The Sound and the Fury 2nd June, 1910
Quentin wakes in his Harvard room, two months after Caddy’s wedding, and goes to his dresser where he finds the watch that his father had gifted him. The watch indicates a time between 7 and 8 o clock, and he remembers how his father had given him the watch as a means for him to forget about time. He hears the ticking of the watch and thinks about how he has always been obsessed with time. His roommate, Shreve, interrupts his thoughts as he steps in to remind Quentin that their classes will begin shortly. Quentin tells his friend that he hadn’t been aware of the time, and asks Shreve to go on without him.
He watches the students rush to class from his window, and notices a senior, Spoade, who had once bullied him about his virginity. Quentin thinks about his virginity and that of his sisters as he is reminded of Caddy’s marriage. He recalls confessing to incest when his father had learned of Caddy’s pregnancy. His father hadn’t believed him, but Quentin had been adamant about attributing his sister’s pregnancy to himself rather than Dalton Ames. He repeats the name to himself several times and slams the watch against the side table. He cuts his hand on the broken glass but the watch continues to tick. Quentin cleans up the glass and locks his trunk. He writes two letters and posts one to his father along with the key to his trunk, while keeping the other, which is meant for Shreve, in his pocket.
Quentin sets out to search for Deacon, a local black man, but he isn’t able to find him and so he goes to have some breakfast. He also visits a clock shop and shows his broken watch to the owner but refuses to let the man fix it. He asks the man whether any of the clocks on the watch were showing the right time, but refuses to hear the correct time when he offers to tell Quentin. He leaves the shop and buys a set of tailor weights that he hopes will be heavy enough but he never explains their purpose. He boards the train and thinks about how he would spend the last minutes of his lessons counting the seconds. He would try to guess exactly when the bell would ring by counting the seconds but he never quite managed to count correctly. He reaches his station and walks onto a bridge. He stares at the river and thinks about drowning. He sees Gerald Bland, a peer from Harvard, rowing across the river, and he is reminded of all the times he had learned of Caddy’s promiscuous behavior. He thinks about the poor role their mother had played in their lives, as he recalls the letters she had sent him about Herbert Head, who was to marry Caddy. His mother had explained that Herbert would also organize a job for Jason in the bank. He finds Deacon, a local man who preys on new students that do not understand the systems of Harvard life and hands him the letter to hand to Shreve later onwards.
He rides a trolley and recalls a conversation he had with Herbert a couple of days before the marriage. The two of them had come to blows, but Quentin had been shielded by Caddy’s interruption. Quentin had then attempted to convince his sister that Herbert was a poor match for her given his terrible reputation at Harvard. Herbert had been thrown out of a club for cheating at cards, but Caddy did not consider that to be a great deterrent. She explained to him her need to marry someone before her pregnancy became evident. Quentin asks her if she has been with several men, and whether she knows the father of her baby, but Caddy supplies non-committal responses. Quentin tries to elope with her and Benjy, as he claims that they would live off the money for his college. Caddy wants him to complete his education as the money came from the sale of Benjy’s favorite pasture. She was also worried about what would happen to Benjy after their parent's death and so insisted that Quentin make something of himself through his college education.
He is reminded of another conversation with his father when he had been told that he was upset about Caddy’s pregnancy because he was a virgin. Their father had been unbothered by Caddy’s pregnancy and had tried to explain it as a spurious concept developed and imposed by men.
Quentin walks along a river and meets a group of young men discussing fishing in the river. He heads into a nearby town and goes into a bakery where he finds a small mute Italian girl. He buys her a loaf of bread and some cakes, while the shop owner complains about the influx of foreigners. Quentin expresses concern about the small dirty girl’s welfare and sets out to search for her parents. He takes her along with him to the post office and then visits the marshal, but he is unable to learn of the girl’s family. The missing marshal forces Quentin to find the girl’s parents on her own, but he doesn’t have any luck. Finally, the girl’s brother Julio shows up and accuses Quentin of attempting to kidnap his sister. Quentin is arrested by the marshal and taken to the squire’s office. On his way there, he meets Shreve, Spoade, Gerald Bland, and Mrs. Bland who are accompanied by a couple of women. Spoade and Shreve accompany the Marshal to the squire’s office where the matter is cleared. The Squire fines Quentin which he pays willingly, though Shreve protests the amount. Shreve and Spoade take Quentin back to Mrs. Bland and the women, who seem to be scandalized by Quentin’s arrest.
The group drives away, and Gerald begins to tell the group of women about his various encounters with women who were interested in him. This reminds Quentin of the time he had learned about Caddy’s promiscuity. He had told her that it would be best for them to kill themselves and had even produced a knife to take care of the matter. He had believed that the dishonor would be too much to bear for their family, and so when the suicide plan had failed to materialize, he had thought about telling his father that Caddy was pregnant with his child. He had wanted them to elope together, and Caddy seemed too numb to argue with him. After his conversation with her, Quentin had set out to find Dalton Ames. He meets the older man on a bridge and threatens him as he demands that Dalton leave town that same night. Dalton showed Quentin his ability with a revolver and handed it to him. He tells Quentin to remember his skill with the gun when he comes to exact revenge on Dalton. Quentin loses consciousness as he hits his head against the railing of the bridge, and has to sit down to recover his vision. Dalton had expressed some concern about Caddy’s health, but he had gone after Quentin had insisted on it.
He then argues with Gerald as he interrupts the stories of his various exploits by asking him if he had a sister. Gerald and Quentin had come to blows, and Quentin had been beaten rather soundly by Gerald who happened to be a learning boxer. Quentin gets back to his rooms after parting with his friends, who attempt to force him to stay and forget about the altercation. In his room, he thinks about the time he had told his father that he had committed incest, but his father hadn’t believed him. He had tried to tell Quentin that his harsh feelings over Caddy’s sexual maturity would soon pass. In the present, Quentin leaves his room as the class bell sounds through the campus.
Analysis
The sound and the fury examine the theme of time from various perspectives. In the previous section, we had witnessed the unified view of time that Benjy had adopted, and in this section, we see a different interpretation of time that Quentin practices. The author creates a unique link of kinship between Benjy and Quentin through the narrative section. Benjy and Quentin are not just siblings because of their blood, but also because of their unique perception of time, and their fixation on Caddy’s sexual maturity. Quentin’s obsession with his sister’s sexual life is motivated by the old codes of southern honor, whereas Benjy’s concern comes from his desire to maintain a perceived system of order.
Quentin is alone in believing that his sister’s sexual promiscuity is a blight on his family’s reputation. His concern with the Southern ideas of honor is met with disdain from his father, who believes that Quentin takes himself too seriously. Faulkner conveys the hollowness of Quentin’s ideals as he pits him against other characters who thrash him quite badly whenever he claims to take a moral stand against them. It is also interesting to note that Quentin deems suicide, and incest to be more honorable than Caddy’s sexual relationships with other men. Finally, it is this dissonance that Quentin experiences with his ideals that compel him to commit suicide even after his family’s reputation has been rescued by Herbert’s marriage with Caddy.
Mr. Compson remarks that Quentin’s hurt feelings about Caddy originate from his lack of experience in the matter. In this section, Quentin recalls an instance in which Caddy had behaved badly with one of the girls he had been trying to woo. Literary critics have held that the relationship between Caddy and Quentin indicates a certain level of sexual frustration. In that case, Quentin’s obsession with Caddy’s sexual promiscuity isn’t just a matter of Compson's honor but also jealousy.
