The Sound and the Fury

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

PART 1

Reading Check

1. What is Benjy’s legal first name?

2. In what year do the story’s present-time events take place?

3. Who is the family employee charged with Benjy’s care in the present-time narrative?

4. How old is Benjy in the present-time narrative?

5. After whom did Caddy name her daughter?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Faulkner structure Benjy’s narrative to reflect his relationship with time?

2. What do the golfers say that agitates Benjy, and why does he have this reaction?

3. What was Benjy’s mother’s original plan for his long-term care after her death, and why will this plan no longer work?

4. What is ironic about the change in Benjy’s name, considering what is implied by the incident with the letter to Mrs. Patterson?

5. What incident leads to Benjy’s castration?

Paired Resource

“What is an Unreliable Narrator?“

• This 6-minute video from Oregon State University defines and explains the literary concept of the unreliable narrator.
• This resource relates to the themes of Pride Before the Fall, Women’s Sexuality and Sexual Transgression, and Identity, Legacy, and Destiny.