Comparing The Compson Family In The Sound And The Fury

In the The Sound and the Fury, each member of the Compson family has polarizing character traits that contribute to the family dysfunction. Quentin (III), the eldest child of Mrs. Caroline Compson and Mr. Jason, is highly sensitive and the most intelligent member of the family. A overarching theme in the novel is the desire and the attempt to control the uncontrollable, especially with men trying to control the sexuality of a woman. The topic of this novel is Caddy’s sexuality and each of the Compson men view and struggle with it differently. Quentin loves his sister deeply, but he also believes that he must protect her by controlling her sexuality, primarily to uphold his Southern male honor. In contrast, Gerald Bland, a fellow classmate at Harvard, is pretentious and uses women for his own enjoyment. Gerald and his …show more content…
Mrs. Bland persistently brags about his sexual status, chatting about “Gerald’s women”(58) and how his family looks would be more useful on a girl(67). Quentin even notes that the “husbands and fathers in Kentucky must have been awful glad”(58) when Gerald left for school. This suggests that Gerald’s sex and relationships with women were plentiful, but also predatory. Gerald has no respect for women, and his disrespect is challenged by Quentin after saying women are “without anything else they can do except lie on their backs”(106). Quentin tries to fight Gerald, and miserably fails(104). This fight mirrors Quentin’s previous fight with Dalton Ames, the suspected father of Caddy’s child. Quentin attempts to save Caddy by ordering Dalton Ames to leave, and Quentin loses miserably due to his own physical weakness. Dalton Ames tried to protect Quentin’s dignity by lying that he hit him to knock Quentin unconscious(102). Quentin fights these men to defend Caddy’s honor according to his “distorted chivalric code”(Brown 545), but Quentin’s failure embodies the unattainable model of male