sort of gigantic delicacy of an elephant pick回ing up a peanut. (p. 108)
The images of a gull and a trout symbo
1 i
ze such sort of eternity that Quentin dreams of. A:fly lipped by the trout re:flects his dream of incest as the means of attaining the eternal world,
even if it should be a damned hell. Here he hopes that his despair wi 1 1
remain as what it is now in the eternity.His image of his suicide is deeply colored by his father's teaching about the delusiveness of human existence. "When He said Rise only the :flat irons.円 (p.104) Quentin thinks after his father that it is not the body of a drowned man that comes up to speak of the despair and the truth of his suicide on the day of the Last
J
udg‑ ment,
and that neither of agony nor despair of a drowned man matters. But still he fee 1
s that the despair and the truth of his suicide must be spoken of by something that happens to witness the foolish despair of a foolish man,
something inhumane like 'the :flat irons,' for example.Quentin's con:flct is given the most concise and dramatic expression in the
1 i
ne,
Non fui. Sum. Fui. Non sum.円 (p.157) This line66 A Study on 'Time' in the Second Section of The SOUl6d and the Fuヴ
may be interpreted in several ways. Here is one possible paraphrase of the line: Father told me that a human being was defined by his past, even which did not belong to him in reality.
I f
so, 1 didn;t exist from the beginning (Nω fui). But my despair is real. Nobody can deny it (Sum). Can't 1 remeber even tomorrow this real despair of mine? Has this despair a1 r
eady五nishednow? Is this already a part of the past? (Fui) Alas,
I'm real1y going to kill myself. 1 tell you,
Father
,
1 am really going to do that! (Non sum)円 Ofcourse this is merely one possible interpretation of the line. What this line actual1y presents is a mass of meaning‑his conflict itself‑beyond any rational understanding, in which each meaning of four sentences reflects an. other endlessly like four mirrors placed facing each other.Quentin's conflict is final1y solved、by committing suicide. The solution here does not imply mild reconciliation through compromise.
For it is the solution attained by choosingfinal1y one of the two con. flicting elements
,
that is,
the romantic concept of time and the beHef in the entity of human existence. His suicide is not a suicide for escaping from despair: it is a suidde for accomplishing despair, for expressing his strong belief in the entity of human existence,
literally,
at the risk of his
1 i
fe. In this nature his suicide is more positive than it seems to be, and would be duly called martyrdom.' This point is clear in the pathetic retort which Quentin repeats four times in the last three pages of this section: temporary.円The section is closed with the description of his wiping off the blood stain on his vest and tie
,
brushing his hair and teeth,
dressingup neatly
,
and looking for a brush for his hat. These trivial doings indicate by themselves merely his neat habits. But by the end of theA Study 011 Time' in the Secol1cl Section of The Souud and the Fury 67 section it has been known that these neat habits are the very begin‑ ning of his sense of honor and justice
,
which makes him follow the complicated course ending with his suicide. In this dazz1 i
ngly long perspective the cause meets its inevitable effect,
as a huge serpent make河島ringby biting at its tail.The tragedy of Quentin (and of Mr. Compson) begins with his defeat. How far this intellectual mind has come from his defeat
,
which is but one remove from the sorrow of Benjy,
and from refuge unfai1ing in which conflict tempered silenced reconciled.'! (p. 154) Here 1 come to understand that the first and the second sectIons make拍 other
,
far bigger ring of a serpent. But I must wait to look into the depths of the meaning of Benjy unti 1
the五nalsection.(1) Remarks in Japan, 1955" in Twentieth
α
ntury Intetアretations0/ the Sound and the Fury, ecl. by Michael H. Cowan (Englewoocl Cli妊s,N. 1.: Prenti白 幽Hall,Inc., 1968), p. 15.(2) My cliscussion uses the pagenatiol1 of the P巴nguineditiol1 of The S