Adapting the Theory of Relativity to the Temporal-Spatial Narrative Elements of William Faulkner's Novel The Sound and the Fury

Abstract

With the advent of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, the concept of time, which had been regarded as one of the unquestionable measuring standards up until the 20th century, lost its certainty and came to be seen as a relative concept. This kind of perspective on time also made it into literature and had an impact on the narrative techniques used by 20th-century novelists. Modern novelists, in contrast to classical style writers who narrated events from a distance and based their stories on cause-and-effect relationships and order and sequence for the "fluid flow of the mind," disrupted the linear time course of their stories and adopted their own story-telling technique. The Sound and the Fury, written by William Faulkner in 1929, is one of the most popular examples of this genre. In it, the author challenges both the linearity of time and the principles of relativity in various ways. Investigating the impact of Einsteinian physics on early 20th-century narrative novel writing traditions in general and the novel of fury and uproar in particular is the focus of the current research. Analytical-descriptive and comparative research methodology is used.