Lost in Thought- The Quentin Chapter

When I started this chapter, I thought that compared to the Benjy section this would be a piece of cake. Turns out that Quentin is not exactly in his right mind either. Quentin's section was his thoughts on the last day of his life. He is so deep in his thoughts that often there were holes in his present day memories, such as when he fights Gerald. He couldn't recall why he woke up covered in blood, again, until his friends told him that he had hit Gerald because of the way that he talks about women. Even from Benjy's section, we know that this is not the first time that Quentin has fought someone because of the way they talked about women. As a child he got into a fight because someone threaten to put a frog on her desk (43). He also tried to defend Caddy's honor, and challenged the hated Dalton Ames. He hit him after Dalton replies "no but they're all bitches" when Quentin asked if he ever had a sister. Caddy plays a significant role in the way that Quentin sees women. When he sees the young girl in the bakery, he calls her sister and treats her like one. He sees every women as someone's sister. That's why he always fights to defend them. This is also part of the Southern culture if honor, where it was traditional for a gentleman to challenge someone who was talking dishonorably about women. His belligerence also shows his dedication to the old social code.

Quentin is in a state of confusion as a result of Caddy's promiscuity. His mother claims that Caddy has ruined the family. Yet Mrs. Compson believes that Caddy's true sin is not being a lady, not losing her virginity.  Quentin recalls his parents fighting, and his mother claiming that Jason was the only true child of hers, and views the others as a punishment for his sins. His mother's pride and selfishness cause them to have a loveless relationship.  His father tells him that "It was men that invented virginity, not women," and is indifferent to Caddy's actions. Mr. Compson believes in the reductio ad absurdum philosophy, and generally believes that all human experiences, from Caddy's promiscuity to Quentin's reaction, is absurd. He also instills a sense of shame in Quentin for being a virgin, saying that "Purity is a negative state." In the final scene, when Quentin tells his father that he has committed incest, his father does not take him seriously. He knows that Quentin is lying to save his sister, and tells him that all actions and emotions are temporary, maybe he should just go up to Maine for a month because time heals everything. 

But Quentin does not want time to heal this. He wants to find value in living, something that he tries to find in Caddy. When Caddy is no longer pure, he obsesses over the reasons why. "Do you love them?" he asks her, but she replies "When they touch me I died"(94). He wishes that it was he that was "unvirgin." He longs for a sense of order. He is in a state of confusion because he believes in the old Southern code and order, yet his sister whom he deeply loves has done everything to disassociate herself with it. As Quentin's section concludes, he thoughts become disoriented, as seen through Faulkner's writing. Sentences are jumbled , "i" is left capitalized, which tells me that he is not in a healthy mental state. His family's lost honor has had a horrible effect on him. Quentin wants to discard his father's philosophy, but Caddy's loss of purity and his inability to save her or make sense of it, force him into a state where he has to find something that has meaning. Quentin stops the clock so that time will stop. He stops it so that he can never move on. Quentin kills himself so he can stop his time on Earth, and that he can never forget the pain that Caddy's rebellion against order has caused him, which is the only way he can make meaning out of his life.