Tag Archives: Quentin Compson

“Every Man is the Arbiter of His Own Virtues”

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I would like to zero in on a quote occurring twice within the stream of consciousness section appearing toward the end of Quentin’s narrative, “June Second, 1910,” in The Sound and the Fury. During an imagined conversation with his father in which Quentin falsely confesses to committing incest with his sister Caddy, Quentin’s father states that “every man is the arbiter of his own virtues” (176). Although the meaning of this statement (and Quentin’s section as a whole) is still not completely clear to me, the quote evokes for me the dueling nature of Quentin’s thoughts as he approaches his death (his own moral code and his love for his sister in opposition to social mores) and provides insight into societal attitudes of the time regarding women’s sexuality.

Quentin’s final internal monologue is bookended by the phrases “The three quarters began. The first note sounded, measured and tranquil, serenely peremptory, emptying the unhurried silence” and “The last note sounded. At last it stopped vibrating and the darkness was still again” (176; 178). These markers usher in and out the tumult of thoughts accompanying Quentin’s final preparations for his suicide and indicate the contrast between the outer world and his inner turmoil. Toward the beginning of this section appears the first instance of the statement at hand: “every man is the arbiter of his own virtues,” directly followed by “whether or not you consider it courageous is of more importance than the act itself than any act otherwise,” perhaps in reference to Quentin’s decision to commit suicide (176). Providing additional emphasis, Quentin’s father repeats the statement toward the end of the section: “every man is the arbiter of his own virtues but let no man prescribe for another mans wellbeing” (178). Quentin’s father appears to be advocating for individuals’ ascription of meaning to take precedence over the meanings delineated by society.

Although an aspirational statement, Quentin’s father’s assertion doesn’t otherwise ring true for me, since while it is true that societal values are simply constructions, the extent to which one can define one’s own virtues and have these definitions mean anything in society varies greatly dependent on one’s gender, race, etc. Such descriptive power appears to be reserved for men like Quentin and his father. Rather than being simply an abstract concept to puzzle over, this issue for Caddy is rooted in her lived experience. Although Caddy does indeed define and live by her own standards by freely expressing her sexuality, there is a point at which her autonomy ends: once she is “found out” by her husband when he realizes that she is pregnant, her personal standards move her beyond the boundaries of acceptable femininity of the time and she is punished severely through permanent separation from her daughter and home (as enforced by her own brother, Jason). Furthermore, although Caddy’s loss of her virginity and her subsequent promiscuity do help to precipitate the downfall of the Compson family, the person whom these events affect most harshly is Caddy herself, a fact that is shrouded within Quentin’s thoughts. Thus, Caddy certainly does not appear to be the arbiter of her own virtues.

However, Quentin himself is also unable to extract himself from the values that society thrusts upon him and Caddy. Based on descriptions of their relationship appearing throughout Quentin’s section, Quentin and Caddy appear to be quite close; they can perhaps even be seen as doubles in a sense, as made apparent within Quentin’s internal monologue when he describes them as fusing into one entity: “if people could only change one another forever that way merge like a flame swirling up for an instant then blown cleanly out along the cool eternal dark” (176). Quentin seems to view Caddy’s struggles as intertwined with his own and perhaps sees them as encapsulating the general clash of individuals against stringent societal norms. This thought of Quentin’s may also indicate, however, that despite their closeness, Quentin is unable to see Caddy fully: he seems to have trouble thinking of her as a whole person who is separate and distinct from himself. The fractured manner in which Quentin sees Caddy is reiterated for the reader through the fact that we are never granted access to Caddy’s own thoughts. Instead, we view them through other, male, characters’ eyes such as Quentin’s, and this lens through which Caddy’s and Quentin’s own experiences are filtered is that of society, a lens that Quentin cannot quite set aside. Quentin grapples with this complexity until almost the moment of his suicide.

Thomas Sutpen: A Man’s Man

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Absalom, Absalom!, like Light in August before it, reflects a shift in Faulkner’s literary approach and subject matter from a focus on single families, as in The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, to larger, though fragmented, communities. Thomas Sutpen, the central figure in Absalom, Absalom!, stands as the patriarchal locus of the townspeople of Jefferson that is so captivated, mesmerized and repulsed, by him. All of the novel’s narrators give voice to the obsessive nature with which the entire town observes and judges Sutpen. Albeit for different reasons (i.e. Rosa’s personal resentment, Shreve’s quest for knowledge of the South), they are each compelled to outline his mysterious and complicated influence on themselves, their families, and the town of Jefferson at large. In this light, Sutpen’s presence may be seen for the patriarchal notions he upholds.

Quentin’s narration, in particular, reflects the complex reverence, founded by fear and lack of understanding, that Sutpen’s contemporaries held towards him. Quentin, like the citizens of Jefferson, Sutpen’s neighbors, see him in light of the influence he carved out and collected for himself from that “best virgin bottom land in the country” (AA 26). More specifically, he and they, both, see this influence in light of its patriarchal domination, as is reflected by Quentin’s ponderings on the essence of fatherhood in a conversation he has with Shreve: “Yes. Maybe we are both Father . . . Yes, we are both Father. Or maybe Father and I are both Shreve, maybe it took Father and me both to make Shreve or Shreve and me both to make Father or maybe Thomas Sutpen to make all of us,” (AA 210). In Quentin’s mind Sutpen is painted as an ultimate, capital “F”, Father figure, which harks back to Quentin’s own allusions to Sutpen, based on Rosa’s first descriptions of him, as embodying a Godlike essence: “Then in the long unamaze Quentin seemed to watch them . . . drag house and formal gardens violently out of the soundless Nothing and clap them down like cards upon a table beneath the up-palm immobile and pontific, creating the Sutpen’s Hundred, the Be Sutpen’s Hundred like the oldentime Be Light” (AA 4).

This latter association is particularly interesting, considering the perspective that created it (Quentin’s) versus the one that inspired its creation (Rosa’s). In other words, the question that begs to be answered is: “What meaning lies in the fact that Quentin likens Sutpen to God based on Rosa’s continuous and explicit reference to him as a ‘demon’ and ‘ogre’?” Firstly, I would point to the different social standing each character embodies. Rosa, who describes herself as “an orphan a woman and a pauper,” holds a much lower status in the social hierarchy of the time compared to Quentin (AA 12-13). Simply because of his maleness and the respectability, declining though it is, of the Compson name he bears, Quentin is able to neutralize Rosa’s acutely negative portrayal of Sutpen into one marked by first and foremost by awe, rather than disgust. Secondly, Quentin is the direct descendant, the grandson, of Sutpen’s first friend in Jefferson, General Compson. This highlights the patrilineal aspect of Quentin’s privilege that leads him to develop such a reverent conception of Sutpen.

Sutpen himself, too, reflects the novel’s patrilineal structure and focus. His ultimate goal in life, what motivates his every action, is revealed by the “design” he refers to in Chapter 7 (AA 212). This “design,” of course, is fundamentally entwined in patriarchy and patrilineality. As he supposedly explained to General Compson, “To accomplish it I should require money, a house, a plantation, slaves, a family—incidentally of course, a wife,” it becomes clear that Sutpen’s objective was about establishing a solid patriarchal footing in the place of Sutpen’s Hundred (AA 212). The money, the mansion, the slaves and plantation would serve to perpetuate power within the Sutpen lineage, or family. That Sutpen is concerned primarily with his theoretical male descendants, his patrilineage, is more than clear from his assessment of the role his theoretical wife will play into his scheme: necessary for biological reasons, but not symbolically integral to his plan, personally meaningful, or emotionally beneficial.

Analysis of Benjy’s Narration

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Benjy, a thirty three year old man with the mental state of a three year old, does not have the ability to formulate his own thoughts or understand the significance of what he experiences. His life is dictated by scents, sounds, shapes, and cues from the present that leads a chain of displaced memories; all of which may present Benjy’s inability to discern the past and the present. Though Benjy may seem as an unreliable narrator due to his mental disability, in fact, from his mental disability it becomes clear the constant disarray of memory shifts is targeted by his sensitivity and awareness to the present. He does not have the ability to understand what he sees, which presents only a reliable and unbiased view of his family. The irony presented in his narration is his family views Benjy’s disability as the downfall of their family, on the other hand, the downfall of the family is sought upon their own incompetency.

Though his memories are discontinued and leaves much of his memories unclear, each memory brings misfortune upon the family. From the scene with Benjy’s mother wearing a veil carrying flowers into a carriage (9-10) emphasizing death, to Caddy’s threats of running away (19) signs of the family breaking apart, early signs of promiscuity from Caddy’s comfort of undressing in front of her brothers by the lake,  Caddy and Jason’s fight over the drawings (65), and to the mother’s illness all indicate signs of drastic change and the overall downfall of the family(74). Throughout each timeframe a new dilemma occurs amongst family members in which Benji seem’s to be at the fore point and cries as he witnesses the separation amongst each family member.

April 7, 1928 does not have much significance except it gives us a disarray of memories. From Benjy’s narration, Faulkner does not give us much insight into Quentin, Jason, and his father but it is clear how Caddy, Benjy’s mother, Roskus, and Dilsey affects Benjy’s life. Caddy and Dilsey act his true caretakers/mother while Benjy’s mother, Mrs. Compson, believes her son is deteriorating her family’s reputation and slowly isolating the family from other people (8).

The most significant character presented in Benjy’s narration is Caddy. Many if not all of Benjy’s memories have Caddy present, conscious of her physical appearance. Her undergarment as dirty,  his sister removing her clothes(18,74), Caddy and Charlie by the swings (47), and when he sleeps with her he notices she does not take her bathrobe off (44). Those all indicate physical awareness and perhaps physical attraction towards Caddy. The end of the chapter may indicate his mother dying from her illness and Caddy’s innocence taken from her as she develops into a women and into more of a motherly role. Perhaps Caddy’s promiscuity is the catalyst for her family’s destruction.