After watching the debate last night between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and the specific interaction regarding Hunter Biden and his “dishonorable discharge” from the Navy due to cocaine addiction, I thought about what it meant to be vilified for neurodivergence, for invisible conditions many paint to be self-inflicted, a “choice,” and something to be ashamed about. And then I thought about the reality of these conditions – how, really, we only are able to understand through perceiving others, but that in itself is untrue, because my truth as a being isn’t essentially determinant on the evaluation by others. Connecting this to As I Lay Dying, I find many of these same themes rising in regard to Darl’s supposed insanity and eventual shipment off to a mental institution.

I ask myself, does our own insanity belong to us? That is, does our perceived chaos actually render us chaotic, or is it the third-party opinion that deems an individual insane? I believe it is a matter of both, none of us are sane and none of us are insane. We are all different and seriously complicated. The way in which we all process grief is different and is ultimately unfair to judge someone based on their ability to cope. Darl handles and processes his grief much differently than the rest of the family. He is written off as unemotional or separate from the reality of death since he sees it exactly as it is. He aims to ground the rest of the family by stating the reality of death: she is dead, she is gone, and she is not coming back. He laughs, perhaps in shock at the sheer weight of it all and at the others in their posthumously turn towards selfishness/self-preservation (the new teeth is more easily rendered selfish, while attempting to abort an unwanted pregnancy isn’t in my opinion, though in the time period and region, even today, abortion would be considered a selfish act).

This brings me to another point: detachment from sadness and acceptance of reality. Darl served in the military and likely experienced PTSD and/or other consequent mental disorders likely as a result of seeing things we cannot imagine overseas: murder, genocide, the rape of women and children. This isn’t a supposed reality – these things exist, as exposed by the Abu Ghraib files and many other documents revealing the cruel atrocities of war. Thus, as a result, his means of coping with reality is obviously going to be different from his families, who can only visualize the world through their poor, rural, American perspectives. And like I mentioned earlier, exposure to this brutality and death can engender at least two results: addiction/numbing and acceptance/detachment. While Hunter Biden used drugs to cope with his pain and numb the intensity of it, Darl appears detached from his grieving process. Not that this is a bad thing, per say, but rather that he has already accepted Addie’s death as true and sees little value in assimilating to the chaotic destruction that is the Bundren family. While other’s see his reactions as indicative of insanity, they are merely differences (not good nor bad) in processing death.

After Darl committed arson on the barn in an attempt to scorch Addie’s casket and put an end to the painful and life-altering journey, Cash relates and empathizes in a way with Darl, saying that “sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way… it’s like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it” (Faulkner 233). This statement is so deeply profound and sums up the entirety of my point: none of us are insane until we are declared insane by others, Cash adding that the difference is majority versus minority. If you are outnumbered by those who consider you crazy, you are crazy. Thus, are labels (like all others) are assigned by others according to societal structures and codes.

There are a few times in the novel when his behavior is acknowledged as potentially logical, the starkest example being his instinct to get off of the wagon while the other family members didn’t. Even his family acknowledges this instinct as perhaps indicative of reasoned behavior. Yet, he is still shipped off to a mental institution. In one way it can appear as a way to escape punishment for his crimes, and another as a condemnation: he’s different, he’s embarrassing, and we do not want him to ruin our family (though they are, very clearly, relatively ruined already). However, even in the face of this adversity, he laughs. He escapes the shame he’s supposed to feel by laughing at the farce of it all: the family is left with little to nothing, and the only one who attempted to renormalize the family and get them to end the tumultuous journey is being shipped off to be institutionalized. And yet, those laughs justify his family’s decision to lock him up. He is crazy, because little to no truth is communicated between the family, and thus the only thing one can perceive him through is his actions and his behavior, which indeed deviate from the norm.

So, how much of mental illness is simply acceptance of a bleak reality? Rather, are we all naturally insane to believe we live in a world where all are loved, safe, comforted, and certain? It may be that the truly sane individuals are the ones medicated, doped up, or those who have achieved a sober accepting of a difficult reality.

In the essay “The Oldest Unit in the World”: The Family in American life and Literature by Jim Wayne Miller and Barry M. Buxton, these authors discuss the many ways in which the definitions and descriptions of families has evolved, especially in the last two centuries. They mention that “Writers and thinkers, ancient and modern, view the family as our oldest and most important human institution. The Chinese philosopher Mencius, three centuries before Christ, sees the family as “the root of the state”.The romantic German poet Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis) agrees: Marriage is to politics what the lever is to engineering. The state is not founded upon single individuals, but upon…groups.” The family has long been considered the fundamental unit of human society….”. (Buxton and Miller, 2)
As Miller and Buxton elucidate in their essay, families have long been considered essential to societies. When discussing The Sound and the Fury, I will be using the term family in the sense of a small group of close blood relatives, or what is considered the nuclear family. At the very core of The Sound And the Fury we have the Compson family, a not so perfect family. The trials and tribulations affecting the Compson clan can be seen in Jason for example when he tries to corporally discipline his niece; “ All right ,” I says. We’ll just put this off a while. But dont think you can run it over me. I am not an old woman, nor an old half dead n———, either. You damn little s—-,I says” (TSAF, 185)
Jason’s approach to Miss Quentin is tyrannical and unloving. He is verbally abusive, and his demeaning speech isn’t solely direct towards Miss Quentin, but all the women present in the home. He is physically abusive, racist, and dishonest as well. Faulkner creates a family that is disintegrating not just because of the dissolution of it’s finances, loss of religious faith, or reputation. The Compson family degenerates due because of Jason’s desire for wealth, his cynicism, and the internal conflicts between him and Miss Quentin. Jason isn’t the only member of his household that is affecting his family unit unfavorably.
Mrs. Compson’s hypochondria preoccupies her, it consumes her, and inhibits her ability to care for anyone else. We can see her limitations in caring for Caddy when she tells Jason, “ I’m afraid you’ll lose your temper with her” “All right,” I says. “I won’t say anything, then.” “ But something must be done she says. “To have people think I permit her to stay out of school and run about the streets, or that I cant prevent her doing it…Jason, Jason,” she says. “How could you. How could you leave me with this burdens.” (TSAF, 182)
In the case of Mrs. Compson, what disconcerts me the most is that she seems to be mostly concerned about what people will think of her because of Caddy’s actions, yet she doesn’t seem as preoccupied with making efforts to actually help Caddy. She desires peace, unity, —improved familial circumstances, yet she’s been emotionally distant from her family, and in reality hasn’t made any efforts to contribute to a happy family.
Faulkner creates a family that is ruptured after years of abuse, theft, and the crippling effects of a permissive matriarch. The Compson members might be related, yet, sadly this does not stop them from hurting each other. After reading this novel I started to think about how much we identify with the characters we read, the ones we’ve come to know, when were done reading. How much does literature affect us, our mentality, our emotions? Can literature move us, and motivate us to perhaps change our point of view? Do we see the less desirable qualities present in characters, as in the case of Jason, and voluntarily choose to not mimic or internalize these traits? Can we reflect, on Caddy’s kindness towards Benji? Can we feel Benji’s love towards Caddy? Do the Compson’s with all of the mayhem present in their lives, make us feel a bit better about our own familial circumstances? After reading this narrative, can we be empathetic towards others when they face their own set of familial difficulties? Faulkner provides us with an unadulterated window into the domestic life of the Compson’s, and although it’s unpleasant at times, it does provide us with the opportunity to contemplate our own familial circumstances.

Lohr, Karen, and Jane Shook, editors. “‘The Oldest Unit in the World’: The Family in American Life and Literature.” The Examined Life: Family, Community, Work in American Literature, by Jim Wayne Miller and Barry M. Buxton, Appalachian State University, 1989

Benji’s memories can be compared to a furnished room that has been hit with a violent storm. The item’s have all been flung and tossed about yet remarkably they are still intact. Benji’s intellectual disability robs him of the ability to account for time, in the way that we account for time (days, months, and years). Benji’s memories aren’t organized by dates, if they were, he would grasp how much time has passed from one important event to another. Benji doesn’t know how much time has passed between his father’s death and Caddy getting married. Despite having an intellectual disability which hinders his ability to create any timeline of his experiences, Benji’s disability does not impede him from experiencing many human emotions. Benji doesn’t have the ability to distinguish between past or present; all the years that have passed have literally escaped him. Benji lacks the ability to tell time, something that would make any of us feel lost, and disoriented. Yet, for all that Benji lacks, Faulkner does vest Benji with something far more important and meaningful than time, and that’s the human experience. Benji may have an intellectual disability which affects his ability to grasp the concept of time, but Benji constantly undergoes the human experience, as he faces one personal challenge after another. Bénji’s memories are not organized, or compartmentalized in any way, and his memories are recalled once he sees or smells something familiar. We may feel tempted to categorize Benji as naive, and someone who lacks depth due to his disability. However, Benji is capable of experiencing complex human emotions.
One example of the scope of Benji’s emotions is his experience with the Patterson family. Benji is given the task of delivering a letter, and when he cannot complete this task, it is pretty evident that Benji feels stressed. “Mrs. Patterson came across the garden, running. When I saw her eyes I began to cry. You idiot, Mrs. Patterson said, I told him to never send you alone again. Give it to me. Quick. Mr. Patterson came fast, with the hoe. Mrs. Patterson leaned across the fence, reaching her hand. She was trying to climb the fence. Give it to me. Mr. Patterson climbed the fence. He took the letter. I saw her eyes and I ran down the hill.” (TSAF, 14) Benji can’t fully understand the immoral behavior going on between Mrs. Patterson and Uncle Maury. He isn’t aware of the ongoing affair between them. Upon approaching the Patterson home, Benji doesn’t understand why Mrs. Patterson is calling him an idiot, but he does understand tone. Mrs. Patterson comes runs across the garden to meet Benji. He does not understand why she is running, yet her running towards him is alarming. Soon after, Mr. Patterson ceases his activities, and climbs the fence towards Benji. He grabs the letter. As Benji makes eye contact with a very worried Mrs. Patterson, Benji is aware that he doesn’t deliver the letter. Benji’s reaction is to run. Benji experiences, anxiety, fear, and panic, over the unknown and the uncontrollable. He can feel something is wrong, even if he’s not sure what it is. Even if Benji can’t tell how long he’s been in the presence of the Patterson’s, he can tell it’s gone terribly wrong. Benji’s intellectual disability hinders his comprehension of something as serious and complicated like extramarital affair, yet it does not hinder his very human reaction to Mrs. Patterson’s anger and the unknown.
Another example of Benji’s active participation in the collective human experience, despite not having a sense of time, occurs during a familial dispute. “I’ll run away and never come back.” Caddy said. I began to cry. Caddy turned around and said “Hush” So I hushed…Caddy was all wet and muddy behind, and I started to cry and she came and squatted in the water. ( TSAF, 19)
Again Benji’s intellectual disability inhibits his ability to understand that Caddy’s words in the moment are just a threat, that in reality she won’t actually leave in the precise moment. Caddy does eventually leave, but because to Benji his memories are like a continuous stream, he doesn’t realize that she leaves the family later. Yet, Caddy’s words produce a momentary separation anxiety in Benji that is beyond his control, so he gives away to tears. Benji can’t sense the days and weeks go by, yet he can feel the emotional distress over the mere possibility of Caddy leaving. We share Benji’s apprehension, and concern, over the future. We also fear the worst. These are familiar feelings we have all experienced over one reason or another. Instead of feeling alienated, or disconnected to Benji, we empathize and relate to him. Benji is capable of experiencing the range of human emotions, despite his intellectual disability. Benji may not be able to understand the days, weeks, or months that have transpired between many of the difficulties that will afflict his family, yet all of the complex human emotions register in Benji. I am in complete awe of Benji, and also in Faulkner’s ability to write a character like Benji. Despite all the nuances that escape Benji due to his intellectual disability, Benji’s character is very much like us. We fear change and the uncertain. We fear loss of love, family, and the familiar. Faulkner remarkably infuses Benji with many admirable qualities, and we can’t help relating to Benji as we see him endure one difficulty after another. Faulkner’s Benji is relevant to us, because Benji is a powerful reminder of all the emotions experienced by members of the collective human experience.

In the final chapter of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, we finally see an objective presentation of the dynamics between the Gibson and Compson family through a third person omniscient narration. Not only does this present to us a fresh perspective, detached from the biases of the characters’ feelings and experiences, but it allows us to compare and contrast the influence each family has on how the household functions behind the scenes. Almost immediately, I found myself drawn to the warmth of Dilsey’s mothering care for both the Compson house and its inhabitants. In direct contrast, Faulkner depicts the house as rather bleak without her family’s presence. As a result, the cold and grey house can be seen as a symbol of decay where the Gibson family can be seen as bringers of life and warmth.

Beginning the chapter with Dilsey making her way up to the house, Faulkner introduces the morning as one that “dawned bleak and chill” with a “moving wall of grey light out of the northeast which…needled laterally into [Dilsey’s] flesh”(Faulkner, 166). Dilsey heads for the door to the house, where “the earth immediately about the door was bare” while the interior offered no further comfort, bathed in an empty, grey light. Immediately, the cold, bleak tone is set. Dilsey’s busy preparations around the house, however, soon warm up the atmosphere, and breathe new life into it. Soon enough, “the stove had begun to heat the room and to fill it with murmurous minors of the fire, and presently [Dilsey] was singing louder, as if her voice too, had been thawed out by the growing warmth”(169). In direct contrast to the warmth entertained by Dilsey, however, we hear Mrs. Compson complain at the head of the stairs: “My feet are like ice. They were so cold they waked me up”(169). As breakfast is being prepared, the other members of the household awaken and display the same level of gloom despite Dilsey’s warmth, which had already given her skin a “rich, lustrous quality”. Sitting across from each other at the breakfast table, Mrs. Compson and Jason waited “in identical attitudes; the one cold and shrewd…the other cold and querulous”(175). These direct contrasts of warmth and coldness between Dilsey and the Compsons serve to illustrate how significant her family’s presence is in keeping the household functional and alive. 

The Compson house itself takes on a deathly quality and becomes a symbol of decay in Faulkner’s descriptive narration. From within, the family could hear as the “clock tick-tocked, solemn and profound. It might have been the dry pulse of the decaying house itself”(179). It’s no mistake that Faulkner uses such strong imagery with phrases like “dry pulse” and “decaying house” alongside descriptions of the family’s internal struggles with coldness and emotional sickness. Each of the Compson family members battles internally with a different malady, whether that be hypochondria, a mental disability, suicidal thoughts, promiscuity, or anger issues. It’s no surprise then, that the house itself radiates the same turmoil and disintegration. From the outside, Faulkner again depicts the house as decaying when the Gibsons and Benjy return from church. As they entered through the gate, “all of them looked up the drive at the square, paintless house with its rotting portico”(187). 

Furthermore, even the jaybirds surrounding the house factor into this image of death, as they circle and shriek, almost haunting the house until chased away. In the beginning of the chapter, the birds circled and shrieked until Luster picked up a rock and threw it at them, saying: “Git on back to hell, what you belong at”(168). A couple of pages later, when chaos ensues again as Jason frantically upends the contents of the lockbox and searches for the money Quentin had stolen and run off with, the jaybirds return. Just “outside the window [Jason] heard some jaybirds swirl shrieking past, and away, their circles whipping away along the wind”(178). By repeating this image of the jaybirds whenever gloom or despair is present, Faulkner draws attention to how prevalent this symbol of decay in the form of chaos is when the Gibson family isn’t actively fighting it off. As a direct parallel to Dilsey’s liveliness warming up the house, Luster brings peace by chasing the jaybirds away.

In the end, the Gibson family serve as unrelenting symbols of life amidst the coldness and decay that is the Compson house. It’s only a shame Dilsey and her family’s efforts are never recognized and acknowledged to their full potential by the Compson family. They’re often rebuked for their shortcomings, even though it’s clear the household would crumble without the Gibsons’ warmth and care.

As chaotic and non-linear as Benjy’s section seems at first, once one falls into the strange rhythm and flow of Benjy’s mind, a discernible pattern appears and paves the way for understanding the rest of the chapter. While we initially struggle to follow what appears to be a frenzied stream of consciousness that weaves in and out of the past without warning, there are two notable strategies that Faulkner utilizes to make both the passage of time and the structure of thought clearer. One is a stylistic choice in the form of italics, and the other a literary device. While the recurrence of sporadic italicized sections draws our attention to a shift in time, the repetitive use of imagery guides this transition smoothly. The two specific instances I’ll be focusing on center around Benjy’s sense of smell, touch, and sight.

In the first example, Luster and Benjy are outside by the golf course, where we see a transition into Italics mid-sentence. In an attempt to calm Benjy and stop his moaning, Luster says: “Now, git in that water and play”(Faulkner, 14), to which Benjy obediently responds: “I hushed and got in the water and Roskus came and said to come to supper and Caddy said, It’s not supper time yet. I’m not going.” Seemingly out of nowhere, Benjy has pulled us into a different memory, one where as a young boy he had played by the stream with his brothers and sister years ago. Immediately following this italics section, Benjy connects the feel of the water from the golf course to the water he felt and smelled that day with his siblings by the stream. He recalls: “Caddy was all wet and muddy behind, and I started to cry and she came and squatted in the water…Caddy smelled like trees in the rain”(15). We stay in this memory for a bit, before another italics section pulls us back into the presumed present memory. Sitting in the water by the golf course, Benjy hears: “What is the matter with you, Luster said. Can’t you get done with that moaning and play in the branch like folks”(15). Here, Faulkner’s use of “branch” to signify a stream, brings us that repetitive image of the water that serves to tie together all these jarring jumps in memory. Finally, in regular print, Benjy re-phrases the previously italicised encounter with Roskus and Caddy by recalling: “Roskus came and said to come to supper and Caddy said it wasn’t supper time yet”(15). Although chaotic at first, these transitions in time make much more sense when one focuses on these stylistic changes in print and the imagery of the smell and feel of the water that connect them.

As a second example, we could take a look at the repetition of the word “fire” across a few pages further into Benjy’s section. Appealing to Benjy’s sense of sight, and rather indirectly, touch, the section begins when Benjy finds himself back at home sitting in front of a fire Dilsey had prepared for him. Staring into the fire in front of him, Benjy pulls us into another memory of being in front of a fire. In italics, Benjy recollects: ““What you want to get her started for,” Dilsey said. “Whyn’t you keep him out of there.” “He was just looking at the fire,” Caddy said””(34). Struck again by the overwhelming nostalgia of Caddy’s absence that the memory evoked, Benjy begins to cry in the supposed current memory, where he’s sitting in front of his birthday cake. Benjy illustrates the moment, saying that “the candles went away. I began to cry. “Hush.” Luster said. “Here. Look at the fire whiles I cuts this cake””(35). Continuing to cry, Benjy pulls us back into the memory with Caddy, by means of another section of italics, where he recalls how “her head came into my lap and she was crying, holding me, and I began to cry.” It’s almost as if we’re following a literal train of thought, where an image of a fire or sense of crying bleeds into and overlaps with another of the same sort. Benjy soon draws our attention back to the cake and the fire, saying: “I ate some cake…I looked at the fire…and then the fire went away. I began to cry” (35). The parallel drawn in the almost identical phrasing of how the candles and the fire “went away” causing him to cry helps link these memories by repetitively invoking the same senses. This repetition of crying, the image of the fire, and the presence of Caddy come together as a transition intended to soften the abrupt change in time and make it more palatable.

While it’s still near impossible to follow Benjy’s sense of time in a linear manners, and some pieces of the puzzle can only be put in place after reading the accounts of the other characters, these lapses in time and transitions from memory to memory are made somewhat easier to follow when we look at the italics and repetitions of imagery in the text.