When a writer chooses the decline of a certain big family as the topic of his fiction,he is actually pondering over the tragedies and comedies of the society. The Sound and the Fury is a story mainly about the last generation of the Compson family and the three brothers and the sister respectively have their symbolic meanings.Quentin the eldest represents the ending and the hopelessness of the old order.Jason the second represents the present that is damned.Benjy the youngest is an idiot.He represents the grief,pitifulness,and helplessness of mankind.Caddy the daughter symbolizes the destruction of beauty.The several main characters in A Dream of Red Mansions also have their symbolic meanings.Jia Zheng represents the feudal order.Baoyu represents rebellion.Baochai is a sacrificial object of the feudal ethics whereas Daiyu again represents the destruction of beauty.Both authors wanted to free themselves from the limitation of their times,to transcend time,and to reflect upon history.For Faulkner the future only existed in some concepts while there seemed to be no future at all for Cao Xueqin.