‘모성’ 연구—『음향과 분노』의 컴슨 가족을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper aims to re-think ‘motherhood' as the ground to build up haman being's universal identity. In The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner shows the collapse of the traditional southern society through the Compson Family which falls to the tragedy caused by the absence of maternal love. A mother in the family is usually the creator of her children's world and exercises significant effects upon their attitude and interaction with the world. After all, a mother is a main prop of a family and society. But Mrs. Compson, the mother of the Compson Family, rejects her maternal role and withholds her love from her children. She is troubled with the discrepancy between her distorted image of the Southern lady and her reality and isolates herself from the outside world. Consequently, she damages her children's character and ruins their lives. Mrs. Compson's four children were spoiled and hurted by the desolation of their mother's motherhood: the idiot Benjy is sent to the mental hospital filled with despair caused by a lack of love, Quentin commits suicide who feels abandoned and refused by his mother and tries to impose the ideal of motherhood upon his sister Caddy, and Jason becomes selfish and inhumane, expeling the warmth of his home due to his mother's abnormal preference for him. Faulkner who always tried hard to get the answer about the question looking for the truth of literature and life constantly focused on researching the family. His affection of the family is connected to the interest in mothers and motherhood. Through The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner, eventually, tells the truth in human life, the importance of love, especially mother's love.