Author Archives: Deborah Majowka

Ch. 6, Question 3. Shreve’s Narrative

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Whereas Rosa Coldfield narrates from a personal place and Jason Compson narrates from what his father told him, Shreve narrates by repeating what Quentin told him right back at him. This need to tell Quentin what he already knows along with some of his own additions shows that Shreve is completely swept away by this story. Since he is a Canadian, it could be that he is fascinated with the south. He seems particularly taken by Sutpen’s decline when he comes home from war to find his plantation filled with weeds and his heirs, dead in Bon’s case and ran away in Henry’s as well as telling Sutpen’s own death, “Came back home and found his chances of descendants gone where his children had attended to that, and his plantation ruined, fields fallow except for a find stand of weeds, and levies and penalties sowed by United States marshals and such” (AA 146). The way Shreve emphasizes this aspect as a high tragedy and the end of Sutpen’s “great destiny” makes it seem almost like he is romanticizing the south’s loss of “honor” after the Civil War through the individual story Sutpen.

An interesting thing to note, is that Quentin notices that “He sounds just like father” (AA 147). This had me asking myself what Shreve and Jasonwould have in common in their retellings of the Sutpen story. I believe that because Jason Compson received the story from his father, General Compson, this is part of the reason for the enthusiasm about it. General Compson, as a southern war hero, being the first to tell this story that is symbolic for southern decline has a certain authority to it. Therefore, Jason is prideful in his retelling because of his father. Shreve with his fascination with the south, perhaps sees Quentin in a similar way. Quentin, while not a war hero, is the closest thing to the romanticized south for Shreve. The way he stops in the middle of his narratives for Quentin to confirm his retelling with a simple “yes” shows this.

It is also interesting that Shreve constantly makes the same mistake of calling Rosa, Aunt Rosa which Quentin has to correct him multiple times. With the amount of times he makes this mistake even after all the corrections, I believe that Shreve thinks that calling her Aunt Rosa instead of Miss Rosa gives the story more drama. This need to have Rosa be related to Quentin would perhaps give the story more legitimacy than even the fact that she is a first-person account and even Quentin’s war hero grandfather, General Compson. The way he insists on calling her Aunt Rosa becomes comical in scenes like this:

“then Shreve again, ‘Wait. Wait. You mean that old gal, this Aunt Rosa’

‘Miss Rosa,’ Quentin said.

‘All right all right. – that old dame, this Aunt Rosa’

‘Miss Rosa, I tell you.’

‘All right all right all right. – that this old – this Aunt R – All right all right all right all right.’” (AA 143-144)

This happens multiple times afterwards and Shreve doesn’t seem to want to get the hint. It could also be that the only southerner Shreve knows is Quentin and therefore, he likes the idea of grouping all southerners together as if they were related. Which naturally irritates Quentin. However, I also wonder if Quentin has another reason for being annoyed by being connected to Rosa. Rosa is clearly stuck in the past – a similar situation Quentin himself is dealing with in light of the events of The Sound and the Fury. It is a subtle thing that Shreve’s narrative exposes in Quentin as well as expresses his own romanticizing of the south as an outsider.

Annotated Bibliography

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My earlier post about the search words and methods for research were effective because that is how I found these sources. The search words being “Faulkner and gender,” “Faulkner and women,” “Southern womanhood,” and “southern manhood.” I found them on Hunter’s Ebrary. These sources helped me with my thesis of how the characters of Caddy, Lena, Quentin II, and Addie subvert the standards of white southern womanhood. They helped by giving some cultural context, relevant information about Faulkner, and some very interesting analysis of some of these characters.

Bleikasten, André. The Ink of Melancholy : Faulkner’s Novels from the Sound and the Fury to Light in August, Indiana University Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4746225.

Bleikasten has a really interesting analysis that parallels Jason’s relationship to Quentin II with Quentin’s relationship with Caddy. Both are relationships that seek to control their sexualities, and this emphasizes in my essay how Quentin II is a lot freer than her mother, Caddy.

Clarke, Deborah. Robbing The Mother : Women in Faulkner, University Press of Mississippi, 1992. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=866930.

Clarke analyzes Lena Grove and how her rejection of southern womanhood is a threat to patriarchy but in a way that can go unpunished (unlike Joe Christmas) and is hence much more dangerous. This emphasizes my point of Lena’s mixing of gender standards, that being her not experiencing her pregnancy in a home and travelling like a “man” while also being gentle and soft like a “woman.”

Cotsell, Michael. William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury, edited by Charles Moseley, Humanities-Ebooks, LLP, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3306098.

Cotsell explains how Faulkner has a Nietzschean view which explains his openness to subverting his own southern world including the rigid rules that women had to follow to be considered a proper woman.  

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage International, 1985.

This is my primary source for all material regarding Addie Bundren. The quotes I use support my point about how she is the contrast to Caddy, Quentin II, and Lena in how she remained at home despite her frustration. She still explores her sexuality like the others, but it is in secret with no intention to eventually free herself from her home.

Faulkner, William. Light in August. Vintage International, 1985.

This is my primary source for all material regarding Lena Grove. The quotes I use support my point that Lena subverts southern womanhood by accepting her pregnancy out of wedlock and by travelling which is a masculine act by the standards of that time.

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. Vintage International, 1984.

This is my primary source for all material regarding Caddy and Quentin II. The quotes I use support my point that while both of them explore their sexualities and reject southern womanhood in that sense, they differ in how they leave the Compson home.

Norman, Brian. Dead Women Talking : Figures of Injustice in American Literature, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3318641.

Norman explains how Addie’s form of obtaining her long-desired isolation was through dying. This connects to my point about how Addie is a direct contrast to Caddy (though are some similarities of debt in this case), Quentin II, and Lena because while these women left their home living, Addie left as dead.

Sensibar, Judith L.. Faulkner and Love: The Women Who Shaped His Art, Yale University Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3420510.

Sensibar supplements my paper by explaining what the women in Faulkner’s life were like as well as his own relationship to gender. Since my paper is about how Caddy, Addie, Lena, and Quentin II do not fit into the white southern conventions of womanhood, Faulkner’s background with women and gender is relevant.

Southern Masculinity : Perspectives on Manhood in the South since Reconstruction, edited by Craig Thompson Friend, University of Georgia Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3038788.

Southern Manhood explains how masculinity in the south evolved from chivalry to a more aggressive form post-Civil War which includes disinterest in the home since the home is considered feminine. This assists my argument because Caddy, Quetin II, and Lena all perform the masculine role of leaving their homes which leads to their freedom.

Simple Bibliography

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My research process went fairly smoothly. I accessed Hunter’s online database, Proquest (Ebrary) and found these six sources. The most useful search terms I used were “Faulkner and gender,” “Faulkner and men,” “Faulkner and women,” and “Faulkner and the south.” These terms helped me to find various articles and journals that were very helpful to my writing process. Even when I didn’t end up using a source, I learned something new which was a great experience. In the moments I was having trouble finding a source for a particular point, I tried consulting Jstor, Google Scholar, and others but couldn’t find what I was looking for. I went back to Ebrary and eventually found what I needed. Even though I didn’t find anything on the other databases, learning the different styles of searching for information will be useful in the future I’m sure.

Bleikasten, André. The Ink of Melancholy : Faulkner’s Novels from the Sound and the Fury to Light in August, Indiana University Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4746225.

Clarke, Deborah. Robbing The Mother : Women in Faulkner, University Press of Mississippi, 1992. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=866930.

Cotsell, Michael. William Faulkner : The Sound and the Fury, edited by Charles Moseley, Humanities-Ebooks, LLP, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3306098

Norman, Brian. Dead Women Talking : Figures of Injustice in American Literature, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3318641.

Sensibar, Judith L.. Faulkner and Love: The Women Who Shaped His Art, Yale University Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3420510.

Southern Masculinity : Perspectives on Manhood in the South since Reconstruction, edited by Craig Thompson Friend, University of Georgia Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/huntercollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3038788.

Research Question

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Faulkner tends to have women, specifically Caddy, Quentin II, and Lena leave their homes and embrace their sexuality. Something that in the south has a load of cultural taboo and stigma attached to it. However, the text seems to imply that throwing away traditional femininity leads to having a better life. This can be seen when the librarian notes the reason why Dilsey pretended not to see the picture: “that was it she didn’t want to see it know whether it was Caddy or not because she knows Caddy doesn’t want to be saved hasn’t anything anymore worth being saved for nothing worth being lost that she can lose” (TSAF 338). With each of these characters, I wonder to what extent they play with their gender roles and how it affects their place in society versus their own personal happiness. To find evidence, I will look for secondary sources on Ebrary about Faulkner’s relationships to women and on the southern standards placed on women. My primary sources will involve anything relevant to Caddy, Quentin II, Lena, and Addie.

4. The Misplaced Confidant

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In chapter 3, Byron Bunch recounts the story he is told of Hightower’s history in Jefferson. He is completely aware of the infidelity of Hightower’s wife and how she died. Considering this, it is odd that of all people he should choose to talk to about Lena Grove and his increasing feelings for her, he chose Hightower. With the stigma associated with cuckholds, and Lena’s search for the father of her unborn child being mildly obstructed by Byron, Hightower would be the least likely to sympathize with him. This can be seen when Byron tells Hightower about how he convinced Lena to wait with him at the mill instead of searching for Brown where the Burden house was burning. Hightower’s response is telling:

“’You did what you could. All that any stranger would be expected to do. Unless…’ His voice ceases also. Then it dies away on that inflection… And opposite Byron, Hightower does not yet think love. He remembers only that Byron is still young and has led a life of celibacy and hard labor, and that by Byron’s telling the woman whom he has never seen possesses some disturbing quality at least, even though Byron still believes that it is only pity. So he watches Byron now with a certain narrowness neither cold nor warm” (LIA 82).

There is a buildup happening here. Hightower assumes that Byron is unaware of his feelings toward Lena, but still describes Bryon’s dealings with her as disturbing. Hightower then begins to listen to the story with this in mind. After Byron tells how he decided to have Lena stay at the same boarding house as him, Hightower becomes increasingly suspicious:

“And now there begins to come into Hightower’s puzzled expression a quality of shrinking and foreboding as Byron talks quietly, telling about how he decided after they reaches the square to take Lena on to Mrs. Beard’s” (LIA 82-83).

While Byron may not be aware of his feelings for Lena as Hightower assumes, it is very odd that Byron wouldn’t consider to whom he is speaking to about bringing a woman who is pregnant with another man’s child to live close to him. Especially considering how similar assumptions of sexual relationships were presumed by the town about Hightower and his African American servants. Even more so in the case of the African American baby he delivered that died and the town had assumed that it was his child (LIA 74). Even if Byron did not realize he was in love with Lena yet, surely, he is aware of the negativity associated with taking care of a single pregnant woman whose child is not his and how Hightower’s bitter history would not make him the most sympathetic listener. One has to wonder what Byron was thinking in confessing to Hightower.

In my opinion, there are two options. Either Byron’s isolation from the town has caused him to lack the social skills to understand that he is hitting a sore spot by confessing this issue to Hightower. Or he is fully aware and even expects Hightower to give him biased feedback. The second option would make sense because Byron is a religious man and is described as being part of a church choir (LIA 48). Perhaps Byron believes that having someone who is both a priest and who has a bitter history with infidelity might dissuade him from what he might view as sin. That being getting involved with a woman who has a connection with another man. This is the more likely case, and if so, then Byron certainly is pushing his limits which shows something about his character. It shows that it is not a priority for Byron to maintain his personal relationships. His motivation is purely that of internal introspection without regard for outside influences. His isolation and working on Saturdays (LIA 47) is further evidence of this.  

3. Blood guilt and the fish

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Anse Bundren doesn’t understand the concept of responsibility unless it is to make demands of the people around him. Whether he is aware of it or not, he takes advantage of his status as patriarch. As Carolyn Porter describes, “Consider that he does no real work. He depends on his children, his neighbors, and the good Lord to take care of him” (79). His only action is to reject help as a show of his pride. The death of his wife, Addie, comes as a result of not sending for a doctor sooner.

The fact that he does not take responsibility for her death is apparent in two places. First when he says, “God’s will be done” (AILD 52) right after Addie’s death. Second and more significant is before her death in an interaction with Vardaman after he cleans the fish he caught, “Vardaman comes around the house, bloody as a hog to his knees… ‘Go wash them hands,’ I say… ‘Pa,’ he says, ‘is ma sick some more?’ ‘Go wash them hands,’ I say” (AILD 38). It is notably odd that even though Vardaman is bloody “to his knees,” Anse only tells him to wash his hands. It is possible to read this in the classic sense of washing one’s hands of metaphorical blood. In other words, cleaning themselves from the responsibility of a killing. On page 37, Anse tried to downplay Addie’s condition to Dr. Peabody. This, combined with how long it took for him to call the doctor, implies he might be suffering from subconscious guilt in his response to Vardaman. Anse’s avoidance of Vardaman’s question of Addie’s status by repeating his command is indicative of this.

Additionally, this is possibly the reason Vardaman becomes fixated with the fish and later associating it with his dead mother. Because Anse told him to only wash his hands along with Vardaman having been the one to have caught the fish in the first place, he could be misplacing the responsibility of the death onto the one who last physically dealt with the deceased. Later Vardaman seems to be having a breakdown in the barn when he repeats, “He kilt her… She never hurt him and he come and kilt her” (AILD 63) about the doctor. Doctors often deal with patients by surgically opening them up to fix them. However, it seems that Vardaman’s earlier act of cleaning and gutting the fish became associated with the doctor’s role of surgeon. He thinks that just like he killed the fish, the doctor killed his mother. The concept of blood guilt could have been introduced to him first by his father, Anse, because he was told by him to wash his hands even though he was almost entirely covered in blood.

This shows the dysfunction of the Bundren household. Through Anse making demands without partaking in his responsibilities, his children have twisted misperceptions of themselves and their roles. Vardaman, in particular, is actively processing what blood guilt means by equating his mother to a fish. This is the result of his father’s inability to take responsibility.

2: Jason’s Sense of Time and Money

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Jason has the easiest sense of time to follow out of the sibling narrators because he has desires outside the family. Unlike Quentin who wishes to preserve family honor and Benjy who misses Caddy, Jason wants money, which is external to family, hence his better ordered mind.

Benjy keeps track of time through his senses so when something happens in the present that is connected to something in the past, it prompts him to think about a memory. Such as when Benjy gets stuck on a nail in the fence and Luster says, “Cant you never crawl through here without snagging on that nail.’ Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through” (4). Not only did the nail remind him of a time in the past when he got caught on it, but when Caddy helped out of it. Many of his flashbacks involve moments with family members, especially Caddy since he misses her.

Quentin’s relationship with time is quite complex since he is obsessed with the past. His flashbacks and fantasies happen frequently and are preoccupied with family. His section even starts with how his watch was originally his grandfather’s. “It was grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire” (76). His father describing the inheritance of the family watch as a “mausoleum of all hope and desire” explains Quentin’s negative attitude about time and his obsession with the failure of his family honor. The watch is not only a symbol for time, but for a dying family. This metaphor prepares us for Quentin’s confusing narrative and immediately informs the readers of his primary concern: Family.

Jason, however, does not flashback. Unlike Benjy and Quentin, Jason doesn’t seem to be preoccupied with family in the same way that Benjy and Quentin are. Whereas Benjy and Quentin’s realities are obsessively rooted in their emotional relationships to their families and its failures, Jason seems to be rooted in something other than that. He is consistently described as rude and cruel to his family so relationships are not what defines his reality. Yet, his reality, out of the siblings’ narratives, is the only one grounded in the present. Given that Benjy and Quentin’s obsessions with family are rooted in the past, looking at Jason’s obsession will equally answer his present setting narrative.

Jason is obsessed with money. There are so many times he is preoccupied with money that it is impossible to cite them all in this post which is telling. From cruelly teasing Luster’s lack of a quarter to pay for the show tickets (255) to stealing his family’s money at various points, Jason is willing to extort and hurt his supposed loved ones. His obsession can be seen when he is upset that Caddy has given fifty dollars to her daughter, Quentin, in the form of a money order. This makes it harder for him to steal it as he will need Quentin’s signature. “Giving a kid like that fifty dollars. Why I never saw fifty dollars until I was twenty-one years old, with all the other boys with the afternoon off and all day Saturday and me working in a store” (211). Here, it can be seen that his bitterness is toward his family is about money.

Jason is unconcerned with the failure of the Compson family – a matter of the past. So, his primary concern, money, is a matter of the present. Money is something that is ever moving. Its value changes and one must keep up with the current trends to make the highest profit. Jason’s mind is not trapped by the past like Benjy and Quentin because his priority is external to family and exists only in the present. Additionally, his bitter and mean attitude toward his family could be because they didn’t give him money. One of the events of the past that he ponders about is when he was jealous that Caddy gave her daughter fifty dollars. This could have prompted him to have a flashback to his reference at being a working boy while the others didn’t, but instead he remembers it the regular way. That being through a single sentence in which he tells the readers about his past rather than showing. It is interesting to note that while his memory was provoked by Caddy, the memory itself does contain family unlike Benjy and Quentin. He still quickly moves on from this thought though since his state of being is ever-present as a result of his obsession with money.

Benjy’s Sense of Smell

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Benjy maintains order through his senses instead of linear time. He will often make mental notes that are purely observational. He does this with most of his senses, telling the readers about visual details like colors, what textures feel like, and the sounds he hears. What is most significant in regard to understanding Benjy’s state of mind is his sense of smell. If readers keep track of what Benjy smells, his feelings can be extrapolated, hence revealing a character more complex than initially perceived. Carolyn Porter said it best when she states that, “By learning what provokes various responses in Benjy, we find out what constitutes his world as well as who and what he is” (Porter 42). Benjy uses smell almost as a form of self-reassurance that all is well and can also tell when something is wrong or different. Smell is how he establishes familiarity and comfort between himself and the other characters.

Benjy frequently describes Caddy’s scent to be that of trees. Since his feelings toward Caddy are of intense fascination and love, he refers to her smell because when she is around, he is calm and happy. For example, after Caddy says she’ll run away, Benjy reacts by crying, “Hush now.’ She said. ‘I’m not going to run away.’ So I hushed. Caddy smelled like trees in the rain” (19). Once Benjy’s stability (that being Caddy’s presence) is established, he signifies that he is once again serene by mentally acknowledging her smell.

If Caddy’s smell is disrupted, Benjy becomes extremely distressed. Benjy interprets the lack of the tree smell as her leaving or dissociating from her family. When Caddy, wearing a “shining veil” comforts Benjy, he narrates, “I couldn’t smell trees anymore and I began to cry” (40). Since she is wearing a veil, it can be inferred that this is her wedding. The veil is a symbolic separation from her family and Benjy not smelling trees anymore is his way of knowing that Caddy is soon to leave.

There is also an earlier memory in which Benjy is upset when Caddy is holding a perfume bottle. He still notes that she smells like trees after reassuring him that she didn’t run away (42). However, he is upset about the perfume bottle which Caddy figures out. After having Benjy give the perfume to Dilsey, Caddy says, “We don’t like perfume ourselves” (43). Once again, Benjy notes that she smells like trees when he has a confirmation that Caddy isn’t leaving him. He symbolically linked this to her giving away the perfume. Benjy associates many family and close characters through natural smells. For example, his father (64) and Versh (68) are described as smelling like rain. Therefore, perfume as the opposite of natural scents is a sign of Caddy’s dissociation with family.

The other characters also recognize that Benjy’s sense of smell is how he knows what is happening. Caddy understood what the perfume symbolized to him and got rid of it to calm him down. When Mr. Compson dies, Benjy knows by the smell. “A door opened and I could smell it more than ever, and a head came out. It wasn’t Father. Father was sick there” (34). Multiple times, Benjy mentally notes when a character isn’t his father, implying that he knows he is dead. One of his caretakers, T.P., also recognizes that Benjy already knew of Mr. Compson’s death, “He smell it.’ T.P said” (34). The readers know Benjy is upset in this scene even though he never says he is crying because T.P. hushes him many times.

These scenes show that while Benjy doesn’t use linear time, his sense of smell keeps him aware. Additionally, there is a scene that differs from the above where Benjy says, “The bed smelled like T.P. I liked it” (29). Usually, the readers use Benjy’s physical reactions like crying or calmness to know how he feels. His narrative is almost purely action and observation rather than internal commentary. Here, however, Benjy states that he likes that the bed smells like T.P. in the form of a mental declarative statement rather than a physical reaction. This rare occasion is prompted by a smell. Like Carolyn Porter says, looking at what provokes these reactions is the key to Benjy. In an interview, Faulker said, “You can’t feel anything for Benjy because he doesn’t feel anything” (Wasson 233). However, Benjy used the declarative statement, “I liked it” (29) which implies that he is more complex than Faulkner may have intended. By using a declarative statement, Benjy shows he is capable of feeling rather than only observing and physically reacting.