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.