Faulkner is writing against the backdrop of a South—in this case, within the state of Mississippi—that has been irrevocably changed by the end of slavery and the antebellum culture that accompanied it. For the Compsons, the family at the heart of The Sound and the Fury, this means a loss of wealth and status that reverberates down through the generations. On the one hand, the author depicts the decline of a family that represents the Old South and the end of its “peculiar institution” that trafficked in human beings for its wealth and power. Thus, the novel implies that this kind of family—dependent on slaves, still relying on Black servants, filled with false pride and wounded vanity—is inherently corrupt, doomed to decay and disappear. On the other hand, the author sentimentalizes certain tropes about the Old South, the grandness of the aspirations coupled with a kind of paternalistic concern toward the marginalized, as represented by Quentin. Still, Faulkner acknowledges, primarily through the portrayal of Caddy, that the world is changing and those who cling to the bygone past, like Mother, will be doomed to oblivion.

Faulkner gestures toward racial disparities, both cultural and economic, throughout the book. For example, when Damuddy dies, the young Caddy blurts out that “White folks dont have funerals”; this kind of display of mourning is reserved for Black people (38).