The Sound and the Fury Flashcards
I couldn’t feel the gate at all, but I could smell the bright cold. (1.31)
Benjy, who is unable to communicate with other people, conveys his impressions of his surroundings through his sense of smell. He “smells” his knowledge, like his knowledge of the cold weather.
I could hear Queenie’s feet and the bright shapes went smooth and steady on both sides, the shadows of them flowing across Queenie’s back. They went on like the bright tops of wheels. Then those on one side stopped at the tall white post where the soldier was. But on the other side they went on smooth and steady, but a little slower. (1.105)
Benjy describes moving in a carriage and turning a corner by describing the way that he perceives the buildings moving (or flowing) around him.
”It’s froze.” Caddy said. “Look.” She broke the top of the water and held a piece of it against my face. “Ice. That means how cold it is.” (1. 236)
Caddy, the one person who understands how Benjy interprets his world, uses sensory information to help him infer conclusions about his environment.
”Saying a name.” Frony said. “He dont know nobody’s name.”
“You just say it and see if he dont.” Dilsey said. “You say it to him while he sleeping and I bet he hear you.” (1.386-7)
Benjy can’t communicate, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand Caddy’s name. His response to even the mention of his sister is perhaps the most important recurring thread of his narrative.
”Oh.” she said. She put the bottle down and came and put her arms around me. “So that was it. And you were trying to tell Caddy and you couldn’t tell her. You wanted to, but you couldn’t, could you. Of course Caddy wont. Of course Caddy wont. Just wait till I dress.” (1.543)
Only Caddy recognizes Benjy’s attempts to interact with the rest of the world. Perhaps Benjy misses her so much because she serves as his guide and his link between his inner life and the outside world.
I saw them. Then I saw Caddy, with flowers in her hair, and a long veil like shining wind. Caddy Caddy (1.503)
Benjy’s refrain, “Caddy Caddy” is the heart of the book. That fact that he’s able to get to the heart of his unhappiness and loneliness means that, in many ways, he’s more with it than either of his brothers.
His name’s Benjy now, Caddy said.
How come it is, Dilsey said. He aint wore out the name he was born with yet, is he. (1.766-7)
Mrs. Compson decides to change Benjy’s name once it’s apparent that he’s mentally handicapped – she doesn’t want him to share her brother’s name. Dilsey’s comment offers us a perspective on how shallow Mrs. Compson’s sense of family is.
But I thought at first that I ought to miss having a lot of them around me because I thought that Northerners thought I did, but I didn’t know that I really had missed Roskus and Dilsey and them until that morning in Virginia. (2.56)
The Gibsons (Dilsey and Roskus) could be said to play a larger role in the Compson children’s lives than even their own mother – a fact that Quentin, ironically, doesn’t figure out until he’s left the South to go to school. Northern stereotypes about racial relations allow him to understand his own real affection for Dilsey and Roskus.
My little sister had no. If I could say Mother. Mother (2.91)
Quentin can’t stand the fact that Caddy has a sex life – and he blames her sexuality on their mother. He’s right, but not in the way that he thinks. Caddy pushes against the strict morality that their mother tries to impose upon her children, and this contributes to her decision to hook up with Dalton Ames.
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. (2.1)
The Civil War disintegrates in Mr. Compson’s analysis, becoming nothing more than a reminder of individual defeat. Interestingly, this analysis carries over into his advice for Quentin regarding Caddy.
It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciating-ly 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. (2.1)
Even time for Quentin is something that he inherits from his family: a second- (or third-) hand watch measures time for him. In some ways, the watch becomes for Quentin a symbol of repetition as much as for the continual movement of time.
Father said it used to be a gentleman was known by his books; nowadays he is known by the ones he has not returned (2.18)
Mr. Compson’s ironic commentary on the decay of the Southern gentleman is also a marker of the shift from property-owning gentry to the middle class. Gentlemen buy their own books; middle-class men check them out from the library.
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. (2.53)
By positing living time as something outside of temporality, Mr. Compson sets up an impossible existence for Quentin. The only way for him to escape time is to leave it altogether –and the only way that he can think of to do that is to kill himself.
Again. Sadder than was. Again. Saddest of all. Again. (2.95)
Quentin’s suggesting that the endless monotony of the present is more depressing than the past. Faulkner’s showing his colors as a modernist here: history is a pretty horrible thing to face, but the sense that history could repeat itself over and over (and over) is more horrible yet.
Honeysuckle was the saddest odor of all, I think. I remember lots of them. Wistaria was one. (2.903)
It’s interesting that Quentin’s starting to sound a lot like Benjy here, isn’t it? Remembering the flowers around his house, Quentin implies that the scents they give off have connected themselves to specific memories. Remember how Quentin smells honeysuckle on the night that Caddy runs off with Dalton Ames?
