The purpose of this project is to examine the perceptive systems and listening practices of Benjy Compson, the first narrator in William Faulkner\u27s The Sound and the Fury, through the lens of acousmatic theory. I will consider Faulkner \u27s writing and Pierre Schaeffer\u27s theories of sound as critical analogs for one another, in that our engagement with acousmatics opens channels of investigation into sound and aurality in the Benjy section that wouldn\u27t be available otherwise, and vice versa. My main goal is to prove that 1) Benjy\u27s consciousness; 2) Faulkner\u27s structuring of the first section of the novel; and 3) the reader\u27s sonic relationship with Benjy\u27s world are all constructed upon the idea of acousmatic reduction. This investigation will then give way to larger questions about how these techniques might determine our reading of the rest of the novel, as well as how we might use acousmatics to engage with the auditory dimension of any literary work
