Изложение: The Sound and the Fury
Quentin's wish to have committed incest is not a desire to have sex with Caddy; that would shatter his ideals of purity even more than her encounters with Dalton Ames. Nor is it, as we have determined, a way to preserve the family honor. Instead, it seems to be a way to keep Caddy to himself forever: "if it could just be a hell beyond that: the clean flame the two of us more than dead. Then you will have only me then only me then the two of us amid the pointing and the horror beyond the clean flame" (116). Separated from the rest of the world by the "clean" purifying flames of hell, Quentin and Caddy could be alone together, forever burning away the sin of her sexuality. He would rather implicate himself in something as horrible as incest than leave Caddy to her promiscuity or lose her through her marriage to Herbert Head.
If time-words are the most frequently occurring words in this section, the second most frequent is the word "shadow." Throughout his journeys, Quentin is just as obsessed with his shadow as he is with time. For example, he walks on his shadow as he wanders through Cambridge: "trampling my shadow's bones . . . . I walked upon the belly of my shadow" (96). When asked what the significance of shadows was in this section, Faulkner replied "that shadow that stayed on his mind so much was foreknowledge of his own death, that he was - Death is here, shall I step into it or shall I step away from it a little longer? I won't escape it, but shall I accept it now or shall I put it off until next Friday" (Minter, qtd. in Martin, 6). This explanation certainly seems to fit some of Quentin's thoughts; for example, at one point, he imagines drowning his shadow in the water of the river, just as he will later drown himself: "my shadow leaning flat upon the water, so easily had I tricked it . . . . if I only had something to blot it into the water, holding it until it was drowned, the shadow of the package like two shoes wrapped up lying on the water.
Niggers say a drowned man's shadow was watching for him in the water all the time" (90). Here Quentin imagines his drowned shadow beckoning him from the river, drowned before him and waiting for him to follow suit.
Like his shadow mirroring his motions and emotions, certain aspects of his day's travels mirror his life and the troubled state of his mind. Most obvious among these is his encounter with the Italian girl he calls "sister" and the reaction of her brother Julio. Calling this little girl "little sister" or "sister" ironically recalls Caddy, whom Quentin at one point calls "Little Sister Death." But whereas his suicidal mission is caused by the fact that he cannot hold on to Caddy, here he cannot get rid of this "little sister," who follows him around the town and will not leave him. Then when Julio finds them, he accuses Quentin stealing her, just as Quentin feels Dalton Ames and Herbert Head have stolen Caddy from him.
Julio is not the only character to mirror Quentin, though. As Edmond Volpe points out, Dalton Ames himself is a foil for Quentin, the embodiment of the romantic ideal he has cast for himself:
Quentin's meeting with Dalton is a disaster. His conception of himself in the traditional role of protector of women collapses, not only because he fails to accomplish his purpose [of beating Dalton up] but because he is forced to recognize his own weakness. Dalton is actually a reflection of Quentin's vision of himself: calm, courageous, strong, kind. The real Quentin does not measure up to the ideal Quentin, just as reality does not measure up to Quentin's romantic vision of what life should be (113).
Quentin is in actuality the "obverse reflection" of himself, a man who does not live up to his own ideals, who fails to protect his sister from a villain who turns out to be as chivalrous and Quentin is weak.
Thus at the "infinitesimal instant" of his death, Quentin is a man whose disillusionment with his shattered ideals consumes him. His death, one of the "signs" Roskus sees of the bad luck of the Compson family, is one step in the gradual dissolution of the family, a degeneration that will pick up speed in the sections to come.
Summary of April Sixth, 1928:
Beginning with the statement "once a bitch always a bitch," this section reads as if Jason is telling the reader the story of his day; it is more chronological and less choppy than Quentin's or Benjy's sections, but still unconventional in tone. Jason and his mother in her room waiting for Quentin to finish putting on her makeup and go down to breakfast. Mother is concerned that Quentin often skips school and asks Jason to take care of it. Both Jason and his mother are manipulative and passive-aggressive, mother complaining about the ailments she suffers and the way her children betrayed her, Jason countering with statements like "I never had time to go to Harvard or drink myself into the ground. I had to work. But of course if you want me to follow her around and see what she does, I can quit the store and get a job where I can work at night" (181). Jason goes down to the kitchen, where Quentin is begging Dilsey for another cup of coffee. Dilsey tells her she will be late for school, and Jason says he will fix that, grabbing her by the arm.
Her bathrobe comes unfastened and she pulls it closed around her. He begins to take off his belt, but Dilsey stops him from hitting her. Mother comes in, and Jason puts down the belt. Quentin runs out of the house. In the car on the way to town, Quentin and Jason fight about who paid for her schoolbooks - Caddy or Jason. Jason claims that Mother has been burning all of the checks Caddy sends. Quentin tells Jason that she