Macbeth's soliloquy and Faulkner

My original focus was to look at modern allusions to Shakespeare's work in modern literature. However I've been finding a lot about Shakespeare's influence on William Faulkner's works. I still want to look at the poet, Billy Collins, and the playwright Tom Stoppard. For now, however, I'll be studying William Faulkner's works. This is my third post about Faulkner. (The first: praise for Faulkner, the second: power and fate in their works and the third: biographical similarities) This post is going to look directly at how Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury is littered with imagery and metaphor from a famous soliloquy from Shakespeare's Macbeth.

As I have been researching a bit Will's The Sound and The Fury and Will's plays, I have been directed to look at Macbeth's soliloquy when her learns of his wife's death. In Act 5 Scene 5 Lady Macbeth dies, and it appears that Macbeth with soon follow, but not without a fight. His famous soliloquy:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth begins by describing time as something that "creeps in this petty pace". Pace is an incremental measurement of time, such as the ticking of a clock or the tolling of a bell. Both of these are important images in The Sound and The Fury. Benji, a disabled boy, does not understand the passage of time, and makes links between the past, present and future that are difficult for the others to understand. Quentin however, is obsessed with time. He cannot get over the past, and tries to break his watch so as to forget about time. However, the watch continues to tick without its hands, and Quentin finds his only escape from time by committing suicide.

Macbeth says "the way to dusty death", an allusion to Genesis 3:19 "from dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return". Most of the sections of The Sound and The Fury, I believe 3 of the 4, take place around Easter weekend. This is another image of the cycle of life, as Easter weekend is for Christians to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ. This imagery of the cycle of life is evident in both works, and death is an important part of each.

I plan on returning to this soliloquy and squeezing a little more juice out of it.