WAI CHEE DIMOCK: So we're
getting started on
The Sound and the Fury.
And I just want to show you
a few images of Faulkner's
Oxford, Oxford, Mississippi.
So this is Rowan Oak,
Faulkner's house.
And this is actually the old
Faulkner family house.
And you notice that actually
quite a few American authors
changed the spelling
of the name.
So Hawthorne used to be
H-A-T-H-O-R-N-E, so the W
isn't added on.
And likewise, Faulkner used to
be spelled F-A-L-K-N-E-R. So
it's just an interesting fact.
But this is the
Trigg-Doyle-Falkner House in
1904.
And the little boy on the pony,
that's actually Faulkner
right there.
So this is his statue in the
Courthouse Square in Oxford.
And keep this square in mind,
because in fact it will come
back at the very end of The
Sound and the Fury.
The Confederate monument in that
square is very important
to the plot of The Sound
and the Fury.
So it is the most important
place in the Central Square in
Oxford, so it's very
important.
And Faulkner is sitting
right there.
And this is an image
of him at work.
And you'll see that he was
a very bookish author,
surrounded by books
as he wrote.
And so we have to keep in mind
that authors are also readers
as well, and what they
read makes a
difference to how they write.
So both the creator of his own
writings but also a reader of
other people's writings.
And this is the mythic
Yoknapatawpha County--
I always have trouble
saying this--
and it's mapped by
Faulkner himself.
And it's obviously completely
made up but very
much based on Oxford.
And this is Jefferson,
Mississippi,
in Faulkner's works.
So it's just a really
interesting fact of Faulkner's
writings that he should create
not just a mythology but also
a whole landscape that
goes with that.
And talking about Faulkner as
a reader, not just an author
but also a reader, "the sound
and the fury," the phrase, is
taken from Macbeth,
Act V, Scene 5.
And it turns out that there's
another phrase that's also
very important to him as well.
So--
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and
tomorrow,/ creeps in this
petty pace from day to day,/
to the last syllable of
recorded time./ And all our
yesterdays have lighted fools/
the way to dusty death.
Out, out brief candle!/ Life's
but a walking shadow, a poor
player,/ that struts and frets
his hour upon the stage,/ and
then is heard no more.
It is a tale/ told by an idiot,
full of sound and
fury,/ signifying nothing."
So the title of the novel is
taken from the phrase "sound
and fury." But today's Benjy
section is obviously a tale
told by an idiot, and that's
really the challenge that
Faulkner takes upon himself is
to use mental retardation as a
constraint on narration and to
take up the challenge that
comes from that constraint.
And here, I want to read you two
accounts of Faulkner's own
description of how The Sound
and the Fury began.
And one is much less precise
than the other.
And I'll say a little bit about
your upcoming paper in
that context, but first, let's
look at the two accounts that
Faulkner himself offers.
"That began as a short story.
It was a story without plot,
of some children being sent
away from the house during the
grandmother's funeral.
They were too young to be told
what was going on, and they
saw things only incidentally
to the childish games they
were playing."
So this is a fine description.
It's an OK summary of The
Sound and the Fury.
It's about children at the
beginning of The Sound and the
Fury being sent away
from the house.
But this strange centrality
given to the grandmother's
funeral and not being able to
figure out what's going on,
that is not not in there.
It is very much in there in The
Sound and the Fury, but
our experience of readingf
Benjy's section isn't really
revolving around that
particular event.
So Faulkner obviously
has moved away from
that initial account.
So let's look at his second
account, much more precise,
much closer to what
we actually see
in the Benjy section.
"And then the idea struck me to
see how much more I could
have got out of the idea of the
blind self-centeredness of
innocence typified by children,
if one of those
children had been truly
innocent, that is, an idiot.
So the idiot was born, and then
I became interested in
the relationship of the idiot
to the world that he was in
but would never be able to cope
with and just where could
he get the tenderness,
the help, to
shield him in his innocence.
I mean 'innocence' in the sense
that God had stricken
him blind at birth, that
is, mindless at birth."
So I'll come back to this
particular very precise, very,
very good summary of
the Benjy section.
But I just wanted to stop for
a moment and talk about one
strategy to keep in mind as you
write your papers, because
this is a writing, WR, class.
So I want to emphasize how
important it is to know
exactly what you're trying
to do in a paper.
That is the most important
thing.
Knowing what you want to say
is just about the most
important thing, as important
as having something to say.
So that's why there are two
assignments that accompany the
first paper.
One is the outline in which
you name, you itemize, you
enumerate all the things that
you plan to do in the paper.
That's very important.
And the other is a more
unusual requirement.
It's a cover page that
accompanies your first paper
that will both describe what
you're trying to do, the
problems that you've run into
in the course of writing the
paper, and what you would
do differently if
you have more time.
So it's recognizing the fact
that you guys have constraints
on you as well, time
constraints.
You just have to turn
the paper in.
But if you had more time,
what else would you do?
What would you do differently?
This is to cultivate a
self-consciousness about the
paper as a paper, what goes into
the paper, what you are
free and able to put into the
paper at one moment and what
future projects, what future
versions of the paper you
might want to do.
As well as a recognition of what
you are trying to do that
you haven't quite succeeded
in doing.
So that is as important as well
is realizing that you're
trying to do something, but
you haven't quite done it.
But knowing that that's
really what you
should try to achieve.
So that self-awareness of the
slight gap between what you
set out to do and what you've
actually achieved, the
self-awareness of that gap is
crucial to you on your way to
becoming the writer that
you want to be.
So recognizing writing as a
process, you can get there
maybe 3/5 of the way, still
another third or maybe more
than that, maybe
3/4 of the way.
But you're not completely
there.
But what else do you need to do,
in your own estimation, to
get to be exactly where
you'd like?
So I would just encourage you
to give a lot of thought to
those two additional
requirements of the first
writing assignment.
But now let's come back to
Faulkner and this very good,
very precise account of The
Sound and the Fury.
And we notice a number
of things.
First of all, that he is
defining idiocy in a very
peculiar way.
He is defining idiocy
as the blind
self-centeredness of innocence.
He's not using the word "mental
retardation." That's
very, very important
to keep in mind.
It's not necessarily a
simple deficiency.
It is blind, so it
has that aspect.
It is self-centered.
And we'll think about what that
means for "idiocy" to be
a form of self-centeredness.
But also, more than anything
else, it is a kind of
innocence, which is a good
word for most of us.
So what does it mean
for "idiocy" to
be a kind of innocence?
We'll think about that.
And in fact an argument that I
would like to make is that not
only is Benjy himself innocent,
but innocence is
also what he demands
from the world.
Innocence is the impossible
demand that he puts upon the
person that he loves
the most, Caddy.
And it is that impossible demand
that Caddy is not able
to fulfill in the end.
And what Faulkner
does about that.
The novel is both about Caddy
not being able to supply that
requisite, that demanded
innocence that is coming from
Benjy, the demand made upon her,
not being able to fulfill
it finally, and Faulkner
actually stepping in to supply
that lack by his narrative
experimentation.
So this is what I'll
try to show in the
course of this lecture.
But I want to contextualize
Faulkner against a number of
thinkers who also thought about
mental retardation or
the various ways of designating
that condition.
And one of the most important is
the philosopher John Locke.
And this is what he says in
a very, very influential--
this is one of the most
influential texts written in
the end of the 17th century,
very, very influential in the
18th century and 19th
century as well.
John Locke--
"Herein seems to lie the
difference between idiots and
madmen, that madmen put wrong
ideas together and reason from
them, but idiots make very few
or no propositions and reason
scarce at all."
So we almost recognize something
else in what John
Locke is describing.
Madmen put wrong ideas together
and reason from them.
Actually, he's describing
a lot of the characters
in Edgar Allen Poe.
So we recognize that.
But idiots-- and this is really
a very good description
of what Faulkner is
trying to create--
idiots put very few or
no propositions and
reason scarce at all.
So not being able to put the
two and two together, not
being able to go from
point A to point B,
that is Benjy's problem.
So point A and point B are
always going to be completely
separate, discrete,
unconnected dots.
He's not able to connect all
the dots of the world.
So it really goes back to John
Locke in some sense.
And in the 19th century,
the institution--
well, it was called
a lunatic asylum.
It's not called by that
designation now.
"Mental institution"
is the word we use.
But when it first started in the
mid 19th century, it was
called a lunatic asylum.
And this is the one in
Jackson, Mississippi.
And Jackson, Mississippi, is
very resonant and loaded
within Faulkner.
Sending someone to Jackson just
means sending him to the
lunatic asylum.
And it comes up in The
Sound and the Fury.
It comes up in As I Lay Dying.
So this is the large-scale
housing concentration of the
mentally retarded in
just one place.
And as we move on to the early
20th century, we're beginning
to get a new kind of taxonomy.
Sciences proceed by
way of taxonomy.
So we get this 1910 taxonomy
from the American Association
on Mental Deficiency.
So we're moving closer and
closer to our own time, to
mental deficiency.
So there are three ways to
categorize or classify mental
deficiency.
The most severe form is the
word "idiot." So actually
Faulkner is taking his word
from that classification.
Idiot is development arrested
at age two.
"Imbecile" for us is just a word
of course, really, that
we throw at other people.
It actually has a clinical
definition, arrested between
two and seven.
And "moron," again, a word that
we use without thinking
about it, has a clinical
definition, arrested between
seven and 12.
So as you can see, by the
early 20th century, the
scientific thinking about mental
retardation was moving
more and more towards a
quantitative approach.
So we see the numbers right
there, ages two to seven, and
then ages seven and 12 to
quantify at what developmental
stage it was arrested, your
mental capacities were
arrested, and how that would
correlate with various degrees
of mental retardation.
The person who was instrumental,
who was probably
the most important figure in
turning a quantitative
approach into standard practice
was Henry Goddard.
And his quantitative approach
took a number of forms. First
of all, he was very important as
the director of research at
the Vineland Training School
for Feeble-Minded Girls and
Boys, one of the first and one
of the most important for 12
years, 1906 to 1918.
And then, even more important
than that, he was actually a
pioneer in IQ testing, so the
1908 translation of Binet's
intelligence testing.
It was invented by a French
psychologist, Binet, and
Goddard translated that from
the French and was
instrumental in getting it
to be widely adopted.
So what we know as IQ tests
really dated from that time,
once again, completely
quantitative, numerical
measurement.
And then in 1912, he wrote the
book called The Kallikak
Family and Inheritance
of Feeblemindedness.
So this is Goddard's
contribution to and widely
used understanding of
mental retardation.
Faulkner can be seen in many
ways as a rejoinder and maybe
a dissent, a departure from this
quantitative approach.
His is very much a
non-quantitative approach.
The quantitative approach not
only emphasizes numerical
measurement but is very much
an objective look at mental
retardation from the outside.
It is people who are not
retarded looking at people who
are retarded and seeing where
they're deficient.
So the deficiency index, the
numerical index, is a
measurement of how deficient
they are as defined by people
who are not retarded.
Faulkner's tale told by an idiot
is very much a tale told
from inside the mind
of an idiot.
It is not told by someone from
the outside looking at Benjy
from the outside.
It is told from inside the
consciousness of an idiot with
the blind self-centeredness
of innocence
being front and center.
That is the defining ground
of Benjy's world.
So what we get is the very
recognizable modernist
technique, stream of
consciousness, and in this
case allowing for extreme
subjectivity.
So as supposed to the
objectivity of the
quantitative approach, this
is extreme subjectivity.
And we see a number of features
associated with this
extreme subjectivity.
One is-- we've seen this before,
refresh your memory
about this--
is that the past and the
present are juxtaposed.
And we can call it by a
different name, and that is
nonlinear chronology.
We've also seen the primacy of
smell, and we'll see how that
really is the basis on which
Faulkner tells the central
story in the Benjy section.
And another interesting
feature is
the incomplete syntax.
I'll talk about all of this.
But first, just this
is a passage that
we looked at before.
I just want to bring it back.
This is very early in the Benjy
section, juxtaposing two
moments that might not seem
connected to the rest of us,
but they are connected
in Benjy's mind.
"'Did you come to meet Caddy?'
she said, rubbing my hands.
'What is it?
What are you trying to tell
Caddy?' Caddy smelled like
trees and like when she
says we were asleep.
'What are you moaning
about?' Luster said.
'You can watch them again when
we get to the branch.
Here.
Here's you a jimson weed.'"
So very counter-intuitive
yoking together of two
experiential moments for Benjy,
yoking together one
episode having to deal with his
sister, Caddy, the young
white girl, and the other having
to do with Luster, a
young black servant.
So those two are connected.
Benjy makes no racial
distinctions.
Very important to register
this fact, no racial
distinction in Benjy's mind.
That might be one way why an
idiot might not be completely
deficient in Faulkner's
estimation.
But in any case, he's not making
the usual distinction,
but he is making instead
a connection through
the sense of smell.
So Caddy smelt like trees.
Luster doesn't exactly smell
like trees, but he's coming up
with a good enough substitute,
the jimson weed.
So this is Faulkner's
way of substitution.
The logic of substitution is
also playing out in Faulkner.
And Luster is almost
good enough.
And it's the sense of smell
that connects those two
moments in Benjy's mind.
So here I want to bring up
another psychiatrist,
psychologist that you would
recognize right away and that
in some sense Faulkner is also
departing from, and this is
Sigmund Freud.
And in his classic on
Civilization and Its
Discontents, Freud argues that
the development of human
sexuality makes it less and less
dependent on the sense of
smell, that the sense of smell
becomes less and less central
to the demonstration and the
articulation of human sexuality.
So this is what Freud says.
"The development of human
sexuality seems most likely to
be connected with the diminution
of the olfactory
stimuli by means of which the
menstrual process produces an
effect on the male psyche.
The role was taken over by
visual excitations, which, in
contrast to the intermittent
olfactory stimuli, were able
to have a permanent effect."
So we soon recognize the truth
of what Freud is saying, that
usually we're not attracted
to people because of
the way they smell.
Usually, the first thing that
gets us is the way they look.
I hope I'm not overly
generalizing, but I think that
that's probably true of lots
of people is that the first
factor they register is how that
person looks, not the way
they smell.
So Freud is not--
this is not untrue.
But the way that he denigrates
the importance of the sense of
smell is something that one
might take issue with.
And it turns out that Faulkner
actually is taking issue with
that denigration of the
sense of smell.
The Sound and the Fury is
obviously about hearing--
that's announced in the
title of the novel--
but the sense of smell is
actually very important.
So what I'd like to do today is
to use the sense of smell
as the index, as the connecting
thread through
which Faulkner tells
a dramatic story.
And a dramatic story is
obviously Caddy's story told
through the eyes of her brother,
who loves her, but
who is completely blind and
completely self-centered in
his love for Caddy.
So the story goes something
like this.
The innocence, sexual innocence
of Caddy is
threatened, but it's restored.
It's precariously
restored twice.
And then it is threatened yet
again, and there's no
restoration this time.
It is lost. It's gone forever.
And that loss does something
to Benjy.
And we see it in the way that
his syntax becomes incomplete.
And then there's something
else that is
lost to Benjy as well.
But Faulkner, knowing that
innocence has to be sheltered
through acts of tenderness, is
able through his narrative to
supply that act of tenderness
that is not coming anymore
from Caddy.
So it's a very complicated
story.
It's actually completely--
it makes complete sense,
actually, to me.
So in that sense, Faulkner's
telling an extremely coherent
story through complicated,
nonlinear chronology of
Benjy's section.
But it is a story that we have
to reconstruct by following
one particular phrase that has
to do with the sense of smell.
So let's go to the first step
of innocence becoming
dangerously in jeopardy
but being restored
in the nick of time.
So--
"And Caddy put her arms around
me, and her shining veil, and
I couldn't smell the trees
anymore, and I began to cry.
'Benjy,' Caddy said. 'Benjy.'
She put her arms around me
again, and I went away.
'What is it, Benjy?' she said.
'Is it this hat?' She took
her hat off and came
again, and I went away.
'Benjy,' she said. 'What
is it, Benjy?
What has Caddy done?' I went
to the bathroom door.
I could hear the water.
I listened to the water.
I couldn't hear the water, and
Caddy opened the door.
'Why, Benjy?' she said.
She looked at me, and
I went, and she put
her arms around me.
'Did you find Caddy
again?' she said.
'Did you think Caddy had run
away?' Caddy smelled like
trees."
So that is the phrase that is
going to be our guide in the
reconstruction of the drama that
Faulkner is giving us.
And we notice right away that
Caddy is the supplier of
tenderness for a good part
of Benjy's section.
Her characteristic gesture is
putting her arms around Benjy.
And we can think of it both in
terms of the physical act of
putting her arms around Benjy
but also wrapping her mind
around Benjy, someone
who's not able to
tell her what is wrong.
So Caddy is trying to figure
out what it is that is
making Benjy cry.
And we should remember that all
this time when Benjy is
crying, it's actually making
this incredible noise.
It's this bellowing that's
just filling up the whole
house, unbearable.
So just like the noise in
Hemingway's "Indian Camp,"
this is unbearable noise
coming from Benjy.
So just to stop that noise,
Caddy has to figure out what
it is that is upsetting
Benjy to this extent.
And she tries out a number
of explanations.
So is it this hat that I'm
wearing that you don't like,
that's making you so upset?
Wrong answer.
Caddy figures out the answer,
and it has to do with
something that requires going to
the bathroom and turning on
the faucet.
So this is the only thing that
Benjy is going to tell us is
that Caddy has figured
out what it is.
She goes to bathroom.
He hears the water running.
The water runs for a while.
Can't hear the water anymore.
Caddy comes out.
Everything is OK again.
Caddy puts her arm
around Benjy.
Caddy smells like trees.
Everything is OK.
Innocence has been restored.
So what is it that was really
upsetting Benjy?
We find out very soon--
next page, actually.
Faulkner actually isn't
so impossible to read.
This is fairly close cluing
in of what exactly was
upsetting to Benjy.
"'Dilsey,' Caddy said, 'Benjy's
got a present for
you.' She stooped down and put
the bottle in my hand.
'Hold it up to Dilsey now.'
Caddy held my hand, and Dilsey
took the bottle.
'Well, I declare,'
Dilsey said.
'If my baby ain't give Dilsey
a bottle of perfume.
Just look here, Roskus.' Caddy
smelled like trees.
'We don't like perfume
ourselves,' Caddy said.
She smelled like trees."
So that is what was upsetting
Benjy is the use of perfume, a
sign that Caddy is
on her way to
losing her sexual innocence.
And what is really interesting
is that on this occasion,
Caddy is able to do exactly
what is needed.
She gives away the perfume, and
she uses the pronoun "we."
We don't like perfume anymore.
There's this fusing of herself
and Benjy, even though it
really is Benjy who objects
to the perfume.
In her act of putting her
arm both physically and
metaphorically around Benjy,
Caddy uses the more
encompassing pronoun "we."
That is the syntactic
equivalent to the physical
act of putting
her arm around Benjy.
So this is one moment when we
can see this clear danger,
that the danger has
been averted.
Innocence has been restored.
Let's look at one other moment
when that happens again.
"It was two now, and then
one in the swing.
Caddy came fast, white
in the darkness.
'Benjy,' she said, 'how
did you slip out?
Where's Versh?' She put her arms
around me, and I hushed
and held to her dress and
tried to pull her away.
Caddy and I ran.
We ran up the kitchen steps,
onto the porch, and Caddy
knelt down in the dark
and held me.
I could hear her and feel her
chest. 'I won't,' she said.
'I won't anymore, ever.
Benjy.
Benjy.' Then she was crying, and
I cried, and we held each
other. 'Hush,' she
said. 'Hush.
I won't anymore.' So I hushed,
and Caddy got up.
And we went into the kitchen and
turned the light on, and
Caddy took the kitchen soap and
washed her mouth at the
sink, hard.
Caddy smelled like trees."
Once again, that very
reliable thread that
Faulkner is giving us.
So we've just looked at one
kind of arithmetic in the
earlier use of the pronoun "we."
Caddy and Benjy being
two different people but being
turned into a single unit by
that first-person plural, "we."
The two of them had
become one in that
earlier moment.
Here, it's the repetition of
that kind of logic, except
that it is not Benji who's
being fused with Caddy.
"It was two now, and then one
in the swing." Caddy and her
beau in the swing, the two
of them becoming one.
And it is that sight that is
unbearable to Benjy, so that's
why he's crying.
And Caddy this time doesn't
have to guess.
She knows exactly what
it is that is
upsetting Benjy so much.
So once again, she tries her
best to make things OK for
Benjy again.
She puts her arm around Benjy.
And then she does what is
needed one more time.
And it is within her capacity
to do what is needed.
So she goes to the kitchen--
it's not the bathroom, but it's
really the equivalent,
functional equivalent,
of the bathroom--
turns the light on, turns on the
faucet one more time, the
necessary ingredient-- all
those other necessary
ingredients to the restoration
of innocence--
faucet, soap, and water--
washing out her mouth so that
she once again smells
like trees.
So we can see that Caddy is
doing everything that Benjy is
demanding from her, but I think
that we can also see how
unreasonable Benjy is.
So let's not romanticize Benjy
and just call him innocent.
He is innocent, but this is an
innocence that is not only
blind to the needs of Caddy--
she is going to become
a woman.
She's not going to be able to
wash herself clean every time
with soap and water.
And Benjy simply has no
recognition of Caddy as a
separate person who has her
own developmental path.
She's going to turn from a
young girl to a woman.
That's her developmental path.
And because Benjy is arrested
at age two, he wants
everybody--
or whatever, age two
or age four--
because he's arrested at such
an early age, he wants
everybody to be developmentally
arrested at
that age as well, with that
degree of innocence.
And that, Caddy is not able
to to do for him.
So it is a very impossible, very
self-centered demand that
Benjy is imposing on Caddy, and
in that sense, sowing the
seed of his own destruction.
It is a demand that Caddy can
never meet in the long run.
It's almost like the impossible
demand that Gatsby
is putting on Daisy.
We're beginning to see actually
a pattern of people
who love intensely, but in the
very intensity of the love,
putting an impossible demand
on the loved object.
Just no human being is capable
of meeting that demand.
So not surprisingly, we see this
time Caddy failing Benjy.
And see what's in this
passage and what
is not in this passage.
"We were in the hall.
Caddy was still looking at me.
Her hand was against
her mouth.
She stopped again, against
the wall, looking
at me, and I cried.
And she went on, and
I came on, crying.
And she shrank against the
wall, looking at me.
She opened the door
to her room, but I
pulled at her dress.
And we went to the bathroom,
and she stood against the
door, looking at me.
Then she put her arm across her
face, and I pushed at her,
crying."
So the characteristic gesture
coming from Caddy putting her
arms around Benjy, that is
not here in this passage.
And instead, she's putting her
arm across her own face.
And she's doing this because
Benjy is trying to get her to
go to the bathroom to achieve
that previously tried solution
that worked before.
Benjy thought it would
work one more time.
This time, that solution
isn't going to work.
So we see it in the
nonappearance of that gesture
coming from Caddy's
arms around Benjy.
She's not able to do that.
And we also see the
nonappearance of that phrase,
"Caddy smelled like trees." She
doesn't smell like trees
anymore, and she never will
smell like trees again.
So this is Faulkner's way of
telling the story of lost
sexual innocence completely
through the sense of smell and
through this very indirect way
of channeling it through the
mind of someone who's mentally
retarded, who can't name their
condition, can't really name
that loss, but who registers
that loss as a sensory loss.
So he's not able to reason, but
his senses tell him what
actually has happened.
So this is one way in which
Benjy actually both
knows and not knows.
He knows really in the sense
that his reaction says that he
knows, but he doesn't know in
the sense that he can't give
the reason, can't name
the condition.
So let's look at the
consequences of that loss on
Caddy's part.
What happens to Benjy when he
loses Caddy in this way?
And the way Faulkner is telling
that story is by this
technique of Benjy not finishing
his sentences.
So let's look at this incomplete
syntax all the way
through the Benjy section,
but especially
striking in this moment.
"They came on.
I opened the gate,
and they stopped.
turning.
I was trying to say, and I
caught her, trying to say.
And she screamed, and I was
trying to say and trying.
And the bright shapes
began to stop.
And I tried to get up.
I tried to get it off of my
face, but the bright shapes
were going again.
They were going up the hill to
where it fell away, and I
tried to cry.
But when I breathed in,
I couldn't breathe
out again to cry.
And I tried to keep from falling
off the hill, and I
fell off the hill into the
bright, whirling shapes."
So it's told as a jumble
of sensations.
This is the only way Benjy can
tell the story, but we can
know roughly what is going on.
We need more to know that
someone had left a gate open.
So some schoolgirls were going
by, and Benjy had lost Caddy
at this point.
He sees the schoolgirls.
He's always looking for
substitutes for Caddy, so he
grabs one of those
schoolgirls.
"I caught her, trying to say."
And we can almost see that
this is the consequence of what
happens to Benjy when
there's not Caddy there
to complete his
sentences for him.
Caddy putting her arm around
Benjy is her way of finishing
his sentences, saying what he
cannot say for himself.
She's not there to
do that for him.
So Benjy's sentences are left
hanging incomplete, always
"trying to say," without the
predicate, without an object,
without just this grammatical
complement to
finishing that sentence.
And that's just how things are
going to be for him forever,
trying to say something, trying
to express himself to
the world without the resources
of language and
without the manual capacity
to do so.
So we also know what happens
when that really--
this is the moment where
Faulkner is actually
registering mental deficiency.
Something is lacking, something
is missing from
Benjy's world.
And something is happening
to Benjy as well.
It looks like something is
being put on his face, he
can't breathe, that he is
fighting it, but this thing is
happening to him.
So what is it that's happening
to Benjy at this moment?
We see the physical
manifestation of what's
happening to him just
a little later.
"I got undressed, and I looked
at myself, and I began to cry.
'Hush,' Luster said.
'Looking for them ain't
going to do no good.
They're gone.'"
So that is what happens
to Benjy.
I think that we know what
happens, that people who are
mentally retarded,
who are a threat
to others, get castrated.
This still happens.
So it is a very graphic
rendition of the loss that
comes to Benjy when
he loses Caddy.
But I would say, even though
it's a horrible fate, and
Benjy can't really bear to look
at himself-- so he really
has that degree of
self-consciousness--
but I have to say that it
actually shows some degree of
narrative tenderness on
the part of Faulkner.
And I really want to emphasize
this, because thematically,
the tenderness is not going
to come from Caddy.
She's lost that ability.
So something else has to supply
that tenderness that
will shield and shelter Benjy.
And Faulkner is the one
who's doing this.
So on the one hand, it is
terrible that there should be
that loss coming to Benjy, but
at the same time, that loss
once again establishes a bond
between Benjy and Caddy.
They do have something in
common, even though Caddy
doesn't know it, and Benjy is
the last person to be able to
say it, to name that
condition.
Nonetheless, there is a bond.
It's almost as if Caddy has
suffered this terrible thing
that she's devastated by.
But this is a point in time
where to have that loss is a
incredible statement on Caddy,
when something ruins her life,
and Benjy's life is also ruined,
devastated, in a
parallel fashion.
So the two of them actually
do have--
I wouldn't push this point
so far, it's really not a
consolation to anyone to have
that particular thing in
common -- but this is the
symmetry that Faulkner is
creating for Benjy and Caddy.
We'll look at one
other moment--
and this is the very end
of the Benjy section--
in which we see maybe a more
compelling, more persuasive
way in which a shelter could be
devised for Benjy without
Caddy being physically there.
So this is the very end
of the Benjy section.
And I'm telling you what I want
to say, but obviously
we're back to the
experimentation
on the part of Faulkner.
But let's just look at his.
"Father went to the door
and looked at us again.
Then the dark came back, and
he stood black in the door,
and then the door turned
black again.
Caddy held me, and I could hear
us all in the darkness,
and something I could smell.
And then I could see
the windows, where
the trees were buzzing.
Then the dark began to go in
smooth, bright shapes, like it
always does, even when Caddy
says that I have been asleep."
This is coming at the very end
of Benjy's section, when he's
33 and he's back again to
being the young boy.
So finally it is revealed
to us what the nonlinear
chronology is doing for Benjy.
Being 33 is no place
for Benjy to be.
It's a terrible place.
No one wants in his
condition--
of course, the age when Christ
was crucified, obviously, that
is the reference.
So Benjy is going to be
crucified at age 33.
And Faulkner wants that
crucification to happen and to
be registered.
But he doesn't want
that to be the
experiential ending for Benjy.
So because he's telling the
story in a nonlinear fashion,
he can choose to end the story
at a much earlier point.
And he can do that because past
and present are always
juxtaposed in Benjy's mind
anyways, and he can't tell the
difference between
past and present.
So at the very end of Benjy's
section, he actually goes
back-- there's a bit of time
travel for Benjy-- he gets to
go back to a very satisfying
moment in time.
And let's look at how this
moment reconstitutes all those
things that are dear to Benjy.
The dark comes back.
The trees are buzzing.
So there's this sight and sound
fuse that really is the
defining feature of Benjy's
world, and of no explanation
at all, but very reassuring
visual images, the father
still alive, black in the
door, and then the door
turning black.
And that's how Benjy wants it
to be, wants to be asleep,
wants to be in bed with
Caddy holding him.
And he could smell something.
What is really interesting is
that there's almost no need to
mention that Caddy smells
like trees.
And that actually is
the best condition.
Even that phrase "Caddy smelled
like trees" already
suggests that she's in danger
of not smelling like trees.
Benjy needs to mention that
Caddy smelled like trees when
she stopped smelling like
trees for a moment.
And so even the appearance of
that phrase signals that
there's already a
danger present.
And maybe it's been averted, but
the danger has been there.
Not being able to name that--
and she actually also smells
of mud at that point,
her muddy drawers.
She was completely muddy
from fighting in
the water with Quentin.
So he smells trees, he smells
mud, the smell of an innocent
young girl.
And that is the smell that Benjy
wants to die smelling.
So he gets to smell that.
But what is also interesting
is that there's a backward
reference to the previous
traumatic moment, the smooth
bright shapes.
If we just go back to that
horrible, traumatic moment,
those are the bright, whirling
shapes that were forced upon
Benjy at this moment when he's
completely helpless, when he's
pinned down when Caddy is
nowhere to be seen.
Those bright, whirling shapes
at this supremely traumatic
moment, those have been
reconstituted as comforting
shapes that he just doesn't know
why they're there, but
he's falling asleep.
And Caddy is telling him that
he's falling asleep.
He doesn't even have the word
to talk about, describe the
condition of being asleep,
but it's OK.
This is really one moment when
not having language is
completely OK.
And Faulkner has managed to
bring Benjy back to the point
where life actually is
bearable and in fact
satisfying.
Faulkner can't really
do more than that.
He can't really bring
true happiness,
actual objective happiness.
He can't bring objective
happiness to Benjy at 33.
The only way he can bring is
subjective satisfaction to
Benjy at the age 33, acting as
if he were much younger and
still having Caddy there.
So the narrative experimentation
is really
completely thematically
consequential as well.
And that really is the story
that Faulkner's telling.
So we'll move on next
time to Quentin's
section, section two.
