This thesis is intended to be an exploration into the three women roles as depicted by William Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury,a novel that he published in 1929.The novel is set in 1910,before the Great Migration began.The focus of the thesis is on the characterization of the three women,who represent three different generations,from the once-aristocratic Compson family in the South of the United States in the years from 1900 to 1928.The thesis falls into three parts.The first part is devoted to discussions about Mrs.Compson,a Puritan,born before the American Civil War who possesses prescribed qualities and who in every way fits the ideals of the Southern Belles in the antebellum war.As such she is the symbol of the Puritanical value system of the time.The second part revolves around the second generation represented by Caddy.Caddy is the embodiment of the ambivalence of the Puritanical value system and the liberal one.On the one hand,she embraces courage,compassion and awareness of being independent even at an early age.Her exposed bodice and the muddy bottom of drawers are symbols of her sexual awakening.On the other hand ,she possesses the prescribed qualities of weakness and dependence as she grows up.Caddys physical development recapitulates the familys progression along the continuum from active to passive.Caddys physical transformation is a manifestation of the trajectory of change that rages through the years from 1898 to 1910 in the southern community.In a word,Caddy is thematized as the primary cause of the trajectory of change in the southern community.The change is organized largely around Caddy and the impact on the household of her sexual awakening,pregnancy,marriage ,annulment,fatherless infant and exile.The last part is focused on Miss Quentin ,Caddys daughter.Miss Quentin is depicted as androgynous,or truly human.Her identity is recognized.Like her mother,she values freedom.She embraces masculine courage and the spirit of rebellion.Their difference is worth mentioning.Caddy only focuses on emotional independence.On the contrary,Miss Quentin pursues economical independence besides emotional one.Therefore she is materialistic as a result of the commercialization of the Southern community.She is the representative of the women in a new generation,who regard independence in economy and emotion,and the sexual liberation as their lifelong pursuits.Miss Quentin firmly abandons the Puritanical view of womanhood championed by her grandmother and behaves as an individual.Her road from restraint to freedom is uneven,with the strong resistance from her uncle,Jason representing the Puritanical value system.Eventually she triumphs over him and win her autonomy through her endless struggle.Compared with her mother,Miss Quentin is more determined in her rebellion against traditions .Her triumph is the embodiment of women from symbol to autonomy.In addition,the social factors are discussed which help to shape the three female characters.The American Industrialization and Reconstruction were burgeoning in that period in the North.Stimulated by the demands of a rapidly expanding war industry and the labor shortage created by a sharp decline in European immigration,immigration offered the black masses in the south their first real opportunity to leave.As a result,came the Great Migration in 1915.More and more southerners bagan to leave their land for big cities in the North,where the demand for labor had rocketed as a result of the rapidity of the industrial and urban development.Blacks were the main forces.White southerners were also not excluded.Compson Quentin(Caddys brother),Caddy and her daughter,Miss Quentin were among such new city immigrants.The black migration,urbanization,and proletarianization altered socioeconomic conditions throughout the nation,leading to labor shortages in the South.The black Mammy,Dilsey herself serves for Faulkner as a sort of twentieth-century ruin or landmark in a South shifting from an agrarian to an industrial economy and from a rural to an urban society.The fragmentation of the hundred acres originally owned by the Compsons represents the broader trend of the "Old New South"toward the fragmentation of the large plantations of the Old South.In this age of drastic changes,the dominance of Puritanism was shattered and in its place came ideas that were more open and liberal much influenced by commercialization.By analyzing the social factors that have helped to shape the character of these three women,this thesis tries to suggest that what happens in the Compson family really shows the gradual but irrevocable change in American society from one of Puritanical coservatism to one of democratic liberalism,with the role of woman in society getting changde from one of symbol to that of autonomy.