The picturesque landscape of the Old South has deeply engrained itself into the minds of many. Decades preceding the Civil War was a time of mansions, plantations and the idealistic Southern gentleman, his exquisite wife, their children and their slaves. Each plantation had a stoic white mansion with Roman pillars, surrounded by fields of cotton and tobacco filled with field hands harmonizing in song. The iconic image that the Old South lives by, the family enjoying church on Sunday mornings, family gatherings and eloquent dinners is an image of beauty, elegance and grace, loyalty, truth and honor. Look through the curtain and see the hidden sexist, racist and fascist society. The sexuality of women is viewed in three distinct ways: the virgin,
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Faulkner wrote Benjy as the youngest, idiot brother of the Compsons. His chapter is the picture of innocence and misunderstanding as he has been three for thirty years. Benjy associates Caddy with trees: “She smelled like trees” (Faulkner 43), which is her natural state. Nature is considered the purest form of anything. The regeneration and survival of the purest life forms is all Benjy sees when he looks at the world. When Benjy was born, Caddy was a virgin, so that is how Benjy remembers Caddy, how he likes Caddy. “Caddy put her arms around me and her shining veil, and I couldn’t smell trees anymore and I began to cry” (Faulkner 40). Caddy smelling like trees represents her virginity and when Benjy can no longer smell trees, he knows she is no longer pure. Benjy’s reaction to Caddy’s loss of innocence is to bellow and cry, a small portion of The Bible’s interpretation of the loss of virginity. Losing virginity before marriage is an awful thing according to The Bible: “… but if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deuteronomy 22:20-22). Such a violent reaction was not uncommon during the days of the Southern Gentleman, making Benjy’s reaction entirely appropriate for the times. Before Caddy officially loses her virginity, Benjy catches Caddy and Charlie making out on the swings. The scent of Charlie masked Caddy’s natural tree scent: “Caddy took the kitchen soap and washed her mouth at the sink, hard. Caddy smelled like trees” (Faulkner 48). Caddy was able to wash the scent of Charlie out of her mouth, but was never able to wash
Faulkner wrote Benjy as the youngest, idiot brother of the Compsons. His chapter is the picture of innocence and misunderstanding as he has been three for thirty years. Benjy associates Caddy with trees: “She smelled like trees” (Faulkner 43), which is her natural state. Nature is considered the purest form of anything. The regeneration and survival of the purest life forms is all Benjy sees when he looks at the world. When Benjy was born, Caddy was a virgin, so that is how Benjy remembers Caddy, how he likes Caddy. “Caddy put her arms around me and her shining veil, and I couldn’t smell trees anymore and I began to cry” (Faulkner 40). Caddy smelling like trees represents her virginity and when Benjy can no longer smell trees, he knows she is no longer pure. Benjy’s reaction to Caddy’s loss of innocence is to bellow and cry, a small portion of The Bible’s interpretation of the loss of virginity. Losing virginity before marriage is an awful thing according to The Bible: “… but if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deuteronomy 22:20-22). Such a violent reaction was not uncommon during the days of the Southern Gentleman, making Benjy’s reaction entirely appropriate for the times. Before Caddy officially loses her virginity, Benjy catches Caddy and Charlie making out on the swings. The scent of Charlie masked Caddy’s natural tree scent: “Caddy took the kitchen soap and washed her mouth at the sink, hard. Caddy smelled like trees” (Faulkner 48). Caddy was able to wash the scent of Charlie out of her mouth, but was never able to wash