Check out this article on U of VA English professor Stephen Railton’s efforts to collaborate with other scholars to build web-based resources for students and scholars of Faulkner. Cool stuff.
NEH-sponsored “Digital Yoknapatawpha” project
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Monthly Archives: September 2013
[BA students] English Majors party 10/2
To all English majors (or those who are curious about becoming majors),
Please come to a party to celebrate the start of the semester! It will be an opportunity to learn more about the department, meet professors and other English students and to discuss the set-up of an English Department club.
Date and Time: Wed Oct 2nd, 1-3pm
Place: The Solarium Room, Hunter East 1413
Refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to Thom Taylor: [email protected]
Why are the Compson parents so passive?
One question that I would like to explore further is something that Faulkner seems to leave out of the narrative – Why are the Compson parents so passive? Jason Sr. is a drunk philosopher whose parenting style could be described, at its best, as nonchalant. He lacks concern or enthusiasm towards his children and either hands the responsibilities of parenting off to somebody else (often Dilsey) or offers philosophical musings that seem to do more harm than good. We see this in Quentin’s narrative when Quentin recalls numerous memories of speaking to his father. Though the situational details are difficult to decipher, it is clear that Jason was never able to provide Quentin with the type of “fatherly” advice or relationship that he was looking for. When Quentin falsely admits to committing incest with Caddy, his father replies, “People cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at al they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today” (80). Later, Quentin remembers a time when his father said, “Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life” (85). Quentin’s memory of his father is a series of these cerebral, somewhat indecipherable quips that seem to add to Quentin’s neuroticism rather than help him in any way.
The only time in which Jason is physically present is within Benjy’s narrative. In those recollections, Jason appears to take little interest in the children. Perhaps his most affecting moment is when he puts the children to bed: “Father went to the door and looked at us again. Then the dark came back, and he stood black against the door, and then the door turned black again” (75). What was Jason thinking when he looked back at his four children? Was he thinking about how he failed them? Was he thinking about how he was going to fail them? I get the sense throughout reading this novel that Jason is the only one who clearly accepts the family’s decline. He doesn’t try to fight it. Instead he just lets time continue, and the family grow up around him, as he slowly drinks himself to death.
Caroline Compson is much more present in the text but has even less control of her children than Jason. She lives in a bedridden state of self-pity, and though she tries to show that she cares about her children (and Quentin’s) well-being, it is clear by her actions that she has not the strength nor the desire to affect any actual change. She lives in a haze of sleep and substance abuse, relying on Dilsey or Jason Jr. for even the most menial of tasks. I found the scene when she asks Dilsey to hand her the Bible to be one of the book’s most darkly comical passages (299-300). Caroline’s passivity is perhaps most shocking when Jason opens Quentin’s door to see that she is missing. Caroline, assumedly in a camphor-induced haze, is not entirely aware of what is happening. Believing that Quentin has committed suicide, she simply tells Jason to “find the note,” adding further, “Quentin left a note when he did it” (283). Caroline clearly has little actual emotions invested in the tragedies of this family.
Returning to the original question of why exactly Jason and Caroline were such passive parents, I think part of the answer lies in a feeling of helplessness. As the family’s monetary fortune slipped away, Jason lost a sense of his own masculine identity, that of the family’s provider. This either caused or was caused by his alcoholism. The drinking factored into Jason’s role as a sideline parent, watching his children grow up in front of him without very much involvement. Caroline too slipped into a dark depression, perhaps due also to what she saw as her family’s fall from an aristocratic position in Jefferson. Ashamed of this fall, and her husband’s alcoholism, Caroline seems to simply give up and spends most of the novel’s time frame in bed. Faulkner is very much interested in the idea of time, and we can trace three of the children’s issues (ignoring Benjy) at least partially to the passivity of the parents. We see a series of problems and tragedies traced through three generations in this story, which relate back to Faulkner’s quote from Requiem for a Nun: The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.”
“flesh and blood”
The concept of “flesh and blood” in Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” brings up interesting ideas about family tradition and the duty of taking care of one’s relatives. The Compson family is plagued by the Southern Christian beliefs that hold virginity and purity as morals that are valuable above all else. This belief system causes the Mother and the son Jason to have similar ideas about what constitutes a southern lady. The ironic aspect of the text is how these members or the Compson family seem to care more about their appearing to meet these standards than actually doing so. This corrupt morality is found in the tale of Caddy’s experiences and it is repeated almost identically in those of her doomed daughter Miss Quentin. These Compson women are both fugitives from the traditional social laws of southern purity.
The repeated term, “flesh and blood” is used by Miss Caroline Compson in her many moments of self-pity to express how shocked she is that her own family could behave so horribly and “curse” her. She sees the disability of her son Benjy as punishment for her “putting aside [her] pride and marrying a man who held himself above [her]” (103). The behavior of her daughter Caddy is due to the “Compson blood” she has inherited and lacking the training of a Bascomb woman like Miss Caroline received when she was “taught that there is no halfway ground that a woman is either a lady or not” (103). Miss Caroline seems not to realize that she is the one who did not provide this moral character and the ladylike values that she holds so dear. Miss Caroline denies her daughter Caddy and the other imperfect children the title of being her “flesh and blood”(104). While arguing with her husband she questions, “who can fight against bad blood” in reference to her fallen daughter’s actions and worries how letting her misbehave “not only drags [his Compson] name in the dirt but corrupts the very air [his] children breath” (103). The main interest of this mother is that she pins the blame of their child’s issues on her husband’s bloodline and how their good name is being degraded by their child’s crimes against purity. She insists they are “strangers” to her and “nothing of [hers]” but her son Jason is the only one who had not been a “reproach to [her]” (181).
The connection between the mother and her son Jason is held by their interest in familial pride and honor and how they decide to ostracize those who do not contribute to the good family name. Later on in the story line, the mother uses the phrase “flesh and blood” to remind her son Jason, who is now the head of the household, to be lenient with his niece Miss Quentin. Miss Caroline is still self-pitying herself due to the untoward actions of Miss Quentin but Jason responds with anger and violence in attempts to end the cycle of feminine Compson corruption. He repurposes the phrase “flesh and blood” to suit his violent tactics by responding to his mother’s reminder with. “Sure, that’s just what I’m thinking of- flesh. And a little blood too, if I had my way. When people act like niggers, no matter who they are the only thing to do is treat them like a nigger.” (181). Jason’s response reveals his disregard for Miss Quentin. He desires to punish her as a means to control her and he sees her not only unworthy of their family name but unworthy as a member of his race or social class. The family tradition of rejecting those who maintain the Compson reputation is continued by Jason with his response to Miss Quentin’s behavior. The phrase “flesh and blood” becomes superficial, describing the degraded connection between the generations and bonds of familial duty. Almost as superficial as the respectable family name that has been ruined by the very efforts meant to preserve it.
Dilsey’s Silence
Benjy is confused; Quentin is depressed; Jason is angry; and Dilsey has to deal with all their problems. Faulkner’s final chapter focuses primarily on Dilsey’s role in the home, and how she interacts with the family. His shift to the third-person narrative is no surprise – if Faulkner were to give Dilsey a voice and allow the reader to follow her stream of consciousness, it would disrupt the social hierarchy that he thematizes in his analysis of southern living. As such, Dilsey is quoted often in this section and the third-person narrator is sympathetic to her plight.
Last week we discussed Faulkner’s thematic interest in the concept of failure, specifically addressing how each narrator fails to tell the story (or successfully portray the image of the girl with the muddy bottom in narrative form) in his respective section. It occurred to me as I read the would-be Dilsey chapter that she doesn’t actually have a chance to fail at telling this story, yet she does have a section devoted to her point of view. For instance, we may not be privy to Dilsey’s specific thoughts when she makes the great traverse up the stairs to tend to Mrs. Compson’s needs, but the narrator’s description of Dilsey’s Sisyphean struggle certainly provides insight as to what she may be thinking after “she began to mount the stairs, toiling heavily” only to find out there was no reason for her efforts: “Dilsey said nothing. She turned slowly and descended, lowering her body from step to step, as a small child does, her hand against the wall” (271-272). Even without access to Dilsey’s thoughts, the reader senses her struggle and in this case Dilsey’s silence reveals much more about her character and her relationship with Mrs. Compson than words might have.
Dilsey’s silence replaces Benjy’s moaning, Quentin’s talking to himself, and Jason’s yelling at everyone. Her character avoids those types of flaws by simply keeping her mouth shut, and upholds her duty in the Compson household using the same technique when it comes to Mrs. Compson. In her silence, Faulkner places Dilsey beyond failure in this novel, and Jason crudely points out that failing is a white man’s problem when he thinks back on an angry conversation he has with Dilsey, stating: “You’re a nigger. You’re lucky, do you know it? I’ll swap with you any day because it takes a white man not to have anymore sense than to worry about what a little slut of a girl does” (243). Jason feigns envy here for the lack of pressure on African Americans in the South at that time, choosing not to acknowledge the lack of rights and tiring work Dilsey was assigned as a black female in the south. At that moment he can only think of his personal failure to reclaim his family’s good name and wealth that was lost to his father’s alcoholism, Quentin’s suicide, and Caddy’s fornication.
So Dilsey cannot fail, but Jason’s ironic statement illuminates the fact that failure is actually a privilege of sorts. As a white man with a voice and the potential to succeed, it is Jason’s right to fail. Dilsey is the only prominent character in the novel that upholds her responsibilities and maintains her unjust social role as “mammy” of the Compson household through her silence. Dilsey talks back to Jason on occasion, and voices her opinion among her children and Benjy, but when it comes to Mrs. Compson, “Dilsey [says] nothing” (272). Because Dilsey’s role is so undesirable, I believe that “success” is too strong a word for her character. If failure is impossible, success must be impossible as well; one who has nothing to lose loses nothing.
Through Dilsey’s character, Faulkner demonstrates that even failure is a privilege that is not granted to all. While no one wants to fail, the very act of failing is a right to protect because where there is failure there is the potential for success. Faulkner’s own life is a great testament to this concept, as his “failure” of a novel, The Sound and the Fury, actually turned into his most celebrated success.
Jason myths: “fleeing niece” = “golden fleece”?
It’s obvious Faulkner isn’t just telling the story of one Southern family’s downfall; rather he seems to be using a family to tell the story of the South’s downfall. We can see this in two ways: first, in how his characters operate not just within the family sphere but the reader is made aware, particularly in Jason’s chapter, of the forces — economic, historic, cultural and so on — converging on the Compson family. But I was interested in looking at the second, which is how Faulkner expands the scope of tiny universe by drawing parallels to mythology, particularly through Jason, perhaps named for he “of the Argonauts.”
Both Jasons have been disinherited from a throne (or thrones) each believes to be rightfully his. In Greek Jason’s case, his uncle Pelias usurps the throne from Jason’s father Iolcus, and when the hero comes of age he rises up to take it back from his uncle, only to be sent by that uncle on series of difficult tasks, including a long, dangerous journey to claim the Golden Fleece. Seeing how difficult the tasks are Jason grows depressed. Jason Compson suffers similar depression and feelings of impotence as he has been disinherited of power in two ways: he has ascended to the head of the Compson family household, only to find that the throne is not worth holding, that the power associated with it has been lost. Second, he repeatedly refers to a lost opportunity for work at the bank — the people in his life altogether “merely symbolised the job in the bank of which he had been deprived before he ever got it.” (306) His greed gives the bank an obvious resonance as a throne-like seat of power.
Jason Compson’s professional failure, along with his failure to sit atop a successful family, ultimately turns into a kind of savage impotence: Near the end of the final chapter, when Jason is pursuing Quentin and the man in the red tie, the narrator twice in quick succession refers to Jason’s sense of impotence. (Eg his “injury and impotence” and “outrage and impotence.” [303]) His sense of impotence manifests in a series of delusions about having an army behind him — an army that also recalls the Greek Jason’s Argonauts: “ ‘I’m Jason Compson. See if you can stop me. See if you can elect a man to office that can stop me,’ he said, thinking of himself entering the courthouse with a file of soldiers and dragging the sheriff out,” (306) and later on the page, “his file of soldiers with the manacled sheriff in the rear, dragging Omnipotence down from his throne, if necessary; of the embattled legions of both hell and heaven through which he tore his way and put his hands at last on his fleeing niece.” Note here how “fleeing niece” seems like a verbal play on “fleece,” as in Golden Fleece.
In addition to expanding the tiny Compson universe in Jefferson, Miss., linking the jerk Jason Compson with the Greek Jason serves to highlight the former’s impotence, to paint starkly the forces that turned this thwarted heir to power into a vindictive man-child.
A family Led on Seperate Roads
Quentin and Jason Compson both have very different ideologies towards their past and present lifestyles. Quentin obsesses with time and indulges in past failures as his narration is hindered by retrospective memories of his father and sister, Caddy. In contrast, Jason Compson reflects on his past experiences as a method to bring reassurance and to motivate him for future success. Both narrators approach their past in very contrasting ways, Quentin in a crippling manner while Jason in an empowering manner, but ultimately they are unable to escape their past.
Raised closely by different parents, Quentin by his father and Jason by his mother, Quentin’s obsession with time represents his desires to escape his father’s ideals of time and sexuality but gain his acceptance. But as his mind constantly fluctuates between the past and the present it becomes obvious, he obsesses with his father’s ideals while Caddy is used as a scapegoat to deviate from his father’s principles and for Quentin to gain his own identity. From the start of the chapter, Quentin’s father warns him to separate himself from time but contradicts himself and hands Quentin a watch.
Quentin’s father tells him, “to forget time… try not to conquer it because no battle is ever won. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair” (76). As Quentin tries to separate himself from the past, the constant ticking of clocks and watches haunts Quentin indicating its not Quentin’s sense of time that is crippled but it’s the memory of his father that Quentin can’t forego and separate from. Many memories that arise, are often focused in on Caddy but they are all reflected off of conversations between Quentin and his father. “I have committed incest I said Father it was I it was not Dalton Ames” (TSAF 79). Quentin calls upon incest relations with Caddy as a way to propose the idea, Caddy’s child does have a known father and Caddy is not ruining the reputation of the Compson name through her promiscuous actions. However, on page 78, the conversation between Quentin and his father states, “In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to a women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women….Why couldn’t it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said that what that’s sad too.” In this passage, the idea of losing virginity as a male serves as a passage from becoming “a boy to a man.” Quentin who is still a virgin, is looked down upon, and grasps at the concept of, if he mentions to his father he had sexual relations with his sister, he will gain his father’s approval as well as save the rest of the reputation that is left of the Compson name, that has not been destroyed by Caddy’s pregnancy out of wedlock.
Another moment that brings Quentin to arrest at the thought of his father’s memory is when Quentin is accused of spying on Caddy, “The street lamps would go down the hill then rise toward town I walked upon the belly of the shadow. I could extend my hand beyond it. feeling father behind me beyond the rasping darkness of summer and August the street lamps Father and I protect women from one another from themselves our women Women are like that they don’t acquire knowledge of people we are for that they are just born with a practical fertility of suspicion that makes a crop every so often and usually right they have an affinity for evil…”(TSAF 96-97). Faulkner incorporates this passage to implicate several things. Mr. Compson, Quentin’s father is the primitive source that haunts Quentin. While his sense of time and Caddy represents the disorder that builds within Quentin as he tries to gain his father’s acceptance but gain his own identity.
Lastly, the Italian immigrant girl depicts Quentin’s last attempt to separate himself from his father. He calls her his sister and does not try to take advantage of her as he is able to lose his virginity to her making his father proud he is no longer a virgin. Instead, he tries to lead her to her home. The Italian girl may be representative of purity and as Caddy untouched. He views her as his last attempt to separate himself from his father; allowing himself to bring her home without memories of his father clouding his judgment. Though memories of Caddy and Natalie arise during this moment, this represents a struggle he has with his morals versus expectations he has as a man (134).
Jason obsesses with money and social status like his mother and unlike Benjy and Quentin he does not respect women. He views himself superior over all others, authoritative, sees himself as a person who should command respect and attention, and is extremely cynical of everyone’s actions. In contrast to the views Benjy and Quentin had for their mother, Jason’s narration views Mrs. Compson as a very emotional and caring mother whose actions are controlled him Jason. Mrs. Compson constantly repeats the words “flesh and blood” as she pleads Jason to allow Caddy to return for Quentin, “I’d gladly take her back, sins and all, because she is my flesh and blood. It’s for Quentin’s sake.” Jason’s relation to time is blended with jealousy of Quentin’s Harvard education but also biased as each memory he has is propelled through blame and misery while he is a spectator. Jason is constantly comparing himself to Quentin’s Harvard education by stating the education is completely unnecessary as he is doing fine without it (196,197, 206, 235,). However, he also mentions Quentin is the reason for the downfall of the family due to selling property to pay for his education (206) and him having to be a father figure for the family. In this narration, Jason does not have flashbacks of Caddy instead his memories are targeted at Quentin and moments of his superiority. He views black people as inferior to him and him having to install a method to control and put fear into them so they know their role in society (207). Jason’s relations to economics are very derogatory as he is fueled with hatred towards Jews and black people (234). He constantly remarks on their laziness and incompetency but on the contrary he is dependent on them (186), dependent on Dilsey to make him his meals, and the Jewish people who run the market. Jason is not only racist but he is also sexist. On page 247, he states he does not need any more women in his life as she may “turn out to be a hophead”- a drug addict. Basically, women are virtually of no use to society. His authoritative persona brings about his insecurity. He does not allow Caddy to return home probably because he’s afraid she will be favored, (on page 220 he forces his mother to burn the check) as well as the constant reminder of Quentin’s Harvard education he carefully attempts to show was a pointless education (235).
Surviving the Compsons
Jason has little affection for his family. He provides economically for them, there’s enough flour in the pantry and he keeps a roof above their head but he resents his responsibility as head of the household. His vignette is by far more logical than Benjy or Quentin’s narrative, he may lack feelings but at the very least he provides factual information. The brazen swirl of colors and emotions that make the past two stories so enjoyable makes Jason’s narrative a refreshing breeze. Caddy’s story really is the center theme in each narrative, from her first teenage kiss to her banishment from her family. Before Jason, it was easy to sympathize with the headstrong Candace, but after Jason it is a slightly more difficult task. Once a bitch, always a bitch. Once a mad Compson, always a mad Compson. He doesn’t begrudge Candace, he clearly doesn’t think much of her or really care about her in anyway. He doesn’t love her in the same dimension that Benjy or Quentin loved her. Jason, however, does care about keeping face as best as he can. He’s the only Compson that is not mad, crippled or dead and it shames him to think that the whole town is laughing at his family. So he does what any man in his position would do, to work hard and to dare anyone that might cross him. He tortures Candace and the young Quentin, not because they whore around the town, but because their indiscreet with their behavior. Jason says repeatedly that he doesn’t care whether Quentin runs around with every jelly bean in town, he cares that every townsfolk knows that they can call his niece for a backseat romp. Jason is not a prude, he has a girl on the side, Miss Lorraine, but she lives in another town and wouldn’t dare call him up at work on pain of death. Jason believes in keeping women in line, whether that means beating them or ridiculing them at the dinner table, Jason has more important things to do than concern himself with feminine feelings.
Jason sees what needs to be done; with efficiency and precision Jason does what he does for survival and to keep food on his plate. He may be cruel, his words may be harsh, and yes, he might find pleasure in making his women folk upset, but he has been thrust into the role as the patriarch. He despises Mrs. Compson and Dilsey’s efforts to cajole Benjy and Quentin, and in his own rebellion he has become colder than a cod in a hail storm. Madness runs in his Compson veins, as well as anyone else, but he has learned to dilute the insanity in acts of cruelty. From burning the circus tickets to calling names, Jason is certainly not without fault but he has discovered how to survive in the madness around him. With his family background, the best Jason can do for himself is learn how to survive.
Jason: Sex & Money
Someone once said that a man’s problems almost always fall under two categories: finance and romance. With Jason’s chapter we shift towards a money-focused perspective and one that is refreshingly objective, albeit cold and detached. However, we soon realize that, for him, finance and romance are psychologically intertwined.
My experience of reading this novel was like being immersed in a dense fog that slowly began to dissolve as I kept reading. From a narration point of view, it was like being thrown behind a camera that was zoomed in all the way, and then gradually zoomed outward until I could see all of the details, the characters, and the action in focus from a kind of aerial view. Benjy’s narration is so internalized that his world is our world. By the time we get to Dilsey, we are hovering above the family, its dark past, its current struggles and its murky future from a more objective and clearer place. So it is with time: the present is all we know; we are in it and there is no escape. But as we move forward through time and look back, the past begins to clarify, based on what we know now. As the old saying goes, “Hindsight is 20-20.” Faulkner’s novel moves in many directions but steadily takes us from the past to the present and into the future.
It is with Jason’s character that we make this all-important shift in perspective. The novel begins to take on a traditional linear, action-based, plot-driven quality that we are used to (and, by now, yearning for). Jason is unique in his ability to take action. None of the other characters act decisively, except perhaps for Dilsey, who is more of a spiritual mother of the house. What is interesting to note is that both Jason’s sexuality and masculinity are connected to money. He has commodified these primal elements of himself, in an attempt to exchange and control their nature. An obvious example of this is his interactions with women, which are limited to prostitutes. Jason is bitter with the men around him, a tough exterior put on to hide the insecure and impotent interior.
All of the men in this novel are castrated, either literally (in Benjy’s case) or metaphorically. Jason has built so much of his self-value on the money he has stashed away, that when Miss Quentin robs him it is felt to same degree as an actual castration. However there is more than Jason’s self-value in this money, for we learn that it is money sent by Caddy for Miss Quentin. Therefore the money Jason is stealing represents the only way Caddy has of acting as a mother to her daughter. Jason’s role, then, becomes one of blocking the maternal forces that feebly try to manifest themselves, the irony being that he is his mother’s favorite child. He goes into a blind rage when he discovers that he has been robbed, and the action intensifies when he sets out to hunt down Miss Quentin with a manic quality reminiscent of Dmitri Karamazov trailing Grushenka in Dostoevsky’s novel. But Jason’s underlying infatuation with Miss Quentin precedes this robbery. He stalks her the way an ex-boyfriend might, and his detective work is rewarded when he spots her with the man with the red tie. The tie itself becomes a kind of symbol for Miss Quentin’s budding sexuality, a menstrual streak worn proudly by the man on his shirt.
But despite all this, Jason is as impotent as Benjy. We see this when he threateningly tries to provoke the sheriff into helping him find Miss Quentin: Jason told him, his sense of injury and impotence feeding upon its own sound, so that after a time he forgot his haste in the violent cumulation of his self justification and his outrage. And again: He repeated his story, harshly recapitulant, seeming to get an actual pleasure out of his outrage and impotence. (303) Faulkner underlines the masochistic element of Jason’s character, while at the same time exposing its hollowness. A question for the class: why does Jason get an “actual pleasure” from his own impotence, once he’s lost his money, especially considering how domineering and power-hungry he is?
Watch your Mouth: Jason’s anger, words, and the Southern Ideals
To put it simply, I hate Jason. He is without a doubt, one of the vilest characters I have met in a long time. Throughout his section, the reader is just flooded by his sexism and racism. And of course, there is that opening line of, “Once a bitch, always a bitch, what I say” (180). I believe it is this that defines Jason and what makes his section and him as a character completely different from the rest of the novel. On the one hand, a small (very small) part of me feels a sense of gratitude towards the despicable Jason because his section is written in the clearest fashion. If there is any type of realism in The Sound and the Fury, we see it in Jason. As readers, we just left Quentin, who by the end of his section has completely broken down and the writing mirrors that destruction. Jason’s linear section and clarification is a much needed breath of fresh air, however I believe Porter put it best: “But, the price we pay for clarification is a high one: we have to spend a good deal of time listening to Jason, who is certainly among the most repugnant figures in all literature” (47). And listen to him, we do. We listen to his disgusting racism and watch as he treats the women in his life as far lesser than man. Why does Jason have to be this way? Why do we have a character like this? Is it so that when Quentin finally does succeed in robbing him and running away we are sympathetic and understanding to her? Is the novel just falling into more traditional standards and giving the reader some form of necessary villain? I find it to be far more complex than that because, let us be honest, there is nothing traditional or easy about Faulkner.
Jason does not escape. He is the only Compson child who doesn’t. Now granted, none of them have a happy story or ending to begin with, but Jason remains where he was and does not leave. Caddy obviously is gone after the birth of her daughter, Quentin escapes sadly, through suicide and then there is Benjy. Benjy is a difficult one for me justify. However, I feel that since Benjy is given this title of “idiot” Faulkner never lets him become this fully developed character in the eyes of the other characters. We see a more developed mind as readers, but the rest of the Compson clan only hears his moans. So to me, Benjy is not fully “allowed” into the structure of the Compson family because he cannot fully “understand” and therefore, he does not have the ability to escape. So what are we left with? Jason. Horrible, despicable Jason. And in the end, Jason’s world is somewhat crumbling around him. He was just robbed by a young girl and her “red-tie” accomplice/boyfriend. It seems, to me, that Jason is a representation of Southern ideals. Now, I feel the need to clarify and say I am in no way implying that Southerners are racists and villains – not at all. Throughout this novel, we see the fall of the Compson family. They lose their finances, land, reputation and quite a bit of their faith too. Quentin and Caddy seem to mirror this loss. Quentin loses his life and Caddy her reputation and daughter. Jason is the only one who holds on to this life and continues to try and be that family. He is now the patriarch of the Compsons and while the family is practically gone and there is nothing to really show for themselves, Jason will continue to have the final say and be in control of the people around him (which are basically women and his black servants). This seems to mirror the fall of the Southern way of living. The Old South is gone – we are leaving that lifestyle behind. Caddy knows, Quentin knows it and possibly even Benjy (in his own way). Caddy acknowledges it through her sensuality and Quentin through his suicide. Even Miss Quentin through her rebellion. Yet, Jason holds on to these ideals through his vengeance and anger. By the end, as a reader I am cheering for Quentin and hoping for Jason to be made a fool. We push for this break from the Old South into something new. In the end, Jason does get “beaten” by Quentin, but we come full circle and end with Benjy’s moans. It seems that this break does not fully succeed, but rather remains tattered and in despair.
