Pushing Benjy-man's Buttons

After numerous attempts at trying to get this freaking assignment to load, I realized that there was only one REAL thing I could do. Reread the Benjy section. I hadn’t really paid attention at first, Faulkner’s writing definitely proved my theory, and I found myself almost as frustrated with the text as I currently am with my computer loading assignments onto blogspot.com. Anyway, my extreme disapproval of my own skills at modern technology aside, I had a Faulkner-esque revelation: I had to reread the chapter, because there had to be a reason for my assignment to freak out, right? Turns out, this hypothesis proved to be correct! There was something extremely vital that I had missed in this section.

Let’s get started by doing a quick summary of Benjy’s character and the chapter as a whole. Benjy Compson comes from an aristocratic Southern family which--surprise, surprise--has a remarkable similarity to the home which Faulkner most likely grew up in. The Compsons are pretty gosh darn dysfunctional, this much is obvious, even from Benjy’s perspective. Mrs. Compson (Benjy’s mother) is neurotic, Mr. Compson (Benjy’s father) is obsessive, Quentin is the epitome of every neurotic and obsessive nerve in his father and mother, but multiplied by twenty, Jason (Another of Benjy’s brothers) is constantly trying to steal the family wealth like some sort of Rocky and Bullwinkle villain, and Candice (AKA “Caddy”, Benjy’s sister) is constantly trying to be more of a rebel, but she’s also seemingly the glue that keeps the family together until she, y’know, gets herself knocked up. Benjy, himself, is dysfunctional due to the fact that he is a mentally challenged thirty three year old man; although the reader is not completely sure as to what disease Benjy has, it is clear that there is something deterring him from being as mentally capable as the rest of the characters in this warped story. As my teacher bluntly puts it, he has the mental capacity of a three year old--which, and when you really give it some hardcore thought process, makes him the perfect narrator. Benjy is emotionally unaffected by the world around him, meaning that he has no real reason to lie to the reader. He tells the story in complete and utter honesty, not leaving out a single detail. My personal frustration while reading the chapter, however, was the fact that it had no regard for chronology.

Once I started the chapter, I was honestly perplexed. I kept trying to figure out why Billy would just completely ignore time sequence in general. I mean, I’ve read books that had flashbacks before (who hasn’t?), but they’ve always had a break in between the present and the past. Faulkner? Yeah, he doesn’t care. At all. He will seriously jump from the present to the past in the middle of a thought, without warning. However, it really plunges the reader into exactly what Benjy’s thought process is, especially when it comes to his siblings and how they affect his lifestyle in general. He’s not bound by time, whereas the rest of his family is. Scratch that, whereas the rest of “functional” humanity is. He is able to use his memories to explain his story at a better pace, he doesn’t need to be all “throwback to when Caddy got her dress all muddy in the river”, but he can still manage to get the point across, and although it takes a little bit of extra effort, the reader is able to follow along with him.

Scooting out of the general character and layout of Benjy’s perspective (although that’s uber interesting, and I’ve had to read a few articles to even begin to grasp it), I don’t really like Benjy. It’s not because he’s mentally challenged, either.

Well, okay, it sort of is.

I’ll explain.

I don’t like this section because Benjy does exactly what Faulks needed him to. He makes me uncomfortable because even with his perspective scribbled on paper before me, I still couldn’t possibly comprehend what it would be like to be in his situation. It’s no Bridget Jones’ Diary, and while I’m well aware of the fact that it’s not supposed to be, I still can’t help but find myself getting frustrated at Benjy, and being more frustrated at the other characters in the novel that are just as uncomfortable with it as I am. While reading it, I find myself in a completely moral dilemma of wanting to just skip to the next segment of the novel just to get away from the amount of infuriating selfishness displayed by the other characters. The first entry I wrote had a lot to do with this, but it was mainly just me complaining, and not really going into depth on the actual story. Funnily enough, I was sure that readers everywhere would think that I’m a terrible person for getting annoyed and/or uncomfortable with Benjy’s behavior. But let’s cut to the chase.

I knew that I couldn’t write about Benjy in this section, because even though it’s told from his perspective, there’s no way I can really determine exactly how he affects the story as a whole--but what I can fish from it, is what his brothers and sister are really like. Personally? I believe The Sound and The Fury is all about Caddy Compson.

I’ve flipped through the book a few different times, and something that continues to gnaw at me is the fact that the only Compson kid we never get to hear from is the one that seems to stir up the most trouble. I know that I’m skipping ahead here, but everyone seems to be constantly thinking about Caddy; they think about Caddy’s innocence, her sexuality, her decision making, etc, but her actual perspective is never developed.

Excuse me while I switch gears here. I’m not sure if you’ve seen 10 Clover Field Lane yet (and if you haven’t--GO SEE IT. The acting is absolutely phenomenal!!), but there’s this montage of three characters trying to put this puzzle of a cat underwater together while they’re trapped inside a bunker. By the end of the montage, one of the characters realizes there aren’t enough pieces left to actually finish the puzzle they had been working on for so long. The character laments along the lines of “Aw, shoot. How’s that kitty gonna be able to see underwater without its eye?”. The moment is iconic and funny, and acts as a foreshadowing tool for the rest of the movie, but let’s apply it to Faulkner and get back on track here. Caddy is exactly like that puzzle--Quentin, Benjy, Jason and Dilsey all give us pieces of it, but we’re still missing her eye. We’re still missing exactly what she sees.

I’m not going to lie, I had to get this next part from Sparknotes for extra analysis: but the crafty writers from that website made a pretty great discovery that really should’ve been obvious to me from the beginning: Caddy and Benjy are the only characters in the entire novel who are really comfortable being themselves. This is why Caddy and Benjy get along; he’s not confined by rules and norms, and that sort of freedom is what she most longs for. Of course, she decides to get her freedom through promiscuity which eventually leads to premarital pregnancy. By the way, I’m not sure if you know this, but that’s a pretty big no-no, especially in this time period. Especially in the South. Especially from the daughter of an aristocratic family who’ve somehow managed to keep their name since the Civil War. Benjy, however, has no idea about how Caddy is setting out to claim her freedom.

In Benjy’s present, Caddy is leaving him and the rest of the family, by getting married and moving away. She’s clearly a smart woman, and she knows that’s the only way to truly get her freedom. But for Benjy, he’s truly upset that his only real friend and the only real person that ever really understood him was going to leave forever.

He foreshadows her leaving multiple times--my personal favorite is when she stains her dress in the river as a child, and threatens to run away if her mother got mad when she found out. Staining her dress? Staining her reputation? Seems a little too similar to be coincidental, don’t ya think? Anyway, Benjy really doesn’t like the idea of Caddy going away, and fears that if she leaves, she won’t smell like trees anymore, or that she’ll lose her innocence. That if she moves away, he’ll truly lose her forever. Honestly, this puts Benjy at a bit of a loss, and really starts to get the novel rolling.

After this section, the reader has a clear view of Caddy. A view that’s only going to be confused by Quentin. Is Quentin really in love with his sister? Or is he gay? Or does he just have a stick up his butt? Find out in my next post!

Hopefully this one will load.