Quentin’s treatment of his sister, Caddy, is symbolic of both white nativism and the notion of stereotypical Southern respectability. This is evident not only in his desire to either keep her pure or erase her and her perceived sins entirely, but also in Faulkner’s incest subplot between the two siblings. Quentin’s desire to marry her to “the same” speaks to his motive of keeping the blood pure, as it were, in more ways than one. He wants to keep Caddy pure both in the moralistic sense and in the sense that he does not want her marrying outside the family at all. He wants to control her to the point where she is legally under his thumb in perpetuity, and he wants to keep pure the blood of a family he still considers to be a proper, respectable example of Southern greatness. In “Whose America? Faulkner, Modernism, and National Identity”, John T. Matthews speaks to the type of white nativism that plagued the United States in the 1920s: “For nativists, American identity came to be understood as something one inherited by blood rather than acquired through citizenship” (Matthews 70). As in many European royal houses who sought to keep their lines pure through inbreeding, this solution could not sustain itself, nor could most changing societies sustain such symbols of social disparity. In fact, Quentin views his family in much the same way as these great European houses: as a great line which must be sustained at any cost. However, much like these royal houses (particularly at the beginning of the 20th-century and following World War I), the Compson family’s years as the pinnacle of Southern society are decidedly behind them.
Quentin sees Caddy (and women in general) as commodities to be protected either because they cannot or will not protect themselves. They have the potential to carry on the genetic “pure” line, and, if left to their own devices, can easily sully that line. Quentin, like his father, believes that women have an instinctive ability to be drawn astray, and they must be watched and controlled in order to protect the family honor and legacy, as well as to protect them from themselves. He feels Caddy’s sexual liaisons as a harsh betrayal and bemoans the behavior of “bitches”. This obsession with keeping the family line pure is reminiscent of American attitudes toward immigration at the time. As Matthews points out, “American nativism was hostile to internal minorities on the basis of their foreign or un-American connections” (Matthews 70). He draws a parallel between Caddy’s love life and what America should be—which, in his opinion, is more like the South (respectable, white, insulated). Caddy’s marriage and sexual liaisons are not respectable and bring “foreign” blood into the Compson family. Caddy’s betrayal is therefore compounded by her introduction of “un-American connections” into the family.
Quentin is obsessed with time and his family in its “prime”. His constant focus on watches and how everything but the sound of the ticking fades away speaks to his awareness of the rapid movement of time; and his stepping on his watch (whether on purpose or by accident—and, therefore, either knowingly of subconsciously) speaks to his desperate resolve to ignore the passing of time, or to freeze it. This is also evidenced by the fact that he does not care what the clocks in the window of the repair shop actually say, only whether or not they are “right”. He is more interested in the world subscribing to his idea of right than he is subscribing to reality.
