Quentin Chapter

In Quentin's chapter, the very first thing a reader will notice is the change in narration. Now that Benjy's chapter is over, we have a narrator (Quentin) who is able to comprehend the world around him and differentiate between the past and the present. However, this turns out to be little relief from confusing literature, as Quentin in almost equally confusing in his own way. The reason that Quentin’s narration is so confusing is the constant memories he has from the past, along with his constant fantasies. While it is now clear whether something is a memory or a present occurrence, it is unclear what Quentin is actually remembering and what he is making up in his head, so the memories are somewhat blurred.

Throughout the chapter, it is clear that Quentin’s sense of himself is being largely overlooked. Quentin seems to be such an obsessive personality that he forgets about himself and what is going on around him and gives into his obsessions. The chapter is dominated mostly with Quentin’s angry musing over Caddy’s lifestyle of sin, and Quentin’s strange obsession with time and clocks. In terms of the time obsession, the reader is confused by the entire clock store scene, in which Quentin goes into the store, asks the clerk to fix his broken watch that is still ticking, he then never lets the man have the watch, and does not get it fixed. He also asks the man whether the clocks are correct, but does not care what time it is. In the end, it seems that his obsession with time makes him think that he must escape it, and the only solution he finds for this is to kill himself.

Next, Quentin’s obsession with Caddy and her promiscuity really overwhelms the entire narrative, and does make it somewhat confusing. It is unclear what exactly is the root of his obsession, whether he genuinely cares about his southern values that much to the point that Caddy’s choices bother him that much, or if the reality is a sort of jealousy of Caddy that she can allow herself to have a good time in that way. This entire discussion is greatly clouded by the memory of Quentin telling his dad that he committed incest with Caddy. Again here it is unclear whether he genuinely cares about Caddy that much and just wants to protect her, or has some other weird goal in mind. In my personal opinion, the fact that he killed himself shows that Quentin did not really care that much about his family, because I cannot see any way a person could do that to their family knowing the grief it will cause them, and knowing that Benjy’s favorite pasture was sacrificed for his education (granted this does seem minor, but it was a big deal to Benjy). I think instead that Quentin was just so messed up in the head that he really had no sense of reality, although I cannot really decide exactly why he would have said the incest thing.

In conclusion, all of the convoluted details of this chapter and Quentin’s eventually suicide certainly show that Quentin was not in a good mental state, or even that he was sane at all. I think that the point being made is that despite his disability, in the end even Benjy was saner than Quentin. Irony also seems to have been used by Faulkner here, because one would think the Quentin was a genius because he went to Harvard, but I just cannot see anyone who would make a decision like that being called smart.