Superstition vs . Knowledge

The idea that the traditional southern intelligent white man and the uneducated black man have been reversed within the Sound and the Fury has lead to some thoughtful conversation in our English Class. Generally we all agreed that the black servants demonstrate superior insight to the white people’s understanding of the events in the novel. While reading the novel, I agreed with this hypothesis. My viewpoint altered after reading Charles D. Peavy’s article, Faulkner’s Use of Folklore in The Sound and the Fury. The article suggests that rather than the Black servants possessing higher intellect than the white Compson family, they rely on Negro folk beliefs and superstition. What causes addition confusion is that Faulkner was also aware of Black superstition; therefore, within the Sound and the Fury, superstitious signs are foreshadowing of the future for the characters. Superstition is equal to knowledge in many respects in the Sound and the Fury.

What fascinated me was that Peavy uses some of the exact passages to support the black servant’s reliance on superstition that our class used to support the blacks superior intellect to the whites. The black servants’ ideas may appear to originate from education, but they in fact are rooted in superstition. First the black servants see the “signs” of imminent death. The blacks notice two superstitious signs of death: the screeching owl (a black death omen) and a howling dog (black sign that someone is about to die). The two superstitious signs do precede the death of Mr. Compson, but that is due to Faulkner’s knowledge of Negro folktales, no scientific reasoning. Even though the novel reflects a reversal of black and white within the South, the blacks are still reliant on superstition for their reasoning.

Another example of Black superstition is Roskus’s belief that Benjy is like the dog in his ability to sense death. Benjy “knows lot more than folks think...He knowed they time was coming, like that pointer done. He could tell you when hisn coming, if he could talk. Or yours. Or mine” (31-32). Roskus is indeed observant that people often neglect to see that Benjy has some capacity to learn and understand, but once again the idea takes basis from Black superstition. Roskus parallels Benjy and Dan, the dog, to rationalize this belief of Benjy’s amazing “smelling” abilities. Both the dog and Benjy have inferior knowledge and do not use the typical human senses.

Lastly, a superstition regarding names is apparent in Roskus’s negative reaction to the changing of Benjy’s name. When Roskus learns that the original name Maury is changed to Benjamin, he complains that “they ain’t no luck on this place…I seen it at first but when they changed his name I knowed it” (29). An old Black superstition is that to change the name of a person will cause his death. While this superstition does not lead to the death of Benjy directly, it can be seen as the foreshadowing of the downfall of the Compson family as a whole.

Interestingly, the story is full of superstition; and therefore superstition has merit and equality to knowledge. Within the novel, it is crucial not to overlook superstitious signs because they very often are accurate. The black servants display their upward movement in society by not only practice of their historical superstitions, but also their superiority in better perception and prediction of the fall of the Compson family than the Compsons themselves.

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Works Cited

The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 79, No. 313 (Jul. - Sep., 1966), pp. 437-447
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of American Folklore Society

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Vintage, 1991.