The Benjy Chapter- Told through the Past and Present

To pretend that I was not entirely confused during this chapter would be a lie. However I will say that Faulkner's writing impressed me very much. He was able to capture the history, and present day existence of the Compson family through the eyes of someone who is mentally challenged. Benjy's chapter showed the changes that occurred within the Compson family. For example when Luster and Benjy go down to the river, and Luster remarks that Benjy "still thinks that he owns the pasture." (13) Benjy also connects the past to the present. Remembering when he caught Caddy and Charlie on the porch, he goes to the swing to find Quentin and a man doing the same. They may be different people, but history repeats itself within the family. Benjy is nostalgic for the past, and uses these memories to escape back to the past. He likes consistency. When Caddy wears perfume, and no longer "smells like trees" he moans until she takes it off. During his flashbacks, whenever something seemed out of place, or when he realized how things had changed, it seemed he began to moan.
Benjy is seen as a burden by most of the people in the Compson household, The mother calls him a "judgement on her," and is unwilling to stand his consistent moaning. Both Luster and Miss Quentin expressed that they would prefer if he were to go to Jackson, where the mental institute is. Caddy is very kind to Benjy. She is one of the only characters that actually cares and tries to understand why Benjy gets upset, while the other just try to hush him.
His mother is especially harsh to him, changing his name from Maury, after her brother, to Benjamin. Family and names are very important to the mother. When Mr. Jason comments on Uncle Maury's illness, she is quick to defend him. She insists that the children be called by their full name, like Cadence or Benjamin. Once Caddy leaves, the mother decides that her name will not be spoken in the house. By changing Benjy's name so that it is not associated with her side if the family make it seem like Benjy is not fully part of the family.
The present scene that takes place is in April, right before Easter. Easter is a time of rebirth and resurrection, which can only occur after death. Benjy is sensitive to the deaths that have taken place at the Compson household, such as his grandmother's and his father's. He also notes that the black family running the household think that his family is doomed, because of two events, and maybe one more. I assume that they think that Benjy's mental disability is one of the cursed events.  Benjy senses the sin and death around him, but he cannot communicate in a way that people understand, so he can do nothing to stop it. His family pushes him onto a caretaker, usually one of the black servants, and ignore him. Benjy's awareness of mortality and sin, but his family's disregard for him, make him a modern day Christ. Just like Christ, he is there trying to communicate with us, but no one listens. Following Christ is seen as the path to redemption, the way that the Compsons treat Benjy is one of the reasons that the family has lost its prestige.
Benjy is an objective observer of his family. The judgement that the reader makes of the characters is their own, not Benjy's. I see that from a young age, Caddy was very spirited and had no regard for social norms, such as when she undressed in the river. Quentin is studious, and he and Caddy are in confidence of one another. Jason is different from the other children and is rather sensitive. Caddy's high spirits make her the center of her family. I loved the scene where the children babbled on "who has to mind who," it reminded me of my own childhood. Benjy's chapter helped to set the scene for the rest of the novel, showing the changes that have occurred in the family, as well as their character.

The Journey begins: the Story of William Faulkner

William Faulkner was born September 25, 1897 in New Albany Mississippi. From the beginning he was both intelligent and cunning. He grew up in Oxford. Mississippi, the oldest of four brothers. He tried to join the US Air force, but did not make it. He did train for the British Air force in Toronto, but never actually flew because the war ended before he could. He lied about serving in the war, even faking injuries, and attended the University of Mississippi on a scholarship for veterans, even though he never even graduated high school. Honestly, the more I know about Faulkner, the more I like him. His life sounds like a movie. His high school sweetheart, Estelle Oldham, accepted a proposal from another man, thinking that it was a joke because he was going to live in Hawaii. When she got the ring in the mail, she realized it was not a joke, and her parents made her marry him. But several years later, Faulkner and Oldham did marry in June 1929, a month after she divorced her husband.
Faulkner is a paradox. I read stories of his alcohol dependency and his lazy days working in the post office, yet he was able to write and publish so much during the time that he was alive. Some of his most well known books are As I lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, and Sanctuary. In his novels, his Southern roots and sense of family and clearly shown. Many of his writings he claimed to do just to make money, such as the book that made him famous, Sanctuary. He was a man of great compassion, taking care of his niece and sister in law after the death of his brother. But he was also a man of passion, and had an affair with his secretary in 1936 (and a little bit of a cliche) as his marriage to Estelle began to fall apart. He not only wrote books and short stories, but 1932 marked the year of his screenwriting career, which he did for financial reasons and actually hated the job. He would often go on day long drinking binges, where he could become delirious. His daughter, Jill, once asked him to stop and think of her before he drank, but he replied "No one remembers Shakespeare's kids."
He lived an unapologetic life, once he even insulted Hemingway's writing, to which he half apologized for. He also lived a very private life, and hide from the attention that he received after Sanctuary was published. But when he won the Nobel Peace Prize for literature in 1950, he became a public figure. He used his fame for good, when he moderately supported school integration in the 1950s. Faulkner was his own man. He disagreed with Southern segregation, yet he also disagreed with government involvement, which isolated himself from the North.  He continued to be active for the rest of his life. He died 12 years later in 1962 of a heart attack, but he accomplished something magnificent in his life: he was able to see his work appreciated and his legacy live on. He lived the life of an artist.