The Sound and The Fury is known for its dramatic interpretation of the decline of an aristocratic family in Mississippi. The novel is divided into four sections of narration, each section told by one of the three brothers and a section told by a narrator. Throughout the novel, though, we see the impact that the sole sister of the Compson family had and how she was a source of change and revolution for women of the time by going against traditional southern values and societal expectations set for women by men. In the novel, we see the viewpoints from two types women; Caddy, who wanted to escape the expectations that women were expected to follow and Caddy’s mom, the traditional southern woman that is picture perfect in the eyes of society at the time. Faulkner gave a voice for women in this novel and more specifically gave women a sense of power. The portrayal of women in this novel goes against what was happening during the time period in which the novel was written. The women in the novel, in particular Caddy, went against every single expectation of the role that a female was meant to have. She was portrayed as a strong figure during the time when her family was going through such a time of decay and their aristocratic values and the ways in which they were used to living were changing at a rapid pace. The women in this novel also displayed their pride in being women in a male-dominated country at the time and the rebellion of Caddy against being a stereotypical southern lady and her search for independence and freedom and how both women grasped their own fate with dignity going against the patriarchy. In Ceremony, we see the story of Tayo, a young man belonging to the Laguna tribe who was a soldier during World War II. His cousin was killed by the Japanese leaving Tayo mentally ill from his death. When Tayo returns back to the United States, he is put into a mental institute and drugged to the point of not being able to understand what was happening and leaving him with horrible nightmares and feeling like a total failure. Tayo blames himself for his cousin’s death. It takes Tayo undergoing an ancient ritual to find sanity. We see ideas of feminism carry through the entire novel beginning as early as Tayo’s infancy and see it being carried throughout the entire novel by having only females guide him through his journey.
Females in western societies have been subjected to oppression and exploitation from men for as long as history can date back too. There have been multiple waves of women trying to liberate themselves from the patriarch and rebel against men. Caddy is a good example of this in The Sound and the Fury because she sets a good example for women by being a pioneer to fight against the inequality between men and women. Caddy is both admired and hated amongst the men of the novel and her character was based on social factors set by men at the time. In the novel we see how Caddy was kind, passionate and courageous enough to fight against hate and to go against the expectations of how she should behave. In the male dominated society that the book was written in we saw the traditional southern woman like Mrs. Compson who was taught that her job was to take care of the house and raise children. Caddy didn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps and instead used men as her role models and tried to gain the rights that men had like what age she started school. We also saw this as she got older as she started to date multiple men as a public source of rebellion against her family. She said in the novel, “I will run away and never come back” (Faulkner, 18) as a declaration to fight against the social standards and expectations that she had to live with. After being harshly criticized, she ended up surviving in the male-dominated society that she lived in and the destruction of the Compson family therefore beoming a symbol of freedom for women.
Faulkner wrote about Caddy from the perspective of her three bothers and throughtout the novel we were able to see the relationships that she had with each of her brothers, especially Benjy. From a young age, we see Caddy being the only one to give Benjy love. Benjy viewed her as a maternal figure and even got jealous when Caddy began to live her adult life, especially when she began to date and wear more mature clothes and perfume which was different from what he was used too. He was afraid of the way that Caddy was growing up and no longer being that motherly figure that he knew from the time he was a little boy . He was too immature to learn that Caddy was becoming womanlier and yearning for independence and freedom. Quentin was the oldest brother and he had very strong emotions toward Caddy. He looked at Caddy’s chastity as honor to her family, which is also how it was viewed to society. He was so obsessed with the idea of Caddy being a virgin that he went as far as to protect her from pursuing romantic relationships. When Caddy lost her virginity, he dismissed the man who was said to be responsible for her. He cherished Caddy so much that once her innocence was “destroyed” he became crazy and helpless. He then hated Caddy and viewed her as someone only after the pursuit of sex. He said in the novel, “He must value about all not her but the virginity of which she was custodian and on which she placed no value whatever” (Faulkner 412). In the times that the novel was written a woman’s virginity was viewed as a valuable thing and especially since she belonged to such an aristocratic family which she belonged in that she was portrayed as a deviant based on the patriarchal value system that was of such importance at the time. Jason had a complicated relationship with Caddy filled with both contempt and resentment. He was another proponent of the expectations set by the male-dominated society that the Compson family belonged too. He became a worshiper of money and beloved that money was the only thing that mattered. He would rather betray his entire family if it was for money like he did with his sister’s marriage just to keep his job. When Caddy’s husband didn’t want to be with her, Jason lost his job and Caddy meant nothing to him. He then decided to make up indecent thoughts about Caddy’s daughter in order to take revenge against her. Caddy was not even allowed to see her daughter unless she gave him money and eventually Caddy’s daughter stole Jason’s money to threaten male authority. Overall, Caddy seemed to play a less important role than those of her three brothers and the brothers acted as a spokesman for the patriarchy because they wanted to control their sister as opposed to wanting to protect her. Caddy wanted to fight against the “shackles” that her brothers placed against her and Caddy displayed great courage by going against her brothers wishes and tried to achieve independence and freedom and one of the ways she did that was falling in love and losing her virginity. In a male-dominated society, she made good use of her feminist consciousness and rebelled against the inequality she and fought for freedom and independence that she felt that she deserved.
When the Sound and the Fury was written when women didn’t have a right to do or say much and had to conform to society’s expectations. In particular in the South, which was mainly rooted in traditional patriarchal expectations women were oppressed and exploited by a man’s power. The novel shows male’s attitudes and what they actually thought of women to give a new light into a man’s world at the time. It appears that women were the victims of a male-dominated society. Under the circumstances that women were in, Caddy can be considered proof that women did have a strong desire to be heard and to gain independence and freedom and have a voice in society. Caddy also had an unfortunate fate because she was born into such a aristocratic family and proabaly suffered a lot in the family and social pattern that she was born into and because of this she began to establish a feminist conscious and even survive and struggle in the male-dominated world that she was living in. What Caddy did was really courageous to the women of her time. Today, feminism develops at such a rapid pace that females will eventually be respected and treated equally by men. Female’s social position has changed in such a radical way for the better and Faulkner was ahead of his time and was a frontier that fellow authors can follow to portray females in a better light.
In Ceremony, we see beginning as early as Tayo being an infant that he has to learn by his instincts and perception and this was all due to his mother. Tayo’s mother was forced out of her Laguna tribe because Tayo was an illegitimate child because his father was Mexican. His mother only survives a few years in the slums. Tayo, then neglected, makes himself familiar with sounds, sights, and smells. Whether it is his mother’s perfume or the smell of beers from the men she brought him or certain foods. We see the Thought-Woman or Spider-Woman who have been considered to be representatives of mother earth. Grandmother Spider creates and heals by telling stories, more specifically, Tayo’s story. The creation poem introduces the re-birth of a young man and his land and tribe. The ongoing pattern of creation is attributed to female deities but not he normal “mother nature” figure or “child-bearing” figures. Spider-Woman is a representative of the creative school of thought which in turn results into physical manifestations such as mountains, lakes, and creatures. For Grandmother Spider, the ideas of thought and action are one combined thought. Ts’eh who is a lower demonstration of Spider-Woman is the one who finally brings some sort of healing for Tayo. Readers who have no prior ideas as to the meaning of Ts’eh may consider the relationship that she and Tayo have to be a sexual-romantic one, one that is expected of a contemporary novel that we would read in current day. From a feminist lens, one may see how Ts’eh as the stereotypical woman who to be heroic, offers her body. Ts’eh first has a relationship with Night-Swan, a Mexican dancer. She is a product of Spider-Woman but a lower level. She offers Tayo her body like Ts’eh does, but Night-Swan is a mythological figure and the encounter that Tayo has with her is more sexual because like Ts’eh, “she cared a great deal about him” (Silko 105) and she teaches him to intensely remember. Again, similar to Ts’eh, she seems to have connection with the rain and the earth, the blue sky, and the mountains. Night-Swan’s sensuality is stronger than the powers that she has in her heart and in her mind. Her knowledge is limited. When she was younger she looked like “the bull and at the same time the killer” (Silko 89). She can’t heal Tayo one last time. Ts’eh, is the symbol of the mind and body in balance. She finds herself being reawakened in Tayo’s body as he remembers his tribal stories. Tayo’s understanding of him as a man is not just a biological one, it is changed and influenced by his environment. The story that Tayo tells of himself and his friends and how they believe in male-dominated theories. It is pretty universally assumed that the primary influences on society were from the male perspective and women are supposed to be the submissive sex and that men always represent culture and women are supposed to follow all of the rules that men set in society. From the novel, we can see that Spider-Woman’s power will influence the perceptions of gender in the Laguna community. Even though this story is about a male and his journey through life, it is also a tale of two forces, a feminine life force of the Universe and witchery. By reading into the many symbols in the novel that are connected to womanhood, they all seem to connect back to the universal principals of creation. By using a feminist lens to analyze the novel it is the most important to look at it also as a way to see how important culture was to the Indian people. In the novel, Laura, Auntie, and Grandma represent the matriarchs of the clan. Tayo’s mother did not only abandon him but also his Aunt, especially because of her attitude towards him. Tayo’s grandmother seems to be one the strongest influence in Tayo’s life as well as when he is going through his recovery from his bad thoughts of the war and his cousin’s death. Tayo’s grandmother was very wise and been around a very long time and has been there for all of the changes that her tribe has been through. She represents what the tribe used to be by respecting the beliefs and practices that her ancestors have left for her. When Tayo has a dream about Josiah and wakes up in tears, he is shaking and doesn’t think he will make it through the night with how distraught he was. He tries to convince his Aunt that they need to take him to the hospital. When grandma hears about what was happening she goes and comforts Tayo and starts singing a lullaby to him. Instead of taking Tayo to the hospital they decided to call a medicine man. His aunt disapproves because she is afraid that the gossip will start again, and Auntie does not want to deal with that, but Grandma insists since she thinks that Tayo may be helped by going back to the way things were in the tribe and really doesn’t care if people will talk. In the days in which Ceremony was written Grandmothers were looked to as teachers and protectors as well as a guide. The grandmother does this by quieting the Aunt when she disagrees with calling the medicine men. The medicine man thinks that in order for Tayo to forget his memories and to perform a ceremony to make him better. The ceremony ultimately leads Tayo to Ts’eh, another feminine force that ultimately gives him a cure. Silko overall used plenty of symbols in the novel to draw a connection between women and the Native American culture. The diversity of women displays the importance of shaping Tayo’s life and the slow recovery from the witchcraft that overtook his identity, for “women are themselves the source of power” and “every evil which entangled him was cut to pieces” (Silko 258).
In conclusion, we can see how in both The Sound and the Fury and Ceremony feminist ideals were both shown in different ways. In The Sound and the Fury with Caddy who wanted to break free from the shackles of the male-dominated societal expectations that were in place at the time and all of the abilities that men had like to go to school and get the jobs they want etc. as opposed to women who started school at a later age and were limited when it came to what jobs they could get especially the fact that females were not really allowed to attain any jobs except being a caretaker or a mother. What Caddy did was very courageous for the time period in which the novel was written. She went against what society expected of her by dating multiple men for example, which for the time period was a disgrace on the family if the daughter did that because it made the family look bad and like they didn’t do their proper job of teaching their daughter certain values and how to act, especially since Mrs. Compson was a very traditional southern woman. In Ceremony, we don’t necessarily see the same female character development like we saw in The Sound and the Fury. In Ceremony, we see how female spirits in the universe have called upon Tayo. Silko teaches us about the females who have influenced his life. Laura, Tayo’s mother, who fell under the influence and was punished for doing something not right under the eyes of the male-dominated society in which she lived in. Tayo also experiences love from all of the female entities that he has met. It is also important to know how much Silko gave power to women in the novel which was against Native American culture and it was typical of the culture to use the ceremony’s and rituals of female gods to cure things and people against the evils that they were fighting against. As we see, in the two novels women were both a pretty important part of both novels even though they were represented in two different ways directly and indirectly.