Dilsey Chapter April 8, 192D

 In the last chapter, Faulkner finally gives us readers a break from the conflicting narrative the Compson's provided. Dilsey is not the narrator of her chapter (unlike Benjy, Quentin (male), and Jason (son of Mr. Jason Compson and Caroline Bascomb), her chapter is in third person. Also, she is the only one that thinks just in the present. Her life did no go in the gutter like the others because she took life as it came, not worrying about the past, or writing about the future. In a way, she is similar to Benjy because neither care about time, however she is not constantly pulled into the past by her senses.

To be honest, I am not sure what the meaning of the book is. It talks about the Old South fighting for survival and the New South emerging. It touches on racism and the treatment of the mentally challenged. This book is different than anything I have ever read. It has no  "real" beginning and seems to go on forever. The ending of the book didn't feel like an ending, it felt like it was going to continue. I think this is Faulkner telling us, again, that time does not matter because it can all blur together.

However, he is also saying, through Dilsey that living in the present will make any one's life more bearable. If I were Dilsey, I would have hightailed it out of the Compson's house a long time ago. But she didn't, instead she stayed because her ability to live in the present (and her love of God) made Mrs. Compson's ridiculous "illness" and demands, along with Jason's existence, bearable. I honestly admire her for this.

Another thing Faulkner did was create his own four synoptic gospels. Benjy, Quentin, (even) Jason, and Dilsey are the scribe for the god (Faulkner) of this fictional, yet realistic, family. I am not saying he thought that he was a god; rather he was using this writing technique to make his point stronger.

Jason Chapter April 6, 1928

Jason, not the father Jason, is the younger brother of Quentin III and Caddy, the older brother of Benjy. From the other chapters, we know him as a cry baby. We also learned that he is mean. Caddy greatly disliked him because he was mean to Benjy, an example of this is when he took one of Benjy's dolls and cut it; Caddy was so mad that she threatened to cut him. 

We would hope that he would grow up to become more mature and kinder. WRONG! He is even worse. He is bitter. As is noticeable in the first sentence of his chapter, "Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say." He is cynical and pessimistic along with being Mommy's favorite boy (which means that he can do anything and not get in trouble. The irony of his relationship with his mother is that he could care less about her, because he is self centered, but she thinks the world of him, because after all he is a Bascomb.

He also mean to his niece, Miss Quentin (Caddy's illegitimate child). He nearly beat her with his belt; she did deserve to be punished for skipping school, but his idea of punishment is borderline Draconian. Also, he is stealing money from Quentin. Caddy sends money to her, but Jason pockets most of it and only gives her ten dollars. He has stolen thousands from his sister and wasted it on gambling on the cotton market (something he seems to do religiously). On top of all that, on page 132, it says he is giving Lorraine, a prostitute in Memphis, forty dollars whenever he sees her, and even though she seems interested in him (she writes him and wants him to call her), he doesn't give a damn. His heart is consumed with his arrogance, greed, and stupidity that is had no room for anyone else. This is if he has a heart. 

I think he may not have a heart. One time Caddy came to him and asked him to let her see Quentin (her mother refused to let her have contact with Quentin because she wanted to "protect her") She was desperate and willing to give him a hundred dollars, he said he would, but only if she gave him the money first, after she did he left her high and dry saying that he would need a thousand dollars, she says she'll get the money. Again, she goes to talk to him, but this time she says she won't see him, but she will send checks so that Quentin can get the things all girls deserve along with letters. But as I mentioned before, Jason pockets most of the cash for himself, but at least Quentin knows her mother (kind of); honestly, I don't think that Quentin really cares about her mother, she, like Jason, only uses her for money, as is evident when she confronted Jason about the money her mother was sending her and the tantrum she threw when he kept telling her that Cady only sent ten dollars.

Quentin Chapter June 2, 1910 (WARNING: THIS POST TOUCHES ON SOME SENSITIVE SUBJECTS)

I personally thought Quentin's chapter was harder to understand. His chapter, like Benjy's, revolved around time and Caddy. 

He is more aware of time than Benjy is; Faulkner makes this clear because clocks are constantly mentioned in the chapter. However, due to his madness, time seems to be confusing. You are able to tell the past from the present, but at the same time, you can sense Quentin's desperation to continue to live in the past, back when Caddy was pure and innocent. His chapter has an echo of Faulkner's message from Benjy's introduction that time does not make a difference in the South during this period, when the Old South was struggling to live and the New South was underway. 

Benjy and Quentin care about Caddy and have close relationships with her, but the way they feel about her is different. To Benjy, she was his life raft, protector, and tether to the present. Quentin has an obsession with his sister. It is NOT sexual; rather, he feels that she is almost an extension of him. He was angry at himself for not being able to keep Caddy pure and attempted to take the blame by telling their father that he had committed incest, which his father knew was not true. He is extremely protective of her, so when he can no longer stand himself and cannot take the mountainous pressure that his mother puts on him (to be a "proper" Southern gentleman and live out the values of the Old South) he kills himself. 

It is obvious that Quentin is not in the right state of mind. Let's examine his behavior with the behavior associated with depression. People who suffer from depression are not as ambitious as they once were, lose interest in things they once enjoyed, difficulty concentrating, feeling a sense of worthlessness, guilt,   and they have thoughts of suicide (NOTE: there are more, but these are more relevant to Quentin).Although he was forced to do well at school and forced to go to Harvard, his disinterest in school could also be seen as him losing ambition and interest. He also seems to be wondering around town, to me this made him seem unfocused and thus coinciding with the list of behaviors mentioned before. As I mentioned before, he feels guilty about Caddy's unplanned and out of wedlock pregnancy (which is why she had to marry Sydney Herbert, so that it would not be so scandalous, even though the "baby-daddy" is Danton Ames). His mother thinks of him, his sister, and Benjy as embarrassments to the family and that Jason is the only child she is proud of; this is the root of his feeling of worthlessness. He is considered a disappointment to HIS own mother; this would cause anyone to drown in depression. In the chapter, his suicide was not something I would have guessed would have happened, so it would seem that he had not previously thought of killing himself. WRONG! It was planned. He had often walked by the river and paused there. He bought irons to tie to himself in order to weigh more, thus effectively drowning him faster. When someone suffers from severe depression, they make plans, they think about where they will kill themselves, how, and sometimes find ways to make the attempt (unless of course it is accomplished, then it is not an attempt) more efficient and have a higher probability of working.

Benjy's Chapter, April 17th, 1928

To say the least, the first chapter in The Sound and the Fury is not exactly an easy read. The language is simple, due to the narrator of the chapter (Benjy, a.k.a. Benjamin) being mentally challenged, but the shifts in time and the strong sensory images make it difficult to understand what is going on. 

I believe that Faulkner made the time shifts difficult was to show that the point he is trying to make with this book is timeless. His work reminds me of Thornton Wilder's works, like The Long Christmas Dinner. The time periods almost blend together. One thing that these two texts have in common is that the new generations of servants do not make much of a difference in the text, other than being flags for a time change. The only exception to this is Dilsey, who is the head of the servants and the only servant who does not make fun of Benjy. 

In the Compson household, Benjy is considered to be a burden. His mother often complains about having headaches and being "sick"; the supposed cause for this is Benjy's mental state. His brothers make fun of him and are not very patient with him when he has tantrums. His father does seem to care about him a bit (he was the one who first gave him the nickname Benjy), but he still sees him as a burden. His sister Caddy (or Candace) is the only one who really cared for him; she would defend him when they were young.

The date of Benjy's chapter was purposely one day before Easter. This, coupled with Benjy's age (33) coincides with the Faulkner telling us that he and Jesus are similar. 

Benjy is the fool in the Compson family. This is not a bad thing though, just like the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear, he knows more than what others think he does. He is aware of what is going on, however he does not know how to express what he sees, nor does he know whether the things he sees are good or bad (he is too innocent).

Through Benjy, we learn how shallow not only his family is, but also how society views those who are mentally handicapped. They see him as inferior to themselves and this is the reason why they do not treat him with basic human rights (except Caddy).

No one in the family really notice the small details (or objects). Although Benjy is not the most brilliant one, he notices the details and objects and has an amazing ability to recall all these things. These recurring details and objects give Benjy comfort.

Benjy is the only truly innocent character in the book, no one else is innocent, not even Caddy.

William Faulkner

• Was born William Cuthbert Falkner [he later changed it to Faulkner to make himself seem British in order to join the Royal Air Force (RAF)]. He was born on September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi to Murry and Maud Falkner. 
• When he was about five years old, his family moved to Oxford, Mississippi. At a young age, he showed talent in drawing and poetry writing. In the sixth grade he became bored with his studies. His early literary works were romantic and were modeled after English poets like Burns, Thomson, Housman, and Swinburne. 
• He had tried to join the United States Air Force, but he was considered to be too short (he stood at five feet and six inches). After this, he tried to join the RAF by making himself seem British (even donning a British accent). Finally, he became joined the air force in Canada.
• His first published poem was "L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune" in The New Republic in August 1919. In 1924, his friend, Phil Stone, helped him get a volume of his poetry, The Marble Faun,by the Four Seas Company. By December 1924, it had sold 1,000 copies. In January 1925, he moved to New Orleans. He published a couple essays in The Double Dealer and in New Orleans Times-Picayune. 
• His first novel was Soldier's Pay (published by Liveright), which sold 2,500 copies. His second novel, Mosquitoes, was a satirical novel that was based on his literary social environment. Another novel of his was Flags in the Dust, which his old published (Liveright) refused to publish it and it was difficult to find another publisher, but he eventually did. 
• His inspiration for the title The Sound and the Fury, came from a soliloquy in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. It was published in October 1929
• Faulkner even wrote a couple of screenplays: Today We Live, Sanctuary, and The Story of Temple Drake. 
• In 1955, he won the Pulitzer Prize for A Fable. He was also awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.
• He died on July 6, 1962 of a heart attack. However, he won another Pulitzer Prize in 1963 for The Reivers.