Regardless of how much Dilsey has done for the Compson children, when it comes down to how they truly see her it is obvious racial boundaries supersede over the friendships and relationships. She is reduced to in the words of Quentin and Jason as “a damned old nigger”. I’m not an old woman, nor an old half dead nigger, either. ‘Hit me, den,’ she says, ‘ef nothing else but hittin somebody Up the grub the young ones cant tote off. But that’s all right: we need somebody in the kitchen to eat Then the belt came out and I jerked loose and flung herĪway. Dilsey attempts to intervene between the two. In Jason’s section of the book Jason is rough handling his niece Quentin. We can see this lack of appreciation and disrespect by the way Jason treats her and speaks about her. Her labor is taken for granted at best, and denigrated at worst. Her opinions are deemed as useless and ignored. Dilsey’s work goes unnoticed, but she is by far the most patient character Faulkner created in the novel. Compson by taking care and raising Benjy, as well as, the other Compson children, she is the least appreciated of the characters. Although she does more work than the Mrs. She is basically treated as a slave at the Compson’s. She also intervenes on behalf of Caddy and Quentin, Caddy’s daughter, with the intention of protecting them. She is savior because despite all the pain the Compson’s put her through and responsibility they give to her she still goes to church with the thought that the family can one day be saved. She is used and viewed as a savior and a slave. She continues to prove to be more of a mother than the Compson children’s mother. Faulkner uses Dilsey as a key component to merge the division of the two races.ĭilsey is the center of sanity and moral constancy. The word “nigger” is used repetitively throughout the entire novel, and is used in a way that belittles African Americans. It is apparent in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha that blacks are treated as sub-human by whites. He emphasizes black characters as a lower social class compared to their white counterparts. The way Faulkner illustrates the black characters is derogatory and the black dialect he uses is an exaggerated form, making them seem ignorant. Faulkner gives the fourth section to Dilsey in an attempt to make an argument for racial equality and in doing so, for the first time, allows the other characters fail to recognize. While this is a major milestone in modern literature, Faulkner refuses to allow Dilsey to voice her own thoughts and beliefs. The final section of the novel is the first time Faulkner utilizes a black character as the main focus. Her role is to oversee their family and be the ultimately be the caretaker of the Compson children.
In William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury”, the first three sections on the novel focus on three different days, while the fourth section focuses on Dilsey, the Compson family’s black servant.
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