Epistemology Essay: The Sound and the Fury

What truths, beliefs, and judgments does your character live by and adhere to? How do they know what they know? How do they evaluate the truth? How do they read/assemble/navigate/construct reality?

The domestic tragedies and subsequent decline of the Compson family, to Quentin Compson, must be blamed on himself rather than his younger sister, Caddy. As the eldest son, he shoulders the burden of protecting his family’s honor, which he understands to mean safeguarding his sister Caddy’s virginity and purity. Quentin views the world through society’s expectations and strict gender roles and is unable to develop his own viewpoint free from outside influences. His knowledge of the world and people around him comes from a jumbled mix of Southern society’s traditional expectations at the turn of the century, his psychologically abusive mother’s influence, and his father’s opinions. He relates his worldview specifically to his relationship with Caddy and his self-imposed duty to protect his family’s honor and obsession with pride. Quentin rarely thinks about himself or shows insight into his own person; instead, he obsesses over shame, honor, and guilt as it relates to Caddy.

Quentin’s identity and knowledge of the way the world functions around him are primarily influenced by his sense of honor and duty to uphold the traditional Southern beliefs he was raised by. He is especially drawn to gender roles and identity. Through the eyes of the reader, Quentin lacks the same sense of identity as his siblings because of his reliance on tradition and familial pride, therefore lacking the self-sufficiency and independence of a teenager. Quentin lacks the agency that Caddy possesses, and he is unable to articulate what he wants or go against his parents’ wishes, “You will remember that for you to go to harvard has been your mothers dream since you were born and no compson has ever disappointed a lady.” (178) While he resents his mother for selling “Benjy’s pasture” to pay for his Harvard education, his duty to his family remains strong, and he waits until the semester is over to commit suicide so that the fully paid year’s tuition does not go to waste. The only decision that Quentin truly makes for himself is, ironically, to take his own life. Quentin views his only purpose in life as the guardian of his family’s honor because of his parents’ unrealistic Southern values, so when he fails to protect it, he sees no other reason for living.

There is little revealed about the father of the Compson children but for a few quotes in passing. For Quentin, his father is someone with little physical influence on his life but a large and overwhelming mental effect. Quentin’s father views the world with cynicism, believing nothing to have any real meaning. Quentin’s obsession with virginity and purity can be traced back to his conversations with his father, “And Father said it’s because you are a virgin: dont you see? Women are never virgins. Purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature. It’s nature is hurting you not Caddy and I said That’s just words and he said So is virginity and I said you dont know. You cant know and he said Yes. On the instant when we come to realise that tragedy is second-hand.” (116) This conversation shapes Quentin’s understanding of virginity; he believes it is only a state in which you are, like death or life, rather than part of a connection or romance with another person. Quentin’s conversations with his father have not only affected his relationship with Caddy but also affected how he views women. He is unable to see women in a light separate from that of how he views his sister, “Did you ever have a sister? No but they’re all bitches. Did you ever have a sister? One minute she was. Bitches. Not bitch one minute she stood in the door.” (92) Because of this he is unable to form romantic relationships with women because his view of women is tainted by feelings of guilt, shame, and paternalism. He unknowingly punishes himself by adopting this “protective” persona of all women that does not allow him to view them as sexual beings, “Father and I protect women from one another from themselves our women.” (96) Even on his last day alive, he still believes that it is his life’s duty to protect women, as seen in his interactions with the lost little girl at the bakery. While Quentin sees himself as her protector, Quentin’s perspective does not match how the world sees him. 

Quentin views the world in rigid, unyielding terms and completely bases his family’s honor on Caddy’s virginity, constructing his reality around the shame she brings to the family when she loses it,“Who loved not his sister’s body but some concept of Compson honor precariously and (he knew well) only temporarily supported by the minute fragile membrane of her maidenhead as a miniature replica of all the whole vast globy earth may be poised on the nose of a trained seal.” (331) Whether Quentin loves Caddy physically or mentally, it is clear he is attracted to her. He holds on to the idea that Caddy might obey his view of how she should behave in terms of maintaining her virginity and purity, but he is continuously let down. At night, Caddy sneaks out of their house to meet with various boys in the woods. Caddy’s promiscuity upsets Quentin to the point where he feels so hopeless and impotent during times she leaves. He constantly smells the scent of honeysuckle due to her romancing in the woods, which later becomes the symbol of Caddy’s disgracing the family. “Then the honeysuckle got into it. As soon as I turned off the light and tried to go to sleep it would begin to come into the room in waves building and building up until I would have to pant to get any air at all out of it until I would have to get up and feel my way like when I was a little boy… My nose could see gasoline…” (173) He becomes disgusted with this scent, understanding this situation through sensory details that would most likely go unnoticed by characters such as Jason. To Quentin, the stench is stronger than gasoline, so much so that he feels he can almost see it. This smell is also described throughout Benjy’s chapter, who does not understand the true significance of the smell, yet still feels sad about it, saying Caddy always “smells like trees.” Quentin’s worldview of order and Southern values have not prepared him to deal with Caddy’s rebellion, and he feels so traumatized by her behavior that he is forced to use his other senses to try to make sense of the situation. Quentin is so obsessed with the notion that it is his duty to safeguard Caddy’s virginity that he falls into despair when he learns of her impurity and wishes that they both be punished for her sins, “He, not God, could by that means cast himself and his sister both into hell, where he could guard her forever and keep her forevermore intact amid the eternal fires.” (331)

The women of the novelーCaddy, the mother, and Miss Quentinーare central figures in shaping the events that not only affect the lives of the male characters, especially Quentin, but also the self-perceptions of the male characters, yet as readers, we are never given insight into their own thoughts. As a young woman living and growing up throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, my experience has not been all fulfilling because it is hard to disregard our current political climate and how far backwards we have moved in the past three years. I have been able to develop my own ideals and rely on my own skill for progression, but women in the novel’s time period did not have that luxury of free speech, voting, or working. Despite the fact that Quentin and the Compson family believe their family’s fall from honor and respect is directly tied to the shame that Caddy brings to the family through her promiscuity and illegitimate pregnancy, none of the chapters are told from a female perspective, and instead, we have to piece together information about who Caddy is and how she feels from the outside perspectives of her brothers, especially Quentin. This is perhaps a purposeful choice on Faulkner’s part, who, by giving Caddy no voice of her own, forces the reader to understand her through a male perspective. For Benjy, she is a motherly protector who comforts him when no one else will. To Quentin, she is forever impure, the tragic reason for their family’s fall from honor and respect. To Jason, she is the reason he lost the job that could have changed his life. Caddy only exists in relation to how her brothers see her. As readers, we are left to understand the Compson family story through perspectives tainted with bias and will never fully understand the motives and ideals of the family.