Professor Wai Chee Dimock closes her reading of The Sound and the Fury by reading section four – the section related by an omniscient narrator – through Luster and Dilsey, the two black characters whose personal and racial histories are woven into the history of the Compson family. Luster and Dilsey’s centrality to the final section of the novel, particularly their interactions with the Reverent Shegog on Easter Sunday, transform The Sound and the Fury into a story of redemption; they reconstitute a sense of community whose loss is mourned in Jason’s section. Professor Dimock concludes by reading the final scene of section four – Jason’s taking over of the horse Queenie from Luster’s control – as Jason’s brief and heroic redemption, the only respite that Faulkner grants Jason in the course of the novel.

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://oyc.yale.edu

This course was recorded in Fall 2011.