Thus far...

Thus far in my readings from The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner, I have come to the following conclusions. Faulkner combines lots of crazy with spurts of true brilliance. Each of his characters fit a commonly dysfunctional family. You start with parents that are out there. In The Sound and the Fury you have an alcoholic father and a mother who can’t seem to find her way out of bed. Then, there is Benjy.  Benjy is obviously somewhat mentally handicapped, but has times, where it seems his mind functions fine. It almost seems as if he was handicapped and unable to speak intelligibly, but could still understand things that were happening around him. Next, comes the section about Quentin, here is where it got confusing for me. Quentin is referred to many times as a she, but is definitely a male.  I asked Dr. McLamore about the sex of Quentin. He said there are two characters named Quentin, this has cleared up some mysteries for me. There also is a part where it is hard to separate the character of Caddy from Quentin. Though from Quentin’s point of view, he would never want them separated from each other. Quentin is interesting to me. He still has some morals, as he gives a poor man on a mule a coin and gives a little beggar girl food at the almost ruin of himself. Though from the glimpse the reader has inside his mind, Quentin is a suicide waiting to happen. Then you have Jason, who seems like the good son, but is really the tin man without a heart. At the heart of the story, there is Caddy, the sister, who everyone calls a slut. Yes, Faulkner definitely has a great way of painting an incredible picture in the reader’s mind. This poor family is probably found more often in society than we realize.
Esther