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Quentin’s Watch
Throughout the book Faulkner brings up images of shadows – particularly in Benjy’s and Quentin’s chapters – as when Quentin looks down from the bridge and watches the shadows in the water, imagining drowning himself. The emphasis on the shadows of objects as well as the objects themselves becomes a symbol of the darker side or past side of every situation and character, such as the declining Compson family, which is only a shadow of its former self. Shadows also mark the passage of time, as they shift with the sun throughout the day, so they also point to the theme of time and memory.
Shadows Quotes in The Sound and the Fury
The The Sound and the Fury quotes below all refer to the symbol of Shadows. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
June Second, 1910
Quotes
When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire… I give it to you not that may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Shadows Symbol Timeline in The Sound and the Fury
The timeline below shows where the symbol Shadows appears in The Sound and the Fury. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
June Second, 1910
...by Quentin, Benjy’s brother. Quentin wakes up in his dorm room at Harvard, sees a shadow on the wall, and hears his watch ticking. The watch belonged to his grandfather, and...
(full context)
...an envelope, and then seals it and addresses it to his father. He watches a shadow move across the door and thinks about the night of Caddy’s wedding, when Benjy and...
(full context)
...at the water. He thinks about the fifty-foot drop from the bridge, and watches his shadow in the water. He thinks of an old saying that “a drowned man’s shadow was...
(full context)
Quentin walks onto a bridge again, looking into the water and thinking about drowning, shadows, and the Christian resurrection of the dead. Then three boys appear with fishing rods, and...
(full context)
...she scolds him as they drive. Quentin thinks again about virginity, and he watches the shadow of the car move along a wall. Mrs. Bland boasts about her family and Gerald,...
(full context)
