
Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Part IV
Wai Chee Dimock, professor of English and American Studies at Yale, closes her two-lecture reading of Faulkner's novel by working through its fourth section, narrated by an omniscient voice centered on Dilsey and Luster. She traces how these two characters, and their Easter Sunday visit to hear Reverend Shegog preach, turn the novel toward a kind of redemption after the despair of Jason's section, reconstituting the sense of community the Compson family has lost. The lecture closes by examining the final scene, where Jason wrests the horse Queenie away from Luster's control, reading it as the one moment of grudging heroism Faulkner allows Jason. Chapters along the way cover the novel's appendix, the treatment of Caddy, and Dilsey's distinctive relationship to time. Part of Yale's Open Courses series on Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, recorded in fall 2011.