Last update: 13-Oct-99

Roger Williams

Narrative Form in the 20^th Century

This novel takes place on 4 separate days. Three days around Easter in 1928, and one day in June of 1910 (II, 76). The days around Easter are Good Friday(III, 180), the Saturday after (I, 1), and Easter Sunday (IV, 265). On the last night of the novel, Miss Quentin finally makes her escape from the household. By this action, she is following in the footsteps of her mother and her uncle who is her namesake. Her flight to freedom is representative of the renewal and rebirth of Easter and the reclamation of the currency of her childhood. The fact that she is probably scarcely aware of either of these symbols gives no less weight to their meaning.

This climactic event follows months and probably years of her fighting with another uncle, Jason, who is head of the household in the Compson mansion, an antebellum-like setting in the early years of the 20^th century. She is an illegitimate child, whose grandmother forbids the name of her mother to be spoken in the house. She was given a boy’s name after her uncle who committed suicide, 18 years before this event. In late 20^th century parlance, she is a highly shamed member of a completely dysfunctional family. Her similarities to her mother are clear, and her grandmother voices these pejorative tendencies out loud.

On Easter Eve, she leaves her room, as she does many nights, through her bedroom window, down the pear tree, and into the arms of her latest beau, to escape the myriad pains visited upon her in the household. On this particular night, two things are different. One is that she has absconded, in Jason’s view, with more than $3000 that was embezzled and extorted from her and her mother by Jason. The other is that she will not be present for breakfast in the morning, for which she presumably is present, on every other morning after she leaves at night. Since the novel ends, we assume that she is gone from the household for good, like her mother and uncle, but she could return that evening or later in the week, if permitted.

This paper will contrast multiple renderings of this event, along with the causal and subsequent actions, by some of the principals of the story. No section of the story describes Miss Quentin’s thoughts, only her words are quoted, and her actions described. The event and the actions are told from the point of view of Benjamin—her retarded brother, Jason—the head of household, and the omniscient narrator of the last section of the novel. Her uncle Quentin and her grandfather Jason are both dead, and her mother and grandmother, as well as the black servant Dilsey, do not have their thoughts described in the novel.

There is only one telling of the event itself. The witnesses are Luster, a servant to Benjy, and Benjy, who is brought to the window to witness the escape. It is clear the Benjy has no context in which to place the event, and no cognizance of who is the agent of the event. From (I, 74):

Several things are interesting in this passage. First and foremost, is that Luster was not surprised, and was in fact expecting this occurrence. He had seen this many times before (IV, 286): "We sees her doin hit ev’vy night", Luster said. "Clamb rat down dat pear tree." Also, the passage is italicized in the text, to stand out from the other reportage, even though it takes place in the present. Before this, Benjy is describing getting ready for and going to bed on the night before Easter. Benjy has spent much of this section in a stream of consciousness including details and discussions from many years earlier, when his other siblings lived at the house.

For Benjy, his rendition of Luster’s speech pattern, is not essentially different from the rendering of his siblings or his parents. In keeping with the speech patterns of niggers in the rest of the novel, one would expect the quote to be "Heah she cum". Hence, for Benjy, Luster is either a friend or an impaired family member, like himself. He apparently makes no distinction between the speech of different household occupants.

And in a true court recorder’s style, he cannot even say for sure who climbed down the tree, referring only to: it. His grammar is not correct, but even if we were to use the appropriate precision, we would only say: someone (or something). We can presume that this is also true for Luster, although he can make the association of who it is climbing out of the window of Quentin’s room.

Benjy cannot make the association with numerous references in the preceding few pages to Quentin’s desire to run away. These abound: Goddam you. Quentin said. (I, 71), I hate this house. I am going to run away. (I, 71), If you don’t like it young lady, you’d better get out, Jason said. I’m going to, Quentin said. Don’t you worry. (I, 69). All of these passages are reported by Benjy, but he does not have the power of conclusion.

In addition, Benjamin has no concept of Easter Eve, or why it is running away. Luster views it as just another occurrence of "Dese funny folks. Glad I ain’t none of em." (IV, 276). So, this rendition of the event, including its causal actions, by these witnesses (or renderers) cannot be used to argue for the redemptive meaning of the event itself.

In fact, the main value of these passages, is that they represent the most objective view of the event. I submit this hypothesis, because they are the only eyewitnesses, and, of the people involved, they probably have the least background in which to put the event in context. Benjy for obvious reasons, and Luster being a youngster, who is mainly concerned about finding the quarter to go to the show (I, 14) or (III, 253).

The precipitating actions that lead up to the event are told in the first and third sections of the novel. Since the first section consists of the ramblings of an idiot, many things are not clear on first reading. Most importantly, the name Quentin is used to refer to his older brother, and to his niece in adjacent pages, sometimes in adjacent passages (I, 67):

The section before the italics refers to Miss Quentin. The section beginning with the italics refers to Benjys brother and occurs many years earlier. The assumption is that this is very confused in Benjy’s head also. Faulkner is trying to accurately portray the perspective and mindset of a retarded character. So, when reading passages like this, in the first section, the reader has a confused picture of events in an analogous way to the confused picture found by Benjy’s brain.

In terms of tempo, the first section is told at a scene pace. This means that each action is told in a time frame similar to its duration. Because Benjy is almost completely sensate, in contrast to analytical, the descriptions in his section take the form, this happened, that happened, and so on. In the third section, whose duration is approximately the same (i.e. the waking hours of a day), the tempo is more dilate. Each of Jason’s individual actions on that day is described with his motivations, and associated background facts. The use of a scene style in the first section, also lends credence to its greater perceived objectivity.

The quotations and references above demonstrate the enmity between Jason and Miss Quentin, and the first section of the novel, told from Benjy’s point of view only takes place on Easter Eve. The subsequent actions can only be told in the final section when the discovery is made and the event itself is presumed.

The majority of the causal actions are told in the third section from the point of view of Jason. Actually Miss Quentin is the main foil for Jason, throughout the section that takes place on Good Friday. His pejorative characterization of her begins from the first sentence. The first paragraph highlights the fact that she also serves as a source of contention between Jason and his mother (III, 180):

Most of the action in the third section describes Jason’s work environment, his resentment towards his sister because her (former) husband had promised him a job, and having to take care of her daughter (as head of the household), and his continual battle with Miss Quentin to get her to conform to his views of decency. He is a fairly brutal cynic and sprinkles his assessments with healthy doses of invective, throughout the novel. His racism (IV, 278), anti-Semitism (III, 191), misogyny (III, 190) and cruel representations about his retarded brother (III, 196) are fundamental parts of the characterization of Jason.

Early on that Friday, he assaults Quentin physically (III, 183), and he starts the day in a foul mood with everyone in the house. They have a large argument about who pays for her upkeep (III, 187) that becomes physical again, on the way to school. Money that is being embezzled by Jason is mentioned in many passages.

One very telling passage, describes a note he receives from his sister, Caddy, containing the monthly support for her daughter Quentin (III, 190):

This passage makes clear that Caddy is distrustful of Jason, and although Jason portrays her as not much of a business person, she does have money to send. The note is somewhat of a stream of consciousness, where she says when she will expect a reply, and then changes to request immediate reply. Also, she has verified that checks are being cashed, so she is in touch with the situation. The language of this note makes clear that Caddy is well-spoken, well-to-do, and confident enough to attempt to rein in her brother’s misadventures.

Jason has many ruses that he perpetrates on Caddy, Quentin and his mother. The most spectacular of these is his promise to sell his sister some time (a minute) with her daughter for $50.00, quite a large sum at that time (III, 204), which he then reduces to just a fleeting glimpse into a passing carriage. His holding back of the money that was sent to Quentin (III, 215) is very devious, and using his mother’s shame to get her to burn a bogus check (III, 220), so he can deposit the real one, is basically extortion. He stores large sums of this money in his room at the house in a locked box.

He spends time on Friday, trying to track down Quentin, delinquent from school on her latest tryst. He accidentally runs into her, when she is skipping school (III, 232):

This makes clear that he views her behavior as a challenge to his authority as the head of the household that she resides in. His language also implies that her behavior is known, throughout out the community, besmirching the family name. In addition, this is a characterization of himself as someone who does not miss much.

The reference to the red tie has come up before. In particular, in the first section, when the fellow with the red tie is sitting in the swing with Quentin (I, 46), Luster asks "Is you one of them show folks." (I, 49). To this group of Southerners, a man wearing a red tie is unusual at the least, and probably indicative of a questionable character.

This repeated reference is intentional. This is presumed to be the gentleman she eventually runs off with. When Jason is chasing them later, he states (III, 238): I saw red. When I recognized that red tie, after all I had told her, I forgot about everything. Coming as it does on Easter weekend, and being a member of the eventual escape party, it is clear that Faulkner is making a reference to the blood of Jesus. In fact, the red tie is the only distinguishing characteristic mentioned about this Jack(I, 49).

The event itself is not described after the first section, since no one else is an eyewitness to the event. The novel is not chronological, since the next two sections actually precede the event. But the description of the aftermath of the event is telling in many ways. All of these facts are revealed on Easter morning in the last section of the book.

Nothing seems amiss until Dilsey rings the bell to signify that breakfast is ready. Then Jason and his mother descend the stairs discussing Jason’s broken bedroom window (IV, 277). This is followed by a sequence in which Dilsey is commanded to fetch Quentin from her room for breakfast. As soon as his mother goes upstairs to extract Quentin from her room, it suddenly becomes clear to Jason (IV, 280) that there is a connection between these events, and he rushes upstairs to break into Quentin’s room. His desperation becomes palpable, when he paws at the pockets of his mother’s dressing gown, and shouts: give me the key, you old fool! (IV, 281).

After breaking into the room, and discovering her gone, Jason immediately checks his hidden moneybox and finds it empty. Enraged, he notifies the sheriff to start a search party to the next town to track down the stolen money (IV, 284). Quentin seems like she was not even a member of the family. Her grandmother assumed (or maybe hoped) that she committed suicide. Apparently, prior to this, no one had been in her room, and it is described as (IV, 283):

This description is similar to that of an unoccupied room, not the room of a family member. Dilsey’s or one of the other servant’s rooms probably had more articles in it than this. She seems unloved and undoubtedly very hurt by this.

The language, structure and flow of this novel are not straightforward. It would be difficult for anyone to gain significant meaning after only one reading. This event, which could be considered the novel’s climax, is described in the first section, in an obfuscated manner. More than 200 pages later, the consequences of the event are described.

The paragraphs above have provided a detailed analysis of several of the relevant issues surrounding the event. The eyewitness account and its context have been used as the measuring stick for subsequent renditions. Extensive detail has been provided to establish the setting in which the other principals—Jason and his mother—perceive, describe, and react to, the event.

A condensed rendering of the facts detailed above is: she (re)took the money that had been embezzled from her and ran off on Easter morning with a showman-type guy wearing a red tie. These allegorical symbols paint a clear picture of Faulkner’s intent to portray reclamation, redemption, rebirth and renewal with a small set of characters. Also, the repeated references to the pear tree as the channel of escape is meant to signify that this is how Quentin can finally bear the fruit of her freedom.