Quentin

Quentin’s chapter begins with his internal thoughts about time and clocks, which prove to be major topics throughout the rest of his story and his chapter. While Quentin is not mentally challenged like his brother Benjy, he is constantly  reverting to old memories, only in a slightly more coherent way than Benjy. His tendency to remember the past accentuates toward the end of the chapter as the day of June 2, 1910 unfolds. Quentin does tie up several loose ends from Benjy’s chapter, such as the fact that the day that Caddy is in the river, he pulled out a knife and threatened to kill her, yet Quentin’s narration confuses readers even more.

Quentin proves to be a more complex character than Benjy because he thinks more than and more complexly than Benjy. While Benjy says exactly what he sees or does, Quentin has the mental capability to feel much more complex emotions, which means that Quentin’s thoughts and actions are more complex. On top of that, Quentin increasingly thinks of past events without much explanation, and readers are left to make assumptions themselves based on previous information from Benjy’s chapter. For example, Quentin gives readers the description of a girl that smells like roses in a veil, and readers must assume that he is describing Caddy’s wedding. Quentin also remembers telling his father that he has committed incest, which comes as a shock to readers because there is not any prior mention of this, nor explanation when he says it.

This story comes together as Quentin’s day progresses, but as his day progresses, Quentin seems to lose his sanity more and more, which makes following the story much harder. We can, however, learn more about Quentin himself, as he seems to stay true to himself throughout the story. We later find out that Quentin told his father that he committed incest to try to “save” Caddy from marriage. This is one example of Quentin’s respect of women and his desire to preserve their honor. Furthermore, Quentin calls all girls “sister,” which shows that he desires this for all women, not just his sister. He also recalls a time when he got into a fight because he defended some girls. He found a little girl (who he called “sister”) and tried to return her home because he genuinely wanted her to be safe. But he ends up being arrested for attempting to steal another man’s sister. This causes him to go into hysterics. This all shows that Quentin is a respectful man, at least to woman, and he would do almost anything to defend their honor, especially for Caddy. So, while he starts to loose his mind, he still keeps a good sense of who he is in this chapter. These present actions intertwined with his obsession with the past and time, along with his seemingly crazed writing style, shows that Quentin is not in the best mental state. This sets the stage for his suicide.