What is this? Coherency? How novel, and quite wonderful I must say. The final chapter is finally completely and utterly logical. No stream of concience, no lack of punctuation, no lack of time.
It doesn't tie things off in a neat bow (that is clearly no Faulkner's style, have you seen the rest of the book?) but there is a raw sense of resolution. Quentin's departure, or perhaps more acurately her escape, symbolizes the total collapse of the Compson family. Quentin, like her mother, represents the new south, the changing world the Compson's are living in, and she's left her family and their antiquated ways behind, for better or worse. Jason's attempt to find her is hilariously thwarted, and I think we can all say we gave a smug smile when his headache grew so awful that he had to pay someone to drive him home.
But we never see Caddy. We pine after her throughout the book and wish we knew how she was, what she's done with herself, but it doesn't really happen. Sure, it's implied through Jason's dealings with her that she's doing all right, but I want to really know. And at the same time, we don't need to, becasue we know enough.
Faulkner put everything together in a subtle way, each chapter revealing less of the facts and more of the themes. Benji offered no opinion of the events taking place, only relaying them. Quentin wass still commenting on what was happening, but his personal views were also being shown, and his opinions of his family members lent insights to their characters previously unseen. Jason hardly cared what was going on, it was all merely a tool for him to impose his will and opinion on the world with. And now we see Dilsey, but we see it all too. The third person narrative Faulkner utilizes takes a step back from everything that's happened. The individual events are knit together to form a big piece, the individual opinions flow together to offer a more complete view of the characters. Thing's don't change per say, but they certainly make more sense.
I agree with you that upon Quentin's departure from the family I was somewhat delighted. And although I would never encourage Quentin to steal money from Jason, I was pleased she had out smarted him. I, just like you, was disappointed to not see a Caddy perspective, but I don't necessarily see a great time for her chapter to be intertwined within the book. Her chapter would be too coherent for the beginning, and not interactive and present enough for the later part of the book. Regardless, I feel like I got robbed because I want to know more about Caddy and what she thinks about this crazy family of hers. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteI love how you mentioned the ending gave readers only a raw sense of resolution. That is a great way to describe the end of this book. Great job! Love the blog!
ReplyDeleteWonderful blog! It is very funny! I completely agree about how calmly the seemingly coded book finally winded to an anticlimactic end. The whole idea of a new era of the south ushering in, was very interesting to me. I wish we had really gotten to find out what was going on with Caddy as well. I love that you used "a smug smile" to describe readers' reactions to Jason's inability to get himself home (again displaying the new role of things becoming present in the south). It was a witty way to display everyone's feelings towards Jason. I really enjoyed your post, it is very well written, good job!
ReplyDeleteexcellent, great job, analysis and voice
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