Part Two: Quentin- Questions and Lesson
Guiding Questions to Complete Before Class:
1. What effect does Quentin's suicide have on the Compson family at large?
2. What do all of these symbols suggest about the Compson family?
3. How does the declining Compson family reflect the changing Old South?
4. Does Quentin maintain a clear sense of the "I"? Explain
5. How and why does Quentin's narration become confusing to the reader? Give examples.
6. What does Quentin's narration suggest about his mental state? Be specific.
Activity 1. Symbols as Time Triggers
Students will chart time and time shifts by tracking on the "Symbols as Time Triggers" Worksheet, the key symbols that jumpstart Quentin's "process of fragmentary recollections
Students will read the first part of "On The Sound and the Fury: Time in the Work of Faulkner" by Jean-Paul Sartre.
Refer specifically to the following passage from this essay:
"In the first chapter, Benjy's flashbacks are extended in length and triggered by external stimuli in the present and by sensory association … In the second chapter, Quentin's recollections are more abstractly associative than Benjy's—a thought, not only a sensation, will begin a labyrinthine process of fragmentary recollections, often abbreviated and intermingled with one another so that several can occur within the space of two or three lines of text."
Discussing the Sartre essay.
- What does Sartre mean by Faulkner's "technical oddity"?
- What does Sartre mean by suggesting that "nothing happens; the story does not unfold"?
- What is another way to describe "clockless" time?
. - How does Quentin's broken watch symbolize "clockless" time?
Break the students into four groups, and assign a symbol to each group. Each student should have marked several references to each symbol as they were reading the novel, so direct students to cite three group examples for their group to discuss in more detail. Watches/clocks.
Water.
Quentin's shadow
Blood
- What makes the image symbolic?
- Why and how does the symbol trigger time shifts throughout the chapter?
- What does the symbol suggest about Quentin's mental state?
- How does the symbol help to clarify this chapter's plot?
Present their findings to the class.
Activity 2. Narrative Structure: A Sign of Quentin's Mental State
Like the "Benjy Chapter," this chapter of the novel is written in the first person point of view. Students will analyze Faulkner's use of person, closely studying several key passages to investigate Quentin's mental state. Because Quentin engages in fragmentary stream-of-consciousness style, his "I" perspective is imbalanced and confusing.
Key passages include the following:
- It was a while before the last stroke ceased vibrating. It stayed in the air, more felt than heard, for a long time. Like all the bells that ever rang still ringing in the long dying light-rays and Jesus and Saint Francis talking about his sister. Because if it were just to hell; if that were all of it. Finished. If things just finished themselves. Nobody else there but her and me. If we could just have done something so dreadful that they would have fled hell except us. I have committed incest I said Father it was I it was not Dalton Ames And when he put Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. When he put the pistol in my hand I didn't. That's why I didn't. He would be there and she would and I would. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. If we could have just done something so dreadful and Father said That's sad too people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today and I said, You can shirk all things and he said, Ah can you. And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand. Until on the Day when He says Rise only the flat-iron would come floating up. It's not when you realise that nothing can help you—religion, pride, anything—it's when you realise that you dont need any aid. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames. If I could have been his mother lying with open body lifted laughing, holding his father with my hand refraining, seeing, watching him die before he lived. One minute she was standing in the door
I went to the dresser and took up the watch, with the face still down.
- any live man is better than any dead man but no live or dead man is very much better than any other live or dead man Done in Mother's mind though. Finished. Finished. Then we were all poisoned you are confusing sin and morality women dont do that your mother is thinking of morality whether it be sin or not has not occurred to her
Jason I must go away you keep the others I'll take Jason and go where nobody knows us so he'll have a chance to grow up and forget all this the others dont love me they have never loved anything with that streak of Compson selfishness and false pride Jason was the only one my heart went out to without dread
nonsense Jason is all right I was thinking that as soon as you feel better you and Caddy might go up to French Lick
and leave Jason here with nobody but you and the darkies
she will forget him then all the talk will die away found not death at the salt licks
maybe I could find a husband for her not death at the salt licks
The car came up and stopped. The bells were still ringing the half hour. I got on and it went on again, blotting the half hour. No: the three quarters. Then it would be ten minutes anyway. To leave Harvard your mother's dream for sold Benjy's pasture for
- thought that Benjamin was punishment enough for any sins I have committed I thought he was my punishment for putting aside my pride and marrying a man who held himself above me I dont complain I loved him above all of them because of it because my duty though Jason pulling at my heart all the while but I see now that I have not suffered enough I see now that I must pay for your sins as well as mine what have you done what sins have your high and mighty people visited upon me but you'll take up for them you always have found excuses for your own blood only Jason can do wrong because he is more Bascomb than Compson while your own daughter my little daughter my baby girl she is she is no better than that when I was a girl I was unfortunate I was only a Bascomb I was taught that there is no halfway ground that a woman is either a lady or not but I never dreamed when I held her in my arms that any daughter of mine could let herself dont you know I can look at her eyes and tell you may think she'd tell you but she doesn't tell things she is secretive you dont know her I know things she's done that I'd die before I'd have you know that's it go on criticise Jason accuse me of setting him to watch her as if it were a crime while your own daughter can I know you dont love him that you wish to believe faults against him you never have yes ridicule him as you always have Maury you cannot hurt me any more than your children already have and then I'll be gone and Jason with no one to love him shield him from this I look at him every day dreading to see this Compson blood beginning to show in him at last with his sister slipping out to see what do you call it then have you ever laid eyes on him will you even let me try to find out who he is it's not for myself I couldn't bear to see him it's for your sake to protect you but who can fight against bad blood you wont let me try we are to sit back with our hands folded while she not only drags your name in the dirt but corrupts the very air your children breathe
- Go out a minute Herbert I want to talk to Quentin Come in come in let's all have a gabfest and get acquainted I was just telling Quentin Go on Herbert go out a while Well all right then I suppose you and bubber do want to see one another once more eh You'd better take that cigar off the mantel
Right as usual my boy then I'll toddle along let them order you around while they can Quentin after day after tomorrow it'll be pretty please to the old man wont it dear give us a kiss honey
Oh stop that save that for day after tomorrow
I'll want interest then dont let Quentin do anything he cant finish oh by the way did I tell Quentin the story about the man's parrot and what happened to it a sad story remind me of that think of it yourself ta-ta see you in the funnypaper
Well
Well
What are you up to now
Nothing
You're meddling in my business again didn't you get enough of that last summer
Caddy you've got fever You're sick how are you sick
I'm just sick. I cant ask.
Shot his voice through the
Not that blackguard Caddy
Choose one passage from Quentin's chapter and give a brief description for the following:
- Who Quentin "is" during that passage—what are his obligations to his family?
- Who is he most concerned with?
- In what time period do his thoughts reside (in college, during the present, or sometime during his youth)?
Summary Question for discussion and consideration:
Share your visions of Quentin to help give the impression of his fragmented mental state. Finally, review Quentin in comparison to his brother—both are obsessed with Caddy, but what are the differences in their obsession?