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Jason

Jason is a much easier character to read and to understand than both Quentin and Benjy. He is not mentally handicapped and unable to differentiate between  time periods like Benjy, nor is he a pressured student who is an emotional wreck because of the extreme pressure put on him by his parents, who eventually commits suicide because he looses his mind, like Quentin. No, Jason is a bad person, concerned only about money and his reputation. "Ask her [your grandmother] what became of those checks. You saw her burn one of them, as I remember" April Sixth, 1928 (p. 124) The first line in Jason's chapter is the perfect introduction to Jason's character: "Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say" (p. 119). Jason has the horrible burden of caring for Caddy's teenage daughter, Quentin. Not only does he have to pay black servants (whom he despises) to feed her and care for her, but he also has to discipline her when she does wrong, which is all the time. He bel...

(Quentin) June Second, 1910

Quentin’s chapter begins with his internal thoughts about time and clocks, which has a significant purpose throughout the rest of his story and his chapter. Quentin writes in the beginning of the chapter telling how he hears his watch ticking away the seconds and remembers when his father first handed him a watch. As his father said, the watch is a present that will hopefully allow him to forget time every now and then. Quentin is not mentally challenged like his brother Benjy (limited physically in expression) (Quentin who's smart and is a student and is pressured at Harvard), he is constantly taken back to old memories, only in a slightly more coherent way than Benjy. His tendency to remember the past is told towards the end of the chapter as the day of June 2, 1910 unfolds. Quentin does tie up several loose ends from Benjy’s chapter, such as the fact that the day that Caddy is in the river, he pulled out a knife and threatened to kill her, yet Quentin’s narration stirs up confus...

April 7, 1928-Benji Chapter

What role does Benjy play in the Compson family? What does his unique perspective show us about the Compsons? Benjy isn't like the other characters in the Sound and Fury, Benjy for example has the trait that he is able to sense the on coming of future events, and especially in particular he is able to sense the down fall of the his own family. In large Benjy is able to both sense and predict a big event in the book which is Quentin's suicide. Benjy also plays a critical part in being able to identify visually and hearing that helps identify and look at things differently as well as human emotion that the Compson family cannot identity as easily as him. For example in his actions he is able to respond to this knowledge and information by crying which in comparison to his family is different from them.  The family plays a big part when being compared to Benji the family places the burden of blaming  Benjy for them falling short and sayin...

Information on the Novel

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Sound and the Fury: The Sound and the Fury  is set in Jefferson, Mississippi. The novel centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats who are struggling to deal with the dissolution of their family and its reputation. Over the course of the 30 years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically. The novel is separated into four distinct sections. The first, April 7, 1928, is written from the perspective of Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a cognitively disabled 33-year-old man. The characteristics of his impairment are not clear, but it is hinted that he has a learning disability. Benjy's section is characterized by a highly disjointed narrative style with frequent chronological leaps. The second section, June 2, 1910, focuses on  Quentin Compson, Benjy's older brother, and the events leading up to his suicide. In the third section, Apr...