Life is like a fool's dream, full of noise and turmoil, but meaningless. - Shakespeare, Macbeth
Macbeth, the protagonist of One of Shakespeare's Four Tragedies, Macbeth, once said at the end of his life: "Life is like a fool's dream, full of noise and turmoil, but meaningless." This inspired William Faulkner, who was in a state of pain and confusion, to write this classic long stream-of-consciousness novel, The Hustle and the Commotion. In this novel, the consciousness of each character is intricately surging and placing the reader in the depths of their hearts, and the scenes of that scene are constantly flashing, and those unbearable and shameful really remain in this once incomparably glorious family, which destroys everyone's spiritual world and tortures everyone's soul.
The Compson family is a famous jefferson town, whose ancestors served as governors and generals, but with the increasing decline and backwardness of the American South, it also took away the sweetness and happiness of the family. Compson Sr. was a lawyer, but he never seemed to have done a serious case, but every day he was drunk and drunk, and then fell asleep on the bed, and he was an extreme tragicist. His wife Caroline, who had once been a lady of the southern nobility, was extremely well educated, with the demeanor of a lady, and she looked at the decadence of the old Compson and the increasing decay of the family, and felt pain, she was not a little ill, but she lay lazily in bed all day and sighed, they had three children and a daughter after marriage, but the family was not happy.
The youngest son, Bangui, is a low-energy child with an IQ of only three years old, and he has been disliked by his mother and third brother Jason since he was a child, only his sister Katie (Little Ka) and the black maid Dirsie give him warm care. Since he was young, he has been waiting at the courtyard door every afternoon for his sister to come home from school. He couldn't speak, and all day long he would just hum like an old dog, either crying or drooling, which was so nerve-wracking that even Bangui's mother thought that Bangui was the product of sin.
Katie, the only daughter of the Compson family, had long since fed up with aristocratic stereotypes and hypocritical decorum, and she had to take care of her young brother Bangui while using her grace to uphold the family's honor, and too many responsibilities made her breathless, and she wanted to break free of these shackles. She became wanton and constantly associated with men, and she ignored everything so much that she became pregnant before marriage. Fearing criticism, her mother flees to a resort town in Indiana, only to meet Herbert, who fell in love with Katie at first sight.
Quentin is the eldest son of the family, admitted to Harvard University, talented he loves his family, eager to surpass his drunken father, he has a sense of responsibility for the eldest son, full of ambition but lack of courage, his attempts have failed, mentally and physically are very weak, he stubbornly guards the Compson family manor. He loved his sister Katie the most, and this feeling even went beyond the love of brothers and sisters, in his eyes Katie was so pure and immaculate, he regarded Katie's virginity as the last straw to defend the family.
Without an impermeable wall, Katie's pregnancy was soon revealed, and the elder Compson was furious, scolding Katie for her debauchery, but Katie could do nothing but ask her father's forgiveness. His brother Quentin is devastated that his sister has lost what he values most, but in order to defend his sister, he lies to his father that he can't control his lust and has a relationship with Katie. However, this lie was soon debunked by the father without mercy. Quentin nearly collapsed, he ignored Katie's request, and challenged Katie's lover, Darden, and the two stood on the top of no man's land and fought for Katie, Darton eventually failed, and he fell in front of Katie forever with blood all over his body.
Everything I have done has become a shadow, and everything I perceive and endure has become comical and mocking, and without any intrinsic connection negating its supposed importance. I was thinking I was I am not who I am not who is not who is not who I am not.
For the sake of family dignity, the elder Compson quickly married Katie to Herbert, who was the size of the door, and Quentin knew that this was tantamount to pushing his sister into the fire pit, and he tried to stop it, but his father was unmoved. Katie had no choice but to compromise, and she put on her wedding dress and walked over to the man she didn't love at all. However, Katie's pregnancy was eventually discovered by her new husband, who scolded Katie as a faceless slut and abandoned her mercilessly. Desperate, Cady gave birth to her daughter and gave her up to the kind Dilsey and named quentin, and she left Compson Manor and disappeared.
Katie's departure once again dealt a heavy blow to the fragile Quentin, who looked at the shattered family and felt extremely desperate, and he came to the river in a trance, plunged into the turbulent water, and ended his miserable life. Katie's departure from home and Quentin's death were undoubtedly worse for the already precarious Compson family, the old Compson died with it, Mrs. Compson was terminally ill, and the cruel third son Jason became the head of the family, he hated his own Katie, believing that all the misfortunes of the Compson family were caused by his sister's irresponsibility, he transferred his anger to his little niece Quentin Jr., often abusing her and his brother Bangui. One day, he stumbled upon Katie on the street, sneering at her and not even letting Katie see his daughter.
On Prayer Day, Quentin, who had been mutilated for many years, quietly stole Jason's money while Jason was leaving, and eloped with her beloved theatrical actor, her heart was excited, and she kept running wildly, as if chasing the freedom she had longed for. Jason soon finds his money lost, and an angry Jason looks everywhere, pushing away the Christians who wish him well, like a roaring lion, looking around with his bloody mouth, and will he finally find quentin jr.?
When I read the book, to be honest, I was a bit confused, like playing a VR game, the novel used a multi-angle narrative, constantly switching, Faulkner let the three brothers, Bangui, Quentin and Jason each tell their own story, and then used the "God perspective", with Dilsy as the main line, to tell the rest of the story. And there are many articles that have not yet punctuated, I have the patience to read it, put all the content in mind to roughly integrate, and then comb around the role, and gradually have a sense of integration. When I read it a second time, I put the first chapter in the back to read, and I suddenly felt enlightened and like a paradise.
The biggest insight of this novel for me is the impact of family education and social environment on a person, the old Compson is an extreme pessimist, he has a premonition that the people of the American South are suffering and torturing, he understands that this southern society that was once full of manorial tranquility will eventually decline, but he never thinks about how to make changes, but immerses himself in the pain of nostalgia, drinking all day long, often cursing and grinning. And Mrs. Compson, not a virtuous wife and a qualified mother, watched her husband's decadence, did not exhort her husband to cheer up, did not comfort her children, but constantly lamented how tragic her fate was, and ignored everything. How can such parents set a good example for their children?
On the other hand, Dilsie, the lowest-ranking black servant in the family, served his master wholeheartedly, caring for Banji from beginning to end, taking care of his food and drinking, and buying cakes from his own pocket on Bangui's birthday to celebrate Bangui's birthday, she called Bangui "the Lord's child" and thought that "the merciful God does not care whether his followers are clever or stupid." She is not afraid of Jason's fierceness and cruelty, dares to stand up and accuse Jason of his evil deeds, has always remembered the promise to take good care of little Quentin, and resolutely chooses to stay at Compson Manor for the sake of maintaining Little Quentin. Dilsey was not only a loyal black maid, but also a man of integrity, kindness, and conviction for faith and moral principles.
The four children of the Compson family, all deeply influenced by their parents, their pessimism gradually seeped into the children's souls, making them extreme and distorted. Katie was a pure, friendly child when she was a child, because of the lack of love, coupled with the spiritual constraints of the family, she entered the adolescent yearning for liberation, the pursuit of love and happiness, and embarked on the road of depravity. Quentin has also tried to do more meaningful and positive deeds, but he does not accept all the new things that come out, the shock of the new capitalism, which in his view are terrible plunder. Jason, on the other hand, is completely inherited from his mother, is a refined egoist, Jason's various behaviors are undoubtedly hateful, but it can also be understood, when he was a child, his brothers and sisters did not play with him, his father ignored him, and his mother only verbally said that he was the only one like her mother's Bascom family, and Jason's evil was not unrelated to his childhood loneliness, lack of due love and care, and unequal treatment.
Bangui is a person who has not been baptized morally and worldlylyly, and some people say that Bangui is "a moral mirror" that truly reflects the nature of those around him, or ugly, or beautiful. Although he is a fool, he still has his own feelings about the world, and he also has his way of participating, and he establishes a connection with the world around him through one of the most basic senses of man, the sense of smell. Bangui, like Macbeth, is a fool who speaks in dreams, and when all the goodness slowly passes, human beings can only obey God's will, and like Bangui, they make some whimpering and vague cries, but they can't do anything. I think Banji is the luckiest person in this unfortunate family, he is completely unaware of all the changes, in his eyes, everything is natural, only because the carriage took a different route and cry, changed back to his familiar path and returned to peace.
"His eyes returned to hollowness, blueness, and serenity, for the cornices and faces of the building once again swept smoothly from left to right, and the telephone poles and trees, the windows, the doorways, and the signboards were all in their places, in good order."
"Noise and Commotion" and Proust's "Remembrance of the Lost Years" and Joyce's "Ulysses" are called the three masterpieces of stream-of-consciousness fiction. The so-called stream of consciousness was proposed by the psychologist William James, who believed that human consciousness is not a fragmentary connection, but is in a state of eternal flow, so it is called "stream of consciousness". Modernism focuses on self-expression, that is, "shaping the typical character in a typical environment", while stream of consciousness emphasizes the flow of consciousness within the character. Just as we smell the scent of flowers when we go out one day, we will think that spring is coming, and this is what the stream of consciousness shows. Feeling, thinking and imagining about everything that happened in the past.
Lu Xun once said: "People's sorrows and joys are not the same", but Faulkner's psychological description of the characters can be described as wonderful, so that we can more or less feel the misfortune of the characters, Yu Hua once said, "There are many writers who have influenced me, but they have become my master, I think only William Faulkner, he let me know how to deal with psychological descriptions." "We can only look at the misfortune of others like Banji, and at this time, you may be confused and helpless, or you may still be remembering the past, fearing the future, standing at the fork in the road of life and being overwhelmed, then this book will bring you a different life experience."
This battlefield only shows man his own stupidity and disappointment, and victory is only a fantasy of philosophers and fools.