weeping. As the leave the church, she states "I've seed de first en de last
. . . . I seed de beginning, en now I sees de endin" (297).
They return to the house. Dilsey goes up to Mrs. Compson's room and checks
on her; Mrs. Compson, still convinced that Quentin has killed herself, asks
Dilsey to pick up the Bible that has fallen off the bed. Dilsey goes back
downstairs and prepares lunch for the family, commenting that Jason will
not be joining them.
Meanwhile, Jason is in his car driving to the sheriff's. When he gets
there, nobody is prepared to leave as Jason requested. He enters the
station, and the sheriff tells him that he will not help him find Quentin,
because it was her own money she stole and because Jason drove her away.
Jason drives away toward Mottson, the town where the traveling show will be
next. He begins to get a headache and remembers that he has forgotten to
bring any camphor with him. By the time he gets to Mottson he cannot see
very well; he finds two Pullman cars that belong to the show and he enters
one. Inside is an old man, and he asks him where Quentin and her boyfriend
are. The man becomes angry and threatens him with a knife.
Jason hits him on the head and he slumps to the floor. He runs from the
car, and the old man comes out of the car with a hatchet in his hand. They
struggle, and Jason falls to the ground. Some show people haul him to his
feet and push him away. One of the men tells him that Quentin and her
boyfriend aren't there, that they have left town. Jason goes back to his
car and sits down, but he can't see to drive. He calls to some passing
boys, asking if they will drive him back to Jackson for two dollars; they
refuse. He sits a while longer in the car. A black man in overalls comes up
to him and says that he will drive him for four dollars, but Jason refuses,
then eventually acquiesces.
Back at the house, Luster takes Benjy out to his "graveyard," which
consists of two blue glass bottles with jimson weeds sticking out of them.
Luster hides one of the bottles behind his back, and Benjy starts to howl;
Luster puts it back. He takes Benjy by the golf course and they watch the
men playing. When one of them yells "caddie," Benjy begins to cry again.
Frustrated, Luster repeats Caddy's name over and over, making him cry even
louder. Dilsey calls them and they go to her cabin. Dilsey rocks Benjy and
strokes his hair, telling Luster to go get his favorite slipper. When he
begins to cry again, Dilsey asks Luster where T. P. is (T. P. is supposed
to take Benjy to the graveyard as he does every Sunday). Luster tells her
that he can drive the surrey instead of T. P., and she makes him promise to
be good. They put Benjy into the surrey and hand him a flower to hold, and
Luster climbs into the driver's seat.
Dilsey takes the switch away from him and tells him that the horse knows
the way. As soon as they are out of sight of the house, Luster stops the
horse and picks a switch from the bushes along the road, then climbs back
into the driver's seat, carrying himself like royalty. They approach the
square and pass Jason in his car by the side of the road. Luster, carried
away in his pride, turns the horse to the left of the statue in the square
instead of to the right, breaking the pattern that Benjy is used to. Benjy
begins to howl. As his voice gets louder and louder, Jason comes running
and turns the horse around. When the objects they pass begin to go in the
right direction again, Benjy hushes.
Analysis of April Eighth, 1928:
Readers commonly refer to this section of the novel as "Dilsey's section,"
although it is narrated in the third person. Dilsey plays a prominent role
in this section, and even if she does not narrate this section, she serves
a sort of moral lens through which to view the other characters in the
section and, in fact, in the novel as a whole. The section contrasts
Dilsey's slow, patient progress through the day with Jason's irrational
pursuit of Quentin and Mrs. Compson's self-centered flightiness. As we
watch Dilsey slowly climb up the stairs as Mrs. Compson watches to tend to
Benjy, only to discover halfway up that he isn't even awake yet, we begin
to sympathize with this wizened old woman. As we see her tenderly wiping
Benjy's mouth as he eats, we come to see her as the only truly good person
in the book. Even Caddy, the object of Benjy and Quentin's obsessions, was
not as selflessly kind or as reliable as Dilsey. Throughout the course of
the section, she is witness to any number of the Compson family's flaws,
yet she never judges them.
The only statement she makes that resembles a judgement is her concern that
Luster has inherited the "Compson devilment." Instead she stands calmly in
the midst of the chaos of the disintegrating household, patiently bearing
what she is dealt "like cows do in the rain" (272). Unlike any of the
Compson family, Dilsey is capable of extending outside herself and her own
needs. Each of the brothers is selfish in his own way; Benjy because he
cannot take care of himself and relies on her to, Quentin because he is too
wrapped up in his ideals, Jason because of his greed and anger. Mrs.
Compson is even worse, passive-aggressively manipulating the members of the
family as she lies in her sickbed. And Miss Quentin is too troubled and
lonely to sympathize with anyone else. Dilsey, however, in her kindness,
ungrudgingly takes care of each family member with tenderness and respect.
In her selflessness, Dilsey conforms to the Christian ideal of goodness in
self-sacrifice; therefore it is not surprising that the section takes place
on Easter Sunday. This section of the novel resounds with biblical
allusions and symbols and revolves around the sermon delivered by Reverend
Shegog at Dilsey's church. The sermon profoundly affects Dilsey, who leaves
the church in tears. Perhaps this is because the sermon seems to describe
perfectly the disintegrating Compson family. Benjamin is the youngest son
described as being "sold into Egypt" in the Appendix to the novel; here
Shegog lectures on the Israelites who "passed away in Egypt" (295).
Matthews notes that Jason is a "wealthy pauper" (11), fitting Shegog's
description: "wus a rich man: whar he now, O breddren? Wus a po man: whar
he now, O sistuhn?" (295). He has embezzled thousands of dollars from his
sister, yet he lives like a poor man. Even Mrs. Compson, Matthews claims,
is described in Shegog's sermon: "I hears de weepin en de lamentation of de
po mammy widout de salvation en de word of God" (296). Matthews even
suggests that Quentin is implied in the voice of one congregation member
that rises "like bubbles rising in water" (11).
Much has been made of the religious symbolism in this chapter. Aside from
Shegog's sermon there is Benjy's age: he is 33 years old, the age Christ
was when he died. Like Christ, or like a priest, he is celibate. And he
seems to be one of the only "pure" members of the family, incapable of
doing anything evil merely because of his handicaps. But he is not the only
Christlike member of the family. Quentin, the daughter of the woman whose
brother wanted to remember her as both virginal and motherly, has an
unknown father, just as Christ, the son of the Virgin Mary, had no earthly
father.
Like Christ, Quentin suffers a misunderstood and mistreated existence. But
most compelling is the fact of her disappearance on Easter Sunday. Just as
the disciples found Christ's tomb empty, the wrappings from his body
discarded on the floor, Jason opens Quentin's room to find it empty: "the
bed had not been disturbed. On the floor lay a soiled undergarment of cheap
silk a little too pink, from a half open bureau drawer dangled a silk
stocking" (282). If Quentin is a Christ figure, however, she seems to have
a very un-Christlike effect on her family. Whereas the pure and virginal
Christ's disappearance signaled the end of death and the beginning of new
life in heaven, the promiscuous Quentin's disappearance signals the
destruction of her family.
Other elements of the section seem more apocalyptic: there is Shegog's
name, for instance, which sounds much like the Gog and Magog mentioned in
the Book of Revelation. There is the story's preoccupation with the end of
the Compson family: Jason is the last of the Compsons, and he is childless,
his house literally rotting away. And finally there is Dilsey's comment
that she has seen the first and the last, the beginning and the end:
although the meaning of this statement is unclear, she seems to be
discussing the end of the Compson family as well as her life, and perhaps
the end of the world. Dilsey has borne witness to the alpha and the omega
of the Compson family.
Nevertheless, none of this religious symbolism is particularly well-
developed. It is impossible to tell who, if anyone, is the Christ figure in
this Easter story. It is impossible to know what will happen to Quentin, or
if the family will really dissolve as Dilsey seems to think it will. Nor is
it particularly clear why Reverend Shegog's sermon has such an effect on
Dilsey or what his actual message is; he has seen the recollection and the
blood of the Lamb, but why is this important? What should the congregation
do about it? What can they do in order to see this themselves?
The problem with this last section is that it doesn't satisfactorily bring
the story of the Compson family to a close. The reader is left with a
glimpse of the family's psychology and slow demise, but no real answers, no
redemption. We don't know what will happen to the family or its servants:
will Jason send Benjy to Jackson? Will Dilsey die? Will Quentin get away?
John Matthews has pointed out that the story doesn't really end but keeps
repeating itself.
This is partially due to its nature as a stream-of-consciousness
narrative; none of the three brothers' sections is purely chronological,
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