SOURCE: “The Evolution of Caddy: An Intertextual Reading of The Sound and the Fury and Ellen Gilchrist's The Annunciation,” in Southern Literary Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1, Fall, 1992, pp. 40-51.

In the following essay, Bauer asserts that the fate of Amanda McCamey in Gilchrist's The Annunciation exhibits a more optimistic view of the future of the Southerner than the fate of Caddy Compson in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

Certain parallels between the works of Ellen Gilchrist and William Faulkner might suggest to the reader that the South has not changed very much during the last century, though writers apparently continue to see the need for change. A comparison of The Sound and the Fury with Gilchrist’s The Annunciation reveals that the South is still filled with individuals who have a false and often destructive sense of themselves. The bitter irony is that those who suffer the...