Four Versions of Caddy

Four Versions of Caddy

Benjy is notoriously known by his family and his neighbors as the "cursed" son in the Compson household. His mental disabilities, discovered when he was four years old, are what gives him this cruel nickname. Benjy is distinguished from the rest of his family by the fact that he is basically a child in a man's body. While he does not verbally express his emotions through his narration but rather observes the world around him, he does act on his emotions in several instances; the only way he knows how to assert how he feels is through his "bellowing". Much like a child, his morals and emotions are driven by the fact that he finds pleasure in tranquility and consistency. So when those qualities are disrupted, he has his outbursts. He tends to have many of them simply because he is part of a deteriorating household where in which tension is almost always present. His sister Caddy, is his place of tranquility which is why when she changes in any manner, such as the loss of her innocence, he becomes extremely unsettled. While he may be incapable of making inferences, he does have an impressive manner of sensing what is going on around him. He knows the bad moments in his life from the good, for example when he is able to smell Father's death. His morals are based on these emotions because while he does not know much about ethics, many of the times where he becomes upset with Caddy have a lot to do with morality. It is her deteriorating purity which could be considered immoral, that causes his often rampant behavior. His behavior is entirely unfiltered, which is why his sentiments are perceivable only through his actions. Like a crying child in need, Benjy moans until the cause of his perturbation is relieved.

The central force behind all of Benjy's emotions and actions is the strong love he has for his older sister Caddy. She is his only constant source of affection; while others tell him to "shut up that moaning", she always speaks to him lovingly. More importantly than that, she actually knows what is upsetting him. For example, when Benjy is greeted by the soon to be married Caddy he narrates, "... and I couldn't smell trees anymore and I began to cry" (Williams 40). When he remembers this, he is brought back into the past and recalls the time when Caddy was fourteen years old and wore perfume for the first time and he could no longer smell trees which caused his distress. While no one knew what was wrong with him, Caddy went into the bathroom and washed herself, in hopes of smelling like she did before which finally calmed Benjy down. Her instinctive nature to know what Benjy wants makes him see her as a maternal figure. His real mother, Caroline, deems he is part of some sort of curse and Dilsey, who served as a mother to the rest of the kids, is too busy holding up the household to give Benjy any real attention. According to human nature, everybody needs to have some sort of maternal figure which is why Caddy is Benjy's; she is the only female really available to his disposal. This is why she serves as a place of comfort and tranquility for him; at every change she makes about herself, he becomes extremely disconcerted and confused. In a deteriorating and unloving household, Benjy needs his maternal figure to remain consistent so that he is always comfortable. His version of Caddy is one that is a mother, which is why when she leaves with Dalton, he is basically broken.

Undoubtedly, Quentin is the most delirious of the three brothers, even though he does not suffer any actual mental malfunctions. His life is governed by an obsession with deteriorating old southern morals and codes of conduct. It seems as though he has made it his responsibility to uphold the family's grandeur, even though this greatness is now falling apart. He is constantly reminded of what had to have been sacrificed in order from him to carry the prestige, "... your mother's dream for sold for Benjy's pasture for" (102). For the most part, even though he feels that he must go to Harvard with this weight on his shoulders, he continues to be miserable when he is there and clearly feels guilty for all that had to have been given up to afford his education. He is a man in complete despair, always searching for some kind of reassurance about his morals and their importance. When he constantly goes to his father hoping for some kind of help, he becomes completely depressed by the fact that his father does not care at all about any of Quentin's beliefs and more importantly claims that the rest of the world does not either. Father's theory that Quentin will eventually also lose the importance that he stresses on virginity essentially leads Quentin to commit suicide in desperation of ceasing time and making sure that his morals are never lost. Besides his suicide and several physical encounters with Caddy's pursuers, Quentin remains a man of ideas rather than actions. For the most part, the fights that took place between him and Caddy's men happened because he was caught up in the moment and at a loss of control of his emotions. Otherwise, Quentin devotes most of his time to concepts and his plans for taking action remain vague and unreasonable, such as his plans to commit suicide with Caddy or to claim the two of them committed incest. His life of inaction makes it clear that much of his section is fantasy rather than actual occurrences.

Caddy, in Quentin's perspective, is like a damsel in distress. Quentin sees himself as a protector of all women; he wants to ensure that they remain virtuous virgins. She is the only woman in his family who he feels that he can still defend from the modern world where in which highly strung morality is starting to disintegrate. His hopes to lead her into a more chaste lifestyle leaves him completely obsessed with her and the men she encounters. When he eventually finds out that she has become very promiscuous, he is even more paralyzed by his obsessions. But, although he finds out about her promiscuity, it seems that his view of her does not change; instead, it is his view of others that becomes more spiteful. This matter of fact first becomes apparent when Caddy loses her virginity and Quentin asks her, "did he make you then he made you it let him he was stronger than you" (150). He simply ignores the fact that she is the one committing the sexual acts very willingly and that no one is forcing themselves upon her. Obviously, he uses the men as a scapegoat for his promiscuity because he realizes that he cannot control her, no matter how hard he tries. Even from when they were very young and he was trying to get Caddy to keep her bottoms clean, it is evident Caddy does not obey him. When she first loses her virginity and on, she begins to smell of roses and honeysuckle. Much like the Benjy's senses, Quentin's senses are also keen to major and upsetting changes made to Caddy. It is incredible that Quentin would rather falsely admit to something as awful as incest or commit suicide with his sister, just so that she appears as though she is still pure. He feels that nobody, besides him, is fit for his sister. No one is good enough for her, because everybody is supposedly immoral; according to Quentin, Dalton is too forceful and Herbert is a cheater. Perhaps this is why there is much sexual innuendo in his section when it comes to the subject of Caddy; maybe, the only right man for her, in Quentin's opinion is himself: the protector of morality.

Jason Compson, of all his siblings, is the hardest to sympathize with. Most of his emotions and actions are out of spite and his evil intentions are practically endless. From the very beginning of the Compson childrens' childhood, it is clear that Jason is the outcast; when the children are playing at the lake on the day of Damuddy's death, it is Jason who is sitting by himself, getting along with nobody. Evidently, his hatred for everyone and everything is not derived from some traumatic incident, he was simply born and raised to be that way. It actually can most likely can be traced back to the fact that his mother and grandmother clearly value him more than anyone else in the family. Often times his mother refers to him as the only Bascomb (her family's lineage), for example when she plans to run away with Jason she says to Father, "they're not my flesh and blood like he is strangers nothing of mine" (104). Very blatantly, she denounces her other kids which most likely leads Jason to hating everyone else and thinking he is above all others. Caroline's affection for Jason is extremely absurd because he appears to be in no way capable of returning the love. This why he remains single throughout his entire life and shows many sexist beliefs, with his closest thing to a love affair being a prostitute. The