The Sound and the Fury

1
The Sound and the Fury

• Quentins Chapter
• Part I

2
Plot Line

• Skipping school
• Breaks watch
• Hardware store (flat irons)
• Goes to Charles River on a street car

• Bland picnic
• Little Italian Girl
• Back to Cambridge
• Leaves againdrowns himself

3
Quentin and Benjy
4
Influence of Mr. Compson

• Nihilism
• Every lesson or piece of advice given by Mr.
  Compson to Quentin is Nihilistic by nature

5
Mr. Compson and Education

• Where the best of thought Father said clings
  like dead ivy vines upon old dead brick. (95)
• Yet education is very important to Quentin
• Quentin is often portrayed as studying in Benjys
  chapter

6
Mr. Compson and Inheritance

• Watch
• Page 76
• It was Grandfathers and when Father gave it to
  me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope
  and desire

7
Mr. Compson and Inheritance

• Because no battle is ever won he said. They are
  not even fought. The field only reveals to man
  his own folly and despair, and victory is an
  illusion of philosophers and fools.

8
Mr. Compson and Inheritance

• Yet Quentin is in a battle
• Preserve the Southern Code?
• Preserve the Southern Gentleman?
• Preserve and protect Caddy?

9
Mr. Compson and Inheritance

• Is the watch really the inheritance given to
  Quentin?
• Or is it Mr. Compsons nihilistic philosophy?

10
Mr. Compson and Fundamental Human Nature

• any live man is better than any dead man but no
  live or dead man is very much better than any
  other live or dead man (102)

11
Mr. Compson and Fundamental Human Nature

• Man the sum of his climatic experience Father
  said. Man the sum of what have you. A problem in
  impure properties carried tediously to an
  unvarying nil stalemate of dust and desire.
  (124)

12
Mr. Compson and Fundamental Human Nature

• Man stalemates of dust and desire
• The duality of our nature fighting to a
  standstill
• Blood versus environment
• Nature versus nurture
• Neither is victorious

13
Mr. Compson and Fundamental Human Nature

• Man a problem in impure properties
• Naturally impure?
• Naturally flawed?

14
Mr. Compson and Fundamental Human Nature

• Man a sum of his climatic experiences
• Are we defined by our environment?
• Not our blood?

15
Mr. Compson and Fundamental Human Nature

• Man the sum of what have you
• Nonchalant tone
• Are we meaningless?

16
Mr. Compson and Time

• Page 76, first paragraph
• Time
• mechanical flow versus human experience
• in time
• Conscious or unconscious experience of time

17
Mr. Compson and Time

• Control
• Do we control time?
• Is it only an illusion of control?

18
Mr. Compson and Time

• 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)
• Can we defeat time?
• That Christ was not crucified he was worn away
  by a minute clicking of little wheels. (77)

19
Mr. Compson and Women

• Page 78
• Purity is an invention
• Invented by men not as applicable to women

20
Mr. Compson and Women

• Defined negatively
• Defined by something you have not done
• Compares to death

21
Mr. Compson and Women

• nothing is even worth the changing of it
• Nihilistic philosophy
• Quentin struggles with this
• But to believe it doesnt matter

22
Mr. Compson and Women

• Duality of Quentin
• Passionate about an ideal
• Southern Code
• Protection of Women
• Protection of Caddy
• Everything is meaningless
• Influence of Mr. Compson

23
Mr. Compson and Women

• Page 116
• Quentin seems to fight the philosophy
• The things that are most important to him simply
  cannot be meaningless
• According to Mr. Compson, human nature is what
  hurts us

24
Mr. Compson and Women

• Pages 96-97
• Quintens Mission?
• The mission of the Compson family men?

25
Mr. Compson and Women

• Protect women
• Protect women from themselves
• Assumption is that there is a responsibility for
  men to protect women because women cannot do it
  themselves
• Protection from what?

26
Mr. Compson and Women

• Similar to the Southern Code?
• Chivalrous gentleman?
• Honor?
• Protecting Honor?

27
Mr. Compson and Women

• Misogynistic Message?
• they are just born with a practical fertility of
  suspicion that makes a crop every so often
• women as natural breeders
• view of offspring (children) as a crop
• Psychological effect on Quentin?

28
Mr. Compson and Women

• they have an affinity for evil for supplying
  whatever the evil lacks in itself for drawing it
  about them instinctively
• Commentary on the fundamental nature of humanity?
• Are we naturally evil?
• Promotion of humanitys evil is instinctual for
  women

29
Quentin and Incest

• Ambiguous
• Is there incest?
• I said I have committed incest, Father I said.
  (77)
• Thoughtdeed?

30
Quentin and Incest

• I have committed incest I said Father it was I
  it was not Dalton Ames (79)
• Takes responsibility for Caddy
• Purity

31
Quentin and Incest

• Father I have committed (95)
• Incest is dropped
• As the chapter progresses, things become
  distilled
• Question of credibility

32
Mr. Compsons Reaction

• read 176-178
• i think you are too serious to give me any cause
  for alarm you woulnt have felt driven to the
  expedient of telling me you had committed incest
  otherwise (176-177)

33
Mr. Compsons Reaction

• Doesnt believe Quentin
• If you have to tell me then you probably did not
  do it

34
Why does Quentin claim incest?

• Because if it were just to hell if that were
  all of it. Finished. If things just finished
  themselves. Nobody else there but her and me. If
  we could just have done something so dreadful
  that they would have fled hell except us. I have
  committed incest I said Father it was I it was
  not Dalton Ames And when he put Dalton Ames.
  Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. When he put the pistol
  in my hand I didnt. Thats why I didnt. He
  would be there and she would and I would. Dalton
  Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames (79-80)

35
Why does Quentin claim incest?

• Desires to do something so sinful, so dreadful
  that a special place in hell will be reserved for
  only Caddy and Quentin.
• Desires companionship throughout eternity
• Willing to sacrifice his eternal soul for this
  companionship

36
Why does Quentin claim incest?

• If he kills Dalton Ames, then he will join Caddy
  and Quentin in this special place
• Quentin views Daltons actions as sinful and
  equivalent to incest
• Is this a legitimate belief or merely an excuse
  to not act?
• Hamlet?

37
Why does Quentin claim incest?

• i wasnt lying I wasnt lying and he you wanted to
  sublimate a piece of natural human folly into a
  horror and then exorcise it with truth and i it
  was to isolate her out of the loud world so that
  it would have to flee us of necessity and then
  the sound of it would be as though it had never
  been and he did you try to make her do it and i i
  was afraid to i was afraid she might and then it
  wouldnt have done any good but if i could tell
  you we did it would have been so and then the
  others wouldnt be so and then the world would
  roar away (177)

38
Why does Quentin claim incest?

• Worddeed
• According to Quentin, saying it would make it so
  and as a result, the others would be eliminated

39
Why does Quentin claim incest?

• Quentin tries to find ways to excuse why he
  doesnt do anything
• Claiming incest so that he does not have to kill
  Dalton Ames

40
Page 147

• but if it was that simple to do it wouldnt be
  anything and if it wasnt anything, what was I
• If it is easy to do, then it must mean nothing
• If it means nothing, then what is Quentin?
• Amplifies the influence of Mr. Compson

41
Pages 169-170

• Honeysuckle was the saddest odor of all, I
  think (169)
• Honeysuckles symbolic value?
• Is the smell of honeysuckle for Quentin
  equivalent to the absence of the smell of trees
  for Benjy?

42
Pages 169-170

• where all stable things had become shadowy
  paradoxical all I had done shadows all I had felt
  suffered taking visible form antic and perverse
  mocking without relevance inherent themselves
  with the denial of the significance they should
  have affirmed thinking I was I was not who was
  not was not who. (170)

43
Pages 169-170

• Lack of existence?
• Past tense?

44
Pages 173-179

• You know what Id do if I were King? She never
  was a queen or a fairy she was always a king or a
  giant or a general (173)
• Caddy avoids female role playing
• Always chooses a traditionally male role

45
Pages 173-179

• Choking effects of honeysuckle

46
Pages 173-179

• A quarter hour yet. And then Ill not be. The
  peacefullest words. Peacefullest words. Non fui.
  Sum. Fui. Non sum. Somewhere I heard bells once.
  Mississippi or Massachusetts. I was. I am not.
  (174)

47
Pages 173-179

• Non fuiI was not
• SumI am
• FuiI was
• Non sumI am not

48
Pages 173-179

• you cannot bear to think that someday it will no
  longer hurt you like this (177)
• that even she was not quite worth despair
  perhaps (178)

49
Mrs. Compson

• did I write you that he is gong to take Jason
  into his bank when Jason finishes high school
  Jason will make a splendid banker he is the only
  one of my children with any practical sense you
  can thank me for that he takes after my people
  the others are all Compson (94)
• Makes it clear that she love Jason more than her
  other children

50
Mrs. Compson

• How can I control any of them when you have
  always taught them to have no respect for me and
  my wishes I know you look down on my people but
  is that any reason for teaching my children my
  own children I suffered for to have no respect
  (96)
• Believes other people view themselves as superior
  to her
• Has she suffered for her children?

51
Mrs. CompsonPages 102-104

• what have I done to have been given children
  like these Benjamin was punishment enough and now
  for her to have no more regard for me her own
  mother Ive suffered for her dreamed and planned
  and sacrificed (102)

52
Mrs. CompsonPages 102-104

• and then Ill be gone and Jason with no one to
  love him shield him from this I look at him every
  day dreading to see this Compson blood beginning
  to show in him (103)

53
Mrs. CompsonPages 102-104

• who can fight against bad blood (104)
• All of the emphasis is on blood, not environment

54
Mrs. CompsonPages 102-104

• Jason you must let me go away I cannot stand it
  let me have Jason and you keep the others theyre
  not my flesh and blood like he is strangers
  nothing of mine an d I am afraid of them I can
  take Jason and go where we are not known Ill go
  down on my knees and pray for the absolution of
  my sins that he may escape this curse try to
  forget that the others ever were (104)

55
Mrs. CompsonPages 102-104

• Cruel comments about her children
• The most important thing to remember is that if
  these words appear in Quentins chapter, then he
  must have been present when these words were
  spoken by Mrs. Compson

56
Mrs. CompsonPages 102-104

• if Id just had a mother so I could say Mother
  Mother (172)
• Is this Quentins most powerful desire?
• Does Caddy play the role of mother for Quentin?