Time plays a major role throughout this novel from the narrators’ constant jumping though time to the symbolism of Quentin’s watch. While reading the first half of this book I found the jumping through time to be incredibly confusing and wondered how in the world I was even going to get through this reading let alone write about it. I was quite relieved to find that Quentin’s chapter was not as sporadic as Benji’s and I could actually understand what was going on (I think). Moving forward I hope the rest of the book is easier to read but I won’t get my hopes up on that.

One of the more interesting things I found about Quentin’s chapter is his obsession with time and the symbolism of the watch in the beginning of the chapter. By opening up Quentin’s chapter with the image of the watch Faulkner is introducing us to a fundamental part of Quentin’s character. He is obsessed with time, in more ways than one.

The watch is given to him by his father, who has very interesting things to say about the watch as he is giving it to his son. He says, “I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire;” –What an odd thing to say when passing on a family heirloom, to tell your son essentially that the watch is where hope and desire goes to rest eternally– He then continues and says, “it’s rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s” (76). After having to look up what “recucto absurdum” is I can see how his father views Quentin. His father is worried about his obsession with time and trying to control life when life is a random mess of absurdities that changes for no one. He furthers this idea in his next line when he says, “I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it” (76).

Despite his fathers wishes for Quentin to not be so obsessed with trying to control time, Quentin becomes a ticking time bomb trying to maintain his family legacy that only he seems to be concerned with. In his description of the sound of the watch I was reminded of the ticking of the heart in Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Quentin tries to look away from the watch to stop thinking about it (out of site out of mind) but that only makes him think about it more. He talks about the shadows of the sash and the ticking in a way that it seems that the watch is haunting him. He drives himself to the point that he tries to destroy the watch.

He tells us that he “tapped the crystal on the corner of the dresser and caught the fragments of glass in my hand and put them into the ashtray and twisted the hands off and put them in the tray” (80). The entire thing is pretty violet. First he breaks the glass and when that is not enough he pulls out the hands and puts all of it in an ashtray. I think there is definitely some significance of the ashtray. The ash is yet another connection to death presented in these first few pages. Perhaps foreshadowing Quentin’s own death?

Having finished TSAF, I found myself thinking about Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm (1932), which to today’s readers feels most like a parody of Wuthering Heights but was, at the time, more directly directed at a series of early twentieth-century rural novels by D.H. Lawrence and other less prominent writers—angst-ridden, melodramatic pastorals full of miserable, hapless, and sometimes pseudo-romantic characters, set amid overblown descriptions of rural landscapes. In response, an impatient Gibbons palpably wonders why is everyone so miserable; why don’t they help themselves, and wrote a parody in which the brisk Flora Poste walks in with a modern, practical sensibility and takes control, transforming Cold Comfort Farm. For the hapless Adam Lambsbreath, who spends hours ineffectually “cletterin’ the dishes” with a twig, she buys a scrub brush. In an example only slightly more immediately relevant to TSAF, to the housebound hypochondriac matriarch, Aunt Ada Doom, Flora takes issues of Vogue, remakes her, and sends her, dressed in stylish clothes and with a new haircut, off on a European tour. If only someone would do the same for Mrs. Compson.

I understand the whole literary thing – TSAF as a sort of metaphor for the entire history of the south, from its prehistory through slavery through Faulkner’s present; its geography, natural history, and ecology; how it wraps all this up in a sort of stream-of-consciousness narrative that, in the way it invites the reader to piece together a traumatic history as experienced by individuals, mirrors the larger traumas of history and the impossibilities of making sense of them, etc.

But isn’t there a bit of wallowing going on here? Isn’t there some pleasure being taken in all this misery? What’s the ethics of that? Doesn’t it make this sort of wallowing seem vaguely romantic—or, if that’s too much, at some level inevitable? Further, the stream of consciousness approach in the first part—along with the misery—gives the whole thing a frisson of realism, which rather compounds the question of the misery and its ethics. Does portraying this whole world as inevitable imply an acceptance of the way things are, even a sort of permission…? (My implication: yes.)

(by Roz Chast)

To flip this on its side – is there an alternative presented? What does goodness look like in these passages? The last passage – most commonly described as the Dilsey section – apparently cannot really conceive of what that sort of goodness would look like; it’s neither first person, like the first three, nor does it particularly follow Dilsey’s consciousness in any close way. Is Dilsey good? Certainly her care and attention to Ben suggest characteristics of goodness – she advocates for him attending church (290), for example. She is also patient with Mrs. Compson and does some of Luster’s work of building a fire after he had a late night at a show (268). But there is no inner monologue, no internal dialogue or experience for her, as there was (to varying degrees) with Benjy, Quentin, and Jason. Madness, misery, and meanness can apparently be documented and closely examined in Faulkner’s world, but whatever Dilsey is – Patient? Good? Long-suffering? Tolerant? Supportive? There is no sense of depth or richness to this. Both Dilsey and her motivations remain a mystery, inaccessible to the reader. One cannot believe that after having written a stream-of-consciousness experience from the perspective of a man who is severely intellectually disabled, Faulkner balked at writing from the point of view of a black woman and servant. But there is nothing here that, as far as I can tell, seeks to understand Dilsey or her potential goodness and how this produces her experience; goodness is inexplicable, whereas misery apparently takes many forms and is worthy of extensive examination. (Of course there’s something to interpret and examine there – there usually is – but it’s not on the same level.)

And it’s not like Faulkner did something sooo unprecedented with the whole novel that he gets a pass: the character of Mrs. Compson is, judging by her reappearance in Cold Comfort, something of a cliché. So while it is most recognized as a stream-of-consciousness novel, TSAF also pulls from a particular genre of rural melodrama, which has apparently largely been confined to the dustbin of literary history. That no one reads those novels probably helps Faulkner’s reputation, all things considered; he appears to be in a league entirely of his own. But he was not inventing from scratch.

Of Cold Comfort, Gibbons noted that “I think, quite without meaning to, I presented a kind of weapon to people, against melodrama and the over-emphasising of disorder and disharmony, and especially the people who rather enjoy it. I think the book could teach other people not to take them seriously, and to avoid being hurt by them.” What’s the hurt in TSAF? I’d suggest that it is the naturalization if not romanticization of a certain kind of misery and abuse, which Gibbons recognized (and experienced as a child). And I think that it’s easy to dismiss this sort of complaint as being soft-hearted, or missing the point, or lacking in rigor. But I think that the ways in which Faulkner is hailed as a genius are connected to a highly masculine set of literary values – one in which misery implies distinction, everything is sort of solitary, and there is no possibility of redemption through things like empathy or goodness. (Small wonder that he didn’t attempt a more profound understanding of Dilsey.) And this is something that Gibbons was quite right to criticize.

Unlike the first section of the novel, the influence of outside beverages was not a requisite in my finishing the novel; in fact, just yesterday, I powered through 230 pages!

Still, as I look at the back of the book and read “Faulkner’s masterpiece” in the description, I have to reflect on why this is the emblematic Faulkner text.

Although this is only the first text of his I have read, TSAF is replete with the definitive features that make it a real stand out title. First and foremost, the vignette structure of the novel complements the dysfunctional nature of the Compson family beautifully.

Part I is told through the eyes of a “newborn” and acquaints readers with their surroundings in the same hazy way that said newborns experience the world. Part II proves equally fragmented and challenging to read due to Quentin (Sr.) ‘s chaotic memories and thoughts preserved in italics but at least gives us a character with a remarkable backstory to latch onto. Part III puts us behind the lens of our first comparatively sane character, Jason, but reveals much about how his circumstances lead him to become one of the most detached personalities in the novel. Finally, Part IV takes a more omniscient approach switching back and forth between Jason, Dilsey and Luster to provide a world view of Jason’s defamation that he worked so  hard to prevent in relation to the Compson family and society around them.

What TSAF accomplishes in adopting this format is that it allows readers to perceive “the sound and fury” that mentally dysfunctional and incompetent individuals experience from within and around the minds of individuals with varying degrees of ineptitude and then compare them to other members of society such as the household servants or Jason’s coworkers.

While progressing through the novel, my reading provided me a commentary on how socio-economic-religious conformity creates false expectations for success. For instance, the mother is a central figure in sustaining pure Christian ethics in the Compson family unit by booting the incestuous Caddy from the family and preventing Quentin (Jr.) from learning of her existence. This, however, only creates more problems because Quentin resists the authoritarian nature of her substitute father Jason while Jason is afraid that Quentin’s scandalous nature will ruin his standing in the community whereas his own incompetence as a substitute father and obsession with money is what actually tarnishes said standing.

Conceptually, TSAF boasts a very engaging plot line and character roster both of which speak to many themes about the human condition mentally and socially while the challenging nature of the writing causes readers to retrain their brain to read the text. The difficulty is a testament to readers’ aptitude and flexibility as well as the daunting nature of the subject, insanity and irregularity and the impetuses behind them.

On these fronts, I would argue that Faulkner has achieved mastery and although the road to getting there is slow and daunting and seems to be filled with much filler, I can’t say I would have the author write it any other way (although I think it would be a neat project to read the text back in a different order). The sheer potential and invitation for multiple readthroughs definitely constitutes the artistic nature of the book and while I am hesitant to call it “Faulkner’s masterpiece,” — especially so early into his literary works — I gladly reminisce on the fact that I was able to endure “the sound and fury” of The Sound and the Fury and recommend other aspiring literati do the same.

Throughout part 2 of TSAF, Quentin obsesses over time, trying to make sense of his father’s words, “Because Father said clocks slay time. He 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). His first interpretation is literal and he breaks his watch – only to find that he is unable to physically stop time from ticking forward. Interestingly, Quentin doesn’t need a watch to tell the time as he has learned to tell time by the sun, looking at where shadows fall on the ground. When he tries to ignore the time, he literally turns away from the window because based on where the shadow of the sash falls he would unwittingly know the time. He has almost completely internalized it and marks every moment by it. In a way, Quentin feels time, he has become time. Once we realize where his day will lead, his father’s words take on new meaning. Does time represent Quentin, and the clock is life beating him down? Is this why he is planning suicide? So that he (time) may “come to life” when the clock (life) stops?

A moment at the jeweler’s shop provides Quentin with a new revelation “There were about a dozen watches in the window, a dozen different hours and each with the same assertive and contradictory assurance that mine had, without any hands at all. Contradicting one another. I could hear mine, ticking away inside my pocket, even though nobody could see it, even though it could tell nothing if anyone could” (85).  All along, Quentin has been thinking that time is universal, but really time is individual. Every person has his own clock/life and they are rarely in sync. Instead, people just make noise over each other, contradicting each other. The removal of the watch hands foreshadows Quentin’s ceasing his physical life. Will this stop the gears from clicking forward? Is Quentin sill a force, even if he cannot be seen or heard?

I think that Quentin is questioning this, as is evidenced by his contradiction of sound and silence. Silence, to Quentin, is as much of a force as sound is. “’Do you like fishing better than swimming?’ I said. The sound of the bees diminished, sustained yet, as though instead of sinking into silence, silence merely increased between us, as water rises” (123).  And again, “When you opened the door a bell tinkled, but just once, high and clear and small in the neat obscurity above the door, as though it were gauged and tempered to make that single clear small sound so as not to wear the bell out nor to require the expenditure of too much silence in restoring it when the door opened upon the recent warm scent of baking” (125). Silence becomes something that moves, it rises and expands. Silence takes up space. How should we interpret this?

Sound, being actual frequency waves, is easier to picture as a tangible force. Quentin feels sound as an active force many times, such as “…his voice hammering back and forth” (124). But silence hits harder. “The bird whistled again, invisible, a sound meaningless and profound, inflexionless, ceasing as though cut off with the blow of a knife” (136). This violence of silence persists as a motif throughout Quentin’s chapter. Faulkner develops this through his stream of consciousness writing. There is no such thing as pure silence for Faulkner’s characters and his reader. Silence is a barrage of memories and fantasy; random words and remembered phrases. There is fury in silence.

This helps us make the connection between Faulkner’s title and its inspiration, a speech by Macbeth.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing                            (Macbeth, Act 5, Sc 5)

Quentin knows that you cannot stop the creeping “to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,” as time will always continue to click ahead. But there is a “recorded time.” In modern times, this is marked by watches and clocks and the sun. If we read “recorded time” as time in a person’s life, then each person would have a “last syllable” – a last living moment. Quentin is slowly marching toward this. He literally walks on his shadow throughout the passage. “The chimes began as I stepped on my shadow” (96). And he is haunted by all of his yesterdays, those thoughts that fill the spaces left by absent sound – that silent fury.

I am interested in the visible fragmented memory forms in Quentin’s section, “June Second, 1910” of William Faulkner’s TSAF and the way they weave along simultaneously with the present. As I parsed through the voices and time-frame distinctions early on in this chapter, (of course somewhat less extreme than the previous chapter, albeit no less complex) I became fascinated with the formal elements that signaled change in a way that was somehow as fragmented as it was seamless.

Frequently throughout chapter two, we encounter fragmented italicized bursts of memory and conversation that are, often but not always, entrenched deeply with stress, anxiety, and other strong emotions. The italics vary in their placement in relation to the non-italicized text: they appear abruptly in the middle of sentences, “I carried the books into the sitting-room and stacked them on the table, the ones I had brought from home and the ones  Father said it used to be a gentleman was known by his books; nowadays he is known but he ones he has not returned  and locked the trunk and addressed it” (81), and they appear as stand alone paragraphs, “She didn’t mean that that’s the way women do things it’s because she loves Caddy” (96). Both of these examples can generally be characterized as coherent thoughts, with the first italicized passage going so far as to directly relate to the non-italic text is is encompassed by. Of course, however, the coherence of the italicized bursts vary, sometimes even seeming to be discontinuous with surrounding italicized text: “Seen the doctor yet     have you seen     Caddy [new line] I dont have to I cant ask now afterward it will be all right it wont matter” (128). The exaggerated spacing in the first part of this passage suggests perhaps a memory detail containing heightened trauma, which could explain its inconsistency with the following italics. A similar depiction of this kind of heightened-trauma-displayed-via-italics is when we encounter sprinklings of repeated phrases, such as “Sold the pasture” two times at the start and end of a paragraph on page 124, and “He smell hit.” right after one another on page 90 (which also contains a rare instance of punctuation within the italics). The italic fragments offer a visible indication of an alteration in narrative; we know we are usually in the past when we see them, and that they are detailing a thought, dialogue, or mental anxiety that deviates from the rest of the text. Although the italics are reliable signposts in this way, the chapter does not rely exclusively on them as indicators of strife or moments from the past. There are instances of non-italicized fragments that appear within and alongside the narrative that are representative of strife, such as the repetition of “Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames.” (80), for example. In Carolyn Porter’s description of each character’s central characteristics in her text William Faulkner: Lives and Legacies, she notes that “despair and confusion descend on us with Quentin” (48), encapsulating this feverish back and forth within the chapter, and perhaps giving reason behind its frenzied state, in addition to the fact that he is already in a heightened state due to it being the day of his suicide.

Although not finite in its employment, the use of italics to signify a change in chapter two of TSAF is a formal tool that is organizational and playful. I found myself frequently giving in to the temptation of reading only the sentence strands in italics within a paragraph, and then beginning the paragraph again to read the subsequent non-italic strands for its separate content. While this probably takes away from some of its intended disorientation, I enjoyed engaging in the separate-but-simultaneous structure form that Faulkner crafted via visible word emphasis that seems to be (usually) reliable and playful.

Benjy’s stream-of-consciousness account in TSAF is as much a blueprint of how the human psyche operates as it is an exercise in literary form. It is a pastiche of meaningful events that in many ways can be more revealing than a strict sequential narrative might otherwise have. Each episode of action, though seemingly chronologically disparate and disconnected, is deeply related for Benjy. Shifts in time occur by a “trigger” that resurfaces an emotionally significant moment in Benjy’s life. We see this in operation at the very first time-shift when Benjy’s clothing is caught on a nail, “‘wait a minute,’ Luster said. ‘You snagged on that nail again. Can’t you never crawl though here without snagging on that nail.’ Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through” (4). The physical presence of the nail, as well as the action of being “uncaught” transports Benjy’s account to another time where he is with Caddy in a similar situation. However, it is not just physical objects alone that may serve as triggers for Benjy. Smells, sounds, and even spoken words also figure as objects of transport through which Benjy moves.

Benjy’s account demonstrates an unusual formation of consciousness that appears aberrant in how it organizes the world. Everything he experiences is endowed with emotional significance, creating a web of metonymic relations. We see this most clearly in Benjy’s common refrain “Caddy smelled like trees” (42). While it is not directly apparent why he would attach this mental signifier to Caddy- perhaps an allusion to the incident in which Caddy climbed the tree to peek into the family funeral- it further demonstrates that Benjy’s memory and experience is codified by emotional impact, as if his emotional reaction is not only imprinted into the memory, but all figures, sensations, and physical objects that may have related to the incident. In this way, it is impossible for Benjy to forget or not re-experience the entirety of his life in any given moment. Caddy is the smell of trees, so-to-speak.

Benjy’s consciousness therefore seems to us an utterly passive, or at least severely constrained agency. His inability to form speech and express himself (nor leave the estate grounds for that matter) effectively renders him a sort of dumping ground for the family. As his inner monologue expresses, “I came to the corner of the fence and I couldn’t go any further, and I held to the fence, looking after them and trying to say” (Italics mine, 52). He is at once the manifestation of family shame, and its psychological record, an “emotional bank” for all inter-familial conflict, struggle, and trauma that has been repressed into a speechless agency.

Faulkner’s choice to open the novel with this account sets an intentional framework for how he sees the impact of traumatic relationships affecting psycho-social development. That’s to say, by exposing the reader to an account that is necessarily contingent upon the emotional histories of the past, the reader adjusts their understanding of events as always related to the present moment. That past is always present, affecting and molding both the physical spaces which are described, and its human characters as well.

Sense, Smell, and Caddy

TSAF 75: “Caddy held me and I could hear us all, and the darkness, and something I could smell.  And then I could see the windows, where the trees were buzzing.  Then the dark began to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it always does, even when Caddy says that I have been asleep.”

The quote above offers a fine example of the way Benjy’s mind combines various sensory impressions in unconventional ways.  There are a number of interpretations that one could derive from the first sentence given its syntax.  But, in one particular interpretation, one can spot an example of synesthesia at play in Benjy’s mind.  The phrase, “I could hear us all, and the darkness” could be understood to mean that Benjy could hear the darkness.  Such an interpretation would reveal that Benjy hears a visual quality—i.e. the darkness.  According to this understanding of the sentence, it appears that Benjy fails to distinguish between these two senses or he confuses them.  This could be the case either because his cognitive impairment causes him confusion or because he interprets the world in a more profound or complex way enabling him to create unconventional associations.  Either way, this quote provides an example of one of the rich and unusual associations that are characteristic of Benjy’s cognition and that repeatedly occur throughout his section.  Another great example of synesthesia in which three different sensory experiences are combined comes appears when Benjy observes, “I couldn’t feel the gate at all, but I could smell the bright cold” (TSAF 6).

Furthermore, the phrase “something I could smell” could be variously interpreted.  This phrase could be a simple statement of an existence.  That is, with the phrase “something I could smell,” Benjy lists something that existed in the room with him and his siblings.  Or, this phrase could mean that he “could hear” something that he could also smell.  Given this interpretation, the fact that Benjy employs both his senses of hearing and smell to characterize this object illustrates the prominent role that Benjy’s sensory organs play in his comprehension of the world.  In particular, the sense of smell features highly in this section.  Benjy frequently notes the smell of his sister Caddy whom he often characterizes as smelling like trees.  Since smell and Caddy are both important to Benjy or prominent aspects of his life, it seems fitting that he associates a particular smell with his sister.

Furthermore, the phrase “Caddy held me” illustrates Caddy’s important position as primary nurturer for Benjy.  This phrase positions Caddy as a subject who acts on Benjy.  In this way, she performs the invaluable service of holding and thereby comforting him.  This action differs from those of Benjy’s relatives in that it is dedicated directly to him.  Earlier in this section, the others do things with Benjy but not necessarily for him solely.  They tend to talk about Benjy or direct him in a way that differs qualitatively from Caddy’s holding.  In other words, Benjy’s siblings and other acquaintances connect with him through actions and words rather than through emotions.  This scene provides a prime example of how Caddy taps into Benjy’s emotional side by participating in the highly sentimental act of holding her brother.

It also appears that this act is significant for Benjy since it is the first thing he mentions upon listing his impressions of the moment.  In fact, he first establishes his physical position in relation to Caddy, specifically as the object of Caddy’s actions.  After placing himself in the object position with regard to Caddy (“Caddy held me”), his reference to self then assumes the subject position in relation to “us all” (“I could hear us all”).  It is noteworthy that Benjy sees and establishes himself in relation to Caddy before clarifying his relationship to the others.  The special position that Caddy occupies in Benjy’s memory of this night scene echoes the emotional significance that she plays in his life overall.  In his interview with Jean Stein vanden Heuvel, Faulkner remarks on the cherished placed that Caddy occupies for Benjy stating, “He [Benjy] recognized tenderness and love though he could not have named them, and it was the threat to tenderness and love that caused him to bellow when he felt the change in Caddy” (Interview 233).  By remembering her smell and actions and establishing his relationship to the world relative to Caddy, Benjy reveals her significance to him.

While reading The Sound and the Fury, Malcolm Cowley’s observation of Quentin’s troubled relationship to the South in The Portable Faulkner continued to resonate with me. Speaking of Quentin he says, “he tells a long and violent story that he regards as the essence of the Deep South, which is not so much a mere region as it is, in Quentin’s mind, an incomplete and frustrated nation trying to relive its legendary past” (10). Here, Cowley’s reference to Quentin is aligned with the way he figures in Absalom, Absalom!, but I think this application is also useful for understanding Quentin’s character in TSAF. Cowley’s observation piqued my interest with regard to how the South functions as a character that haunts and often forestalls the novel’s present, and how TSAF’s character’s operate in relation to their own legendary past within a Southern framework. One of the ways I registered this notion of haunting is through the recurring image of shadows in both Benjy and Quentin’s sections. Arguably, these shadows have a metaphoric relationship that ties the fraught Compson family history to that of the American South. Yet, because this relationship is decidedly too capacious a topic for a single blog post, I’ll simply focus on a few scenes in which shadows weave throughout and direct the narrative.  

As Lester and Benjy walk along the fence that marks the borders between the Compson residence and a golf course, Benjy overhears Caddy’s name uttered by a golfer on the opposite side of the fence (“Fore caddie”), albeit in a context Benjy is unfamiliar with. The mention of Caddy’s name sends Benjy’s attention to the shadows before him. “Our shadows were on the grass. They got to the trees before we did. Mine got there first. Then we got there, and then the shadows were gone” (54). While Benjy is decidedly speaking in the present, and therefore documenting his and Lester’s shadows in the now, there’s an element of longing in his thought that invokes not only the past, but Caddy specifically. What’s important here is Benjy’s longstanding association between Caddy and trees; as he watches his shadow disappear into the trees before him, he loses sight of what it is he’s longing for.

Likewise, Quentin’s Southern roots continue to haunt him in ways that transcend his relocation to the North. Shadows follow him as he narrates the events leading up to his suicide. Departing his dorm, he notes, “The shadow hadn’t quite cleared the stoop. I stopped inside the door, watching the shadow move. It moved almost perceptibly, creeping back inside the door, driving the shadow back into the door (81). Here, it’s almost as though Quentin’s shadow evades him, as though he’s unable to control its trajectory. As Quentin’s shadow is driven back inside, the narrative shifts to his traumatic and chaotic memories of Caddy. The shadows that flow alongside both Benjy and Quentin resonate with the determinist claim their mother makes regarding the fate of the Compson family: “but who can fight against bad blood” (104). Yet as these shadows doggedly adhere to the narrative’s characters, it’s interesting to consider what underwrites the “bad blood” they seem to have inherited.

In William Faulkner’s TSAF, the reader is introduced to the author’s uniques style from the first page. Benjy is the first narrator in the novel who presents the story from his own perspective, the perspective of a person with disabilities. However, it is through this disability that Faulkner excels in conveying his literary ability to use sensual imagery to draw light on Benjy‘s insecurities and fear, as well as the constant transition in time with flashbacks which are completely in compliance which Benjy‘s mental immaturity. However, we discover the consistent peculiarity of Faulkner’s style when we reach the second section of TSAF with Quentin’s narration of events which occurred prior to Benjy‘s section.The dates presented as titles for each section draw our awareness of the continuation of Faulkner’s time shift. Again Quentin’s narration focuses on the use of sensual imagery ; nonetheless, Faulkner suits the imagery used to his narrator.Thus, TSAF’s introduction and rising action is seen through the lens of Benjy’s and Quentin’s character and their own sensual interpretation of events.

April Seventh,1928 is an ideal date for Benjy’s section with ” Caddy smelled like leaves” (p.6) as the source of security and happiness to Benjy. April allows for all the outdoor narration “out of the bright cold, into the dark cold.” (p.7) where smells and shadows have a major effect on Benjy’s emotions and consequently on his narration. For him, Caddy as a motherly figure was always compared to a beautiful smell ” Caddy smelled like trees” and then when events start changing ” Caddy smelled like trees in the rain”(p.19) and reaching the point where “I couldn’t smell trees anymore and I began to cry.” (p.40) Faulkner also uses Benjy’s smell lens to compare between Versh’s compassion towards Benjy in the past and Luster’s aggressiveness in the present .” We went to Versh’s house. I liked to smell Versh’s house.”(p.28) Through Benjy’s narration of the lake incident, the different characters are seen in action with Caddy caring but rebellious, Quentin strict yet easily swayed character and Jason balanced but uncaring nature. Benjy ‘s purity allows the reader the objectivity needed to form his/her opinion of each character through their words and actions especially with regards to their attitude towards Benjy. The different flashbacks highlights an important moment in the Quentin’s family which is Damuddy’s sickness. As Benjy describes it ” A door opened and I could smell it more than ever, a head came out. It wasn’t father.Father was sick there”….”Better keep him there. It wasn’t Father. He shut the door, but I could still smell it.”(p.34)

Quentin’s section opens with a direct flashback through the titled date ‘June Second,1910’; however, the shadows haunting the events are still present and ties the two sections together. Mother’s gift to Benjy with the soothing box of stars “Caddy got the box and set it on the floor and opened it. It was full of stars. When I was still they were still. When I moved, they glinted and sparkled.I hushed.”(p.11) is replaced by Father’s gift to Quentin with his grandfather’s watch. The sound of the watch replaces the soothing effect of Benjy’s stars with Quentin’s restless and stressed feeling ” I was in time again, hearing the watch….when father gave it to me he said …apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s”(p.76) The futility of the watch in helping its owner adjust in society is literally expressed at the beginning of the chapter preparing us for the succession of events in the family, especially with regards the brother-sister relationship of Quentin and Caddy till it reaches its peak with Quentin falsely confessing ” I have committed incest I said Father it was I it was not Dalton Adams.”(p.79) For Quentin, the flow of time, water and blood allows him to form an opinion of rapidly changing events. His loving overprotective nature towards Caddy and towards the little Italian girl in the parallel sub-plot conveys his constant attempt to protect others as a means of fitting in the family and fitting in society. ” The displacement of water is equal to the something of something. Reducto absurdum of all human experience… What a sinful waste Dilsey would say. Benjy knew it when Damuddy died. He cried he smelled hit.”(p.90).

It is the intermingling of different sensory images that takes us to the confrontation between Quentin and Caddy and Quentin’s full realization of Caddy’s situation. The italic flashbacks for his mother and father are no longer important to convey Quentin’s thoughts ; it is his obsession on knowing Caddy’s true feelings. In a regular clock pace the text shifts to short interrogative phrases between Quentin and Caddy  ” Caddy you hate him don’t you…she moved my hand up against her throat her heart was hammering there”(p.151) The pulse and sound become an indication of her feelings. Nonetheless, it is through the change of the phrase she uses towards her brothers that Faulkner escalates the scene starting from ” poor Benjy” to “poor Quentin”moving to”Don’t cry poor Quentin” and “stop Quentin”, ” whatre you going to do Quentin” and finally revealing ” Im bad anyway you can’t help it theres a curse on us its not our fault.”(p.158)

Both sections depict significant dates and flashbacks which represent key moments for the Quentin’s family. One with the constant flashback to Damuddy’s sick days and the attempts to provide a quiet and silent surrounding despite Benjy’s condition. The other is the tumultuous realization of Caddy’s incest and Quentin’s shock towards her desire to leave the family. All in all, Faulkner creates a lively image of his TSAF’s characters through the peculiarity of his narrators and the analogy between different sensory images of smell, shadow, sound and water which makes the reader eager to follow the succession of events within this cursed family.