The Sound and the Fury

There were many things in the Quentin section that grabbed my attention when I read June 2 of The Sound and the Fury. For this blog posting I want to discuss two things that especially caught my attention in the Quentin section: time and the eerie girl that follows Quentin. The Quentin section, though narrated from the view of a fully grown, fully developed man, to me is actually harder to understand than the Benjy section. But, one of the most rewarding experiences of reading the Quentin section is being able to connect it to the previous section and also seeing the foreshadowing that lies within its pages. I found that I really liked Quentin more than any other character in The Sound and the Fury; it’s a pity he had to drown himself. I really respect what he stands for, what he fights for, and I respect what Quentin went through.

From the beginning of the Quentin section, time presents itself as an important issue that must be faced by Quentin. When Quentin first wakes up he notices that the “shadow of the sash appeared on the curtain,” indicating that it was “between seven and eight oclock”. Then, Quentin immediately hears the ticking of Grandfather’s watch that Father gave to him. It becomes immediately clear that time is one of Quentin’s chief concerns at this time, the beginning of the novel. Time is an issue that gnaws away at Quentin constantly. When Quentin is on the way to the repair shop he notices the “clock, high up in the sun…” and the “watch ticking away” in his pocket. Quentin then becomes acutely aware of the ticking of clocks in the repair shop and asks if any of the clocks show the correct time. Further along the Quentin section, Quentin asks others if there is a clock that chimes nearby and refers to the time frequently. It becomes clear that Quentin is trying to stop time and at times it seems he is running away from time. But why is Quentin running away from time? I believe that Quentin wants to run away from time because he can not face the breaking of his idealistic vision of him and Caddy together and pure. Father tries to convince Quentin that time will heal his pain at his broken vision, but Quentin believes that it is a wound that can not be healed. I believe that Quentin believes he has no other choice than taking away his life, because he believes he has nothing to live for. I also believe that Quentin inside really does not want to commit suicide, seen by his hesitancy to commit the act. Quentin avoids time to show that his pain is everlasting and can not be erased by time and he avoids time to stall his death. Quentin pointlessly realizes he must brush his teeth, brush his clothes off, and comb his hair before he must kill himself, but really all he wants is more time to live.

In class, we talked deeply and heavily about the mysterious girl with “black eyes”. When I read this passage I immediately thought of parallels of this girl in Quentin’s scene, but I was too afraid to bring my ideas up in class, for fear of them not being taken seriously. So I decided to blog my ideas. I believe that the girl, or the mysterious child, is a writer’s convention to signify imminent trouble or even death. In movies recently, mysterious children are used in a similar fashion to that of the girl in The Sound and the Fury. In Stephen Jackson’s King Kong and in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto little girls are symbols of imminent death. As soon as I read the first encounter of the “ragged girl” with “black eyes” I thought of these characters from the movies. Here are some pictures to show you what parallels I drew: (pictures at top)



Mysterious Native Girl from King Kong: before a battle

The other girl is from Apocalypto and she foreshadows the rise fall of the Mayan Empire.