Golf

Sports are largely absent in Faulkner’s oeuvre, and it stands to reason that he did not have much interest in them, if any at all. However, the fact remains that he chooses to note that the first part of the Compson estate to be sold was turned into a golf course, much to the dismay of Quentin and Benjy. Faulkner (obviously) could have chosen to make the piece of Compson land into anything, an inn, another family’s estate, a pasture, or anything else, but his choice of a golf course is interesting and serves to suggest a deeper reading of the golf course in the context of the themes present in //The Sound and the Fury//, including encroaching modernity, longing for Caddie, and racial and class tension.

The development of Benjy’s pasture into a golf course serves to reinforce a theme that Faulkner plays upon in many of his works: the ever-creeping presence of modernity into the realm of the “Old South.” Modern golf, played with 18 holes, came into popularity in Great Britain and the United States right around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. In 1910 it is estimated that there were 267 golf clubs associated with the United States Golf Association (founded in New York City), and by 1932 there were over 1,100 (1). Particularly in the US, it became a leisure sport and playing golf became a symbol for wealth and power. This emergence of a game for a new leisure class shows the gradual disappearance of the Old Southern patriarchy. Families like the Compson’s, who flourished in the pre-Civil War era, were slowly decaying by the 20th century and the development of a leisure sport that became popular in the North showed the encroachment of modernity on lands that were previously used as a pasture in the old agricultural mode of living the South had utilized before the 1860’s. It also serves to put into juxtaposition the failing Jason Compson, who laments the scheming Northeastern business class who is constantly manipulating the hard-working Southern farmer. Jason must look at and engage in this golf course, a symbol now of the men he claims to loathe, as they play a game of leisure on land that was once his family’s.

The inclusion of a golf course as ultimate evolution of the pasture is also a way for Faulkner to insert hints as to the strong relationship between Benjy and Caddie Compson. In golf, the caddy is the “person who carries a player's bag and clubs, and gives insightful advice and moral support.” (2). This fact also illuminates the place of golf as a sport for the wealthy: there are designated servants to carry your equipment for you. Benjy hears this term “caddy” quite often while running alongside the fence that now marks off the border between the Compson property and the golf course, and his confusion results in some of his constant bleating. Luster knows that he is unable to distinguish between the name of his sister and the position held by a person at the golf course but does not seem to really care about this fact, in fact he at times pretends as if he doesn’t know why Benjy is carrying on. As is the golf course, the golf ball is a potent symbol in //TSAF//. In Benjy’s section Luster finds a stray golf ball and endeavors to sell it to pay for a ticket to the show in town. His attempted sales pitch is knocked down by the white man who he tries to sell the ball to, and is told to “find yourself another one (TSAF 73).” His action of taking the product of Luster’s labor is microcosm of the racial relations in this new, post-Civil War South. Even though it is a significant time after the war, Faulkner suggests that there are still significant problems and tension between black and white people in his apocryphal county, and in the South in general.

This image of the golf ball is also symbolic of Benjy’s castration. As the white man takes Luster’s ball, Benjy starts to moan, which can be taken to be as an acknowledgement to the double meaning of the loss of a ball. This loss is also the catalyst for Luster’s stretch of cruelty toward Benjy, as he starts berating him to stop moaning even though it is clear Luster is aware that he is longing for Caddie.

 The inclusion of golf here is also a subtle nod to the Compson’s Scottish ancestry. Like the McCaslin’s, the Compson’s are engendered from a Scottish patriarch, Quentin MacLachan Compson who emigrated to America in the 18th century(TSAF Appendix). Golf is widely recognized to be originated in Scotland (at least the modern, 18-hole version played today and portrayed in //TSAF//), and including the one Scottish sport could be Faulkner’s enrichment of an already dense and airtight history for his county and its people.

Works Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_golf

Faulkner, William. //The Sound and the Fury.// New York. Vintage International 1984