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“Rigid Flowers” and Gaudiness: Jason and Dilsey’s Clashing Worldviews

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Although there are countless contrasts between the characters highlighted in the last two sections of The Sound and the Fury (Jason’s section, “April Sixth, 1928” and Dilsey’s section, “April Eighth, 1928”), one that is particularly compelling to me is the distinction made between the two segments’ central characters in terms of environmental indicators revealing the clash between the two characters’ worldviews.

Jason’s worldview is a very black and white one, as evidenced by his hateful dismissals of nearly everyone around him, including his own family members, based on reductive dichotomies (men = good, women = bad; white = good, black = bad, etc.) and his parallel inability to see anyone other than himself as a fully-fleshed person. Correspondingly, the environment in which Jason moves is a dark and drab one. The environmental cues hinting at Jason’s dark inner world exist in two somewhat paradoxical forms: decaying but ever-present nature and sterile urbanization. One instance of the coexistence of these elements occurs in the landscape surrounding Jason in the town of Mottson shortly after he becomes violent toward an elderly man while questioning him in an attempt to locate Quentin II. He describes an “empty platform where an express truck stood, where grass grew rigidly in a plot bordered with rigid flowers and a sign in electric lights,” which aligns with his overly rigid stance toward life (311). On the Compson property itself, the decaying weeds covering the property where sculpted gardens once reigned, in the glory days of the Compson family, signify the encroachment of nature onto the small amount of land that the family still owns, existing alongside the slow intrusion of urbanization, represented by the transformation of much of their land into a golf course, as discussed in class.

Dilsey’s view of the world is more colorful and expansive, resulting in the formation of warm and loving relationships with not only her family and select members of the Compson family but also the wider community of Jefferson, as evidenced by the affectionate greetings she receives from those she passes on her walk to church in the novel’s final section. The imagery interspersed throughout her quasi-narration of the last section is expressive of this. Dilsey is described as emerging from her cabin next to the Compson house on a Sunday morning clad in various articles such as a “maroon velvet cape” and “a dress of purple silk” as she moves among her various tasks. As she makes her way to the Compson house, “A pair of jaybirds came up from nowhere, whirled up on the blast like gaudy scraps of paper and lodged in the mulberries, where they swung in raucous tilt and recover” (266).

Also interesting is the manner in which these divergent worlds collide. Evidence of both worlds is observed by Jason and Dilsey alike and is intertwined throughout both of their narratives. Such a collision occurs in the opening lines of Dilsey’s section, upon her entrance into the Compsons’ world from her own home on their property:

The day dawned bleak and chill, a moving wall of gray light out of the northeast which, instead of dissolving into moisture, seemed to disintegrate into minute and venomous particles, like dust that, when Dilsey opened the door of the cabin and emerged, needled laterally into her flesh, precipitating not so much a moisture as a substance partaking of the quality of thin, not quite congealed oil. (265)

Since the world of Dilsey’s cabin is contained within the Compsons’ land, the color and life with which aspects of her life are infused appear to be merely specks of brightness within the larger, darker landscape of the Compson home. “Bleak and chill” days, “gray light,” and disintegrated “venomous particles” that violently pierce her skin assail her in the outside world.

Jason experiences similar collisions with what he views as “gaudy” intrusions into his rigid life. The colorful, dazzling fair that has come to Jefferson is a prime example. Jason spends a substantial portion of his section ranting about this fair, believing that it brings nothing of import to the town, although the people of Jefferson clearly derive satisfaction from it. Since Jason views everything in life as a transaction, he is of course unable to enjoy anything for the sake of enjoyment. This anger, which manifests throughout much of Jason’s section, perhaps reaches its zenith when Jason becomes frustrated with his search for Quentin II (“with her face painted up like a dam clown’s”) and the man with the bright red tie (232). When he sees the two in a passing car, recognizing both Quentin II’s face and the red tie, he “saw red,” stating “When I recognised that red tie, after all I had told her, I forgot about everything” (238). These incidents highlight an additional difference between Dilsey and Jason. When Jason is confronted with something that challenges his worldview, he often reacts with rage and violence, whereas Dilsey relies on her copious inner strength to traverse whatever comes her way.

tall tells: speech, power, and jason’s perspective

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From the outset, Jason’s character is specifically defined along a relationship to telling—as a child, it’s connected to his known position as a tattletale, and his early scenes in Benjy’s section of Jason only serve to confirm this. In these early glimpses, the act of “telling” bears a twofold function: it operates as a signifier of power as well as an act of self-determination. For example, in designating Dilsey to be in charge on the night of the funeral, their Father notes twice that the children must “mind Dilsey, now” (24). When Caddy then asks to be placed in charge, Jason disagrees:

“‘I wont.’ Jason said. ‘I’m going to mind Dilsey.’

‘You’ll have to, if Father says so.’ Caddy said. ‘Let them mind me, Father.’

‘I wont.’ Jason said. ‘I wont mind you.” (24, emphasis mine)

The act of verbalization implies a conveyance of power, at least in terms of the dynamic of the household. Through the act of verbalizing whom the children are to mind, the authority of their father becomes something able to be conferred, whether from himself to Dilsey, Dilsey to Caddy, etc. However, Jason also reveals the power of the act of verbalization to reveal. When Caddy mocks him for crying after eating, Jason threatens to tell on her only to have her answer, “You’ve already told. […] There’s not anything else you can tell, now” (26-27). Through “telling,” Jason has already played his card; once having revealed the secret, there is nothing further (at that point) for him to reveal. Simultaneously, the act of telling (about oneself) represents a means of self-determination. For example, “Jason said he wasn’t afraid of snakes and Caddy said he was but she wasn’t and Versh said they both were and Caddy said to be quiet, like Father said” (37). The act of verbalization performs multiple functions here. It draws Jason’s position as not afraid of snakes out of the abstract and unspoken into something more real, threatens consequence through an invocation of authority conveyed through speaking, and illustrates the volley between Caddy and Jason for a particular kind of social cachet (fearlessness among children).

In “telling” his side of things, Jason makes pronouncements in order to better defend his positions, often utilizing repetition as well as the structure of the rhetorical question to do so. This is first visible in an adolescent Jason’s exchange with Caddy: “You think you’re grown up, dont you. You think you’re better than anybody else, dont you…” (41). Caddy’s response is to demand his silence, which Jason refuses to heed, ending with a variation and repetition of his initial claim: “Just because you are fourteen, you think you’re grown up, dont you. […] You think you’re something. Dont you” (41). Further, his section of the novel opens with a character indictment that is anchored to a tag that attributes the comment to his act of speaking as he notes, “Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say,” which is repeated and used to bookend the end of his section as well, in a slightly variable form, “Like I say once a bitch always a bitch” (180, 263, emphasis mine). For the reader, his decision to verbalize is not only illustrated in his constant dialogue tags (“I says”), but also in the repeated uses of these phrasings, which continually foreground his position as the active speaker, a role that necessarily holds (or, at least, presents as) a position of narrative power. For example, in his run-in with Caddy later on, his rhetorical patterns emphasize the power he wields over her within the specific frame of the family—a power that is also defined by silence (a refusal to speak Caddy’s name):

“’We dont even know your name at that house,’ I says. ‘Do you know that? We dont even know your name. You’d be better off if you were down there with him and Quentin,’ I says. ‘Do you know that?’

‘I know it,’ she says” (203).

Jason dominates that particular exchange, and his position of power in the family is reasserted in his repetition and his ending question, which Caddy is then prompted to answer. In his dealings with Quentin (II), it is also his rigid control over Caddy’s “speech” (particularly through access to her letters) that gives him power over her, at least temporarily. In a novel where dialogue and speech constantly interject into the flow of narrative to redirect from linearity, Jason channels his furious presence into attempting to wrangle language into compliance through bluster and force as an attempt at salvaging not only the family reputation, but also his own.