Dilsey the Dauntless

After having successfully wrapped up Faulkner's novel it is easy for me to say that Dilsey is my favorite character. She is so so bold and outspoken and she is constantly standing up to Jason which makes me admire her as a person. I think Faulkner in this last chapter really tied in the ideas of the new and old South. A very broad idea is that Dilsey, a black servant, who is the strongest and most independent character in the story, has taken charge of the family which shows how the new South is entering their world. In the old South Jason would be the strongest character and he would be caring for the people in his household yet in this chapter we see Jason grow weak and Dilsey come to charge. When Dilsey is attending Church and she speaks of how she has seen the first and the last of the Compson family Faulkner reminds us that it is Dilsey who has been there since the beginning of this family and it is Dilsey who will see them through to the end. If anyone is comfortable with the notion of this 'changing South' it's Dilsey. She understands it is happening and she is okay with it.
There is also a bit of irony in this chapter with Jason. He strives to be a man who is respected and to him, having a car is very important yet his car is slowly wearing out and he becomes to sick to even drive it so he has to hire someone else to drive him to town. Slowly but surely Jason's old South is crumbling around him; beginning with having to sell Benjy's pasture and now even his car won't work right for him. Faulkner continually points out the instability of this household- Mrs. Compson is bedridden and completely reliant on Dilsey, Jason is crazed and can't take care of his family all the while being obsessed with his niece (Quentin), and Benjy while being mentally handicapped doesn't have the love of his mother and is mourning the loss of his sister, Caddy.

Jason the Jerk

While reading the chapters on Benjy and Quentin were a struggle I found Jason's chapter very straightforward and easy to follow; it is easily my favorite chapter so far. However, Jason progressively became my least favorite character. He is mean spirited, racist, narrow-minded, disrespectful, unreasonable and just a downright jerk. Jason begins his chapter very bluntly by stating,  "Once a bitch always a bitch," this is reiterated again at the end of the chapter. Along with the way he treats women in this chapter it becomes very obvious that Jason looks down on the women in his life and sees them as a burden. He treats the servant, Dilsey, with such ignorance and disrespect, continually referring to her in derogatory terms and shows no gratitude toward her even though she is the one that is holding the family together more so than he. Jason enjoys the power of being in charge and taking care of Caddy's daughter Quentin turns out to be such a struggle that Quentin fears and abhors him and Jason appears abusive. In one scene Quentin is challenging Jason and Jason retaliates, "I dragged her into the dining room. Her kimono came unfastened, flapping about her, dam near naked. Dilsey came hobbling along. I turned and kicked the door shut in her face." He displays his ignorance and disrespect to Dilsey and Quentin.

We also learn that Jason does not like being wrong. On one occasion he finds Quentin out of school (again) riding in a car with a boy. Jason decides to follow but loses them in a field. When his mother tells him that Quentin told her she was being followed by Jason he denies it and lies saying that someone else had his car. When his employer crosses him and asks him where he was Jason lies by telling him he had an appointment and when the employer presses for more information Jason gets angry and doesn't want to talk about it. Jason is a bit out of control and has some anger issues which are displayed in this chapter.

Jason is also very concerned with appearance. In the same instance of following Quentin there is a scene where he is standing in the street looking for her thinking that he must look crazy and he says, "Like a man would naturally think, one of them is crazy and another one drowned himself and the other one was turned out into the street by her husband, whats the reason the rest of them are not crazy too. All the time I could see them watching me like a hawk, waiting for a chance to say Well I'm not surprised I expected it all the time the whole family's crazy." He then spends the rest of that paragraph describing other instances where people might think they are crazy.

I think Jason is concerned with his family name which is why he continues to support his mother and niece but overall he treats everyone with such disrespect which shows that he is just a very angry person.

Questioning Quentin

After reading through the second chapter of Faulkner's interesting novel I have to come to know the character Quentin a little better. Quentin is the brother to Caddy and Benji and while I initially thought Benji confusing I found Quentin to be just as puzzling. This chapter consists of many "time triggers", as we have come to call them in class, and as I first began the chapter it was difficult to decide whether we were in past or present tense but I eventually got the hang of it which helped with understanding this chapter a little better. Quentin has a pretty big obsession with time in and is actually obsessed with it. The chapter begins with him recalling a time his father gave him a watch and ends with him setting that watch down on his roommates nightstand before going to commit suicide.

We also come to realize that Quentin is obsessed with the purity of his sister, Caddy, and doesn't agree with the fact that she is marrying. He continually goes back and forth between times of his youth and present day addressing seemingly random things. He speaks of Caddy, the watch/time, boys playing with boats in the river, and a strange little girl who never speaks a word to Quentin yet he is very protective of her and wants to help her. It is almost as if the girl reminds Quentin of Caddy what with his need to want to help her and protect her. Quentin is not very stable mentally, he almost seems more tense and crazy than Benjy who is actually mentally impaired. Quentin is obsessed with time while Benjy is very laid back. The main point of this chapter seems to be pinpointing Quentin's mental state and has no real plot besides that. We see many things in it that happen but there is no central plot. The only consistent thing in this chapter would be the clock ticking away which also symbolizes Quentin's own life clock ticking away.

The reason this chapter is so confusing is because the way Quentin speaks is very sporadic and random. One minute we hear about the watch and his father and the next we hear of him walking along a bridge watching the boys in the river. It's this way that we find Quentin's life seems a rush to him by the long ramblings we receive from him. We also keep getting hints of Quentin saying he has committed incest with Caddy which we learn isn't true yet he keeps saying it as if he wishes it were true. Quentin isn't sexually attracted to his sister he is just obsessed with the idea of keeping her pure. He is horrified that she is marrying someone and he wants to keep her safe from everyone else. It's in this that Quentin and Benjy are alike; they both are beginning to see the loss of innocence in their sister. Benjy makes note of it by the repeated lines where she apparently doesn't smell like trees which Benjy equates to her youthfulness. With Quentin his confusing lines remind us of how he is angry with her but more so with the man she is marrying because it means she will no longer be pure and that is quite a big deal to Quentin.
             

Benji or Bust

Having read the first chapter of the Sound and the Fury I have found Faulkner to be very enticing in his story writing. While it is an enticing read it is also very hard to understand and to follow which is why I haven't enjoyed much of it thus far (hopefully this changes)! Benji is 33 years old or as Faulkner writes in the book, "three years old for thirty years"- he is mentally handicapped and we go through many time lapses in this first chapter which causes some confusion. I think Faulkner begins his book in a way that is disorienting so as to attract the reader. It's confusing yet intriguing all at once and you want to find out what happens next. Benjy lives in a very chaotic household. His family unit isn't very strong along with the relationships in them. Benji's mother is neurotic and we find Benji being raised by various caretakers some who look on him with pity. Benji's best and closest relationship is with his sister, Caddy. She cares deeply for her brother and genuinely wants to be with him whilst some the caretakers see him as a burden. Dilsey, a nanny for the family does show some compassion and genuine care for Benji. I think in a way Benji is a way to show the family's flaws and upsets. He isn't really a flaw in the world but this family (aside from a few) view him as one and his parents, who don't act as very good guardians, are slowly falling apart and by seeing this in Benji's point of view these upsets are highlighted.

Fun with Faulkner

I thought it was interesting how Faulkner never had a high school or college degree and struggled during the Great Depression yet he still wrote a book so renowned as The Sound and the Fury. It's also kind of ironic how he was so tiny, at 5'6, and is so widely known. One of my favorite parts of learning about Faulkner was actually how the spelling of his name changed from Falkner to Faulkner by a typing error in employee records. It's also pretty impressive that he was able to enroll in a college without receiving his high school diploma. Overall I think Faulkner sounds a lot different than other writers because he seemed so 'normal'. He didn't have a very good education and he drank a lot and yet he wrote very famous works that people still read today.