The Caddy Compson Effect In William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Caddy has a significant effect on the entire Compson family whether they recognize it or not. She impacts all of the characters so much that the book is largely about her despite her lack of a narrative section. Faulkner, in barring us from hearing directly from Caddy’s perspective, allows us to view just how influential she is in the story. He also may have chosen not to write from her point of view because Faulkner is limited by his gender and race. In addition, because the narrative is never vocalized through Caddy, readers must infer her feelings in the various events that take place. Arguably, this makes her a more dimensional character as she never is given authorial …show more content…
For example, his mother Caroline illustrates this well as she often feigns illnesses and claims she is a burden on all others in order to gain their sympathy. His father also subconsciously tries to control him as he gives him life advice or claims theories that cause Quentin to obsess over concepts like time and how it won’t stop. Caddy is not specifically trying to control him, however, her actions dictate his life choices to a severe degree. Like Benjy, Quentin obsesses over Caddy’s promiscuity, but in addition, he attempts to remedy the loss of Caddy’s virginity by devising ideas such as killing themselves or claiming they committed incest together. Quentin’s reaction to Caddy’s loss of innocence is extreme in comparison with his brothers and could be considered mania as we view his long stream of consciousness, such as when his thoughts about her proposed wedding interrupt his other thoughts; “It’s her car aren’t you proud of your little sister owns first auto in town Herbert his present. Louis has been giving her lessons every morning didn’t you get my letter Mr and Mrs Jason Richmond Compson announce the marriage of their daughter Candace to Mr Sydney Herbert Head on the twenty-fifth of April one thousand nine hundred and ten at Jefferson Mississippi. At home after the first of August number Something Something Avenue South Bend Indiana. Shreve said Aren’t you even going to open it? Three days. Times. Mr and …show more content…
He seems to not actually care that she is impure, but more about what her promiscuity costs him. Attributes of the lazy, uneducated southerner include, but are not limited to a sense of entitlement, little to no effort in pursuing goals, and incessant racist attitudes. Jason exemplifies all of these attributes as he blames Caddy for the loss of his job at the bank, despite not being qualified or earning the job himself. He says, “you dont mind anybody. You dont give a dam about anybody.” “Oh,” she says, “that job.” She looked at the grave. “I’m sorry about that, Jason.” “I bet you are,” I says. “You’ll talk mighty meek now. But you needn’t have come back. There’s not anything left. Ask Uncle Maury, if you dont believe me.” (Pg. 202). He may be blaming Caddy out of some deeper frustration with his own abilities, however, he is unwilling to admit this. He and his mother both view Caddy as a stain on the Compson family name, but what they don’t realize is how much it has actually deteriorated now that Jason is technically the head of the
Jason acknowledges the role Dilsey assumes since she began working for the Compsons by declaring, “when [servants have] been with you for a long time they get so full of self importance […] Think they run the whole family” (207). Jason implies that Dilsey has assumed a leadership role within the family even though she does not deserve it. Contrarily, he gives his mother a role that she does not want, “You are the head of [the house] now” (257). (needs to tie in with rest of essay)
Henry is written as a dynamic character because he changed drastically throughout the story. Henry went from being an innocent young man; to experiencing the chaos and disaster that war will do to a person. Lyman is written as a static character because he didn’t change at all through the story. Lyman was still the same young innocent boy, much like his brother was before he went to war. Dee from “Everyday Use” is written as a dynamic character; she changed to be more in touch with her African roots and even went as far to change her name to “Wangero”. Dee is still just as snobbish as before, though, when she tells her mother that Maggie doesn’t deserve the family quilt because she’ll wear it down to nothing from putting it to “everyday use” (174) Maggie is written as a static character because she didn’t change during the story, although her feelings toward her sister changed, “Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses Dee was wearing. But a real smile, not
Cady was blind sighted when she entered public high school without any idea of how “the system” works. She had to learn first-hand for herself the consequences of letting other people push you around. By the end of the movie Cady grew a backbone and was able to ascertain right from wrong, becoming her own
Atwood, in The Handmaid’s Tale, uses the voice of Offred to explore the juxtaposition between life before The Society of Gilead came into power and the life during the society’s power. Through flashback Offred frequently retells stories from her old life, the reader is able to see the discrimination that the women now face and the unfairness of this. Offred seems to live half in The Society of Gilead, and half in the past. Only in memory does she have any sort of freedom. The reader empathises with Offred and the injustice of her situation. Although Offred can remember the old ways she is happy that she has been given a chance in The Society of Gilead, ‘Humanity is so adaptable, my mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.’ This encourages the reader to empathise with Offred’s lack of freedom. The reader can see that Offred is unhappy, but they can also see that she believes she could be worse off and that she is happy that she has a place within the society. Similarly, in The Color Purple, Spielberg uses the narration by Celie to influence the viewer to identify the cause of women. The narration by Celie establishes the views that the society has, and how those views can be damaging to the women of the society. It also shows how control can affect a person. ‘She said she write, she
Cadence Sinclair Eastman, also known as Cady, is the main character in We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. The book centers around Cady and, after a mysterious event one summer, her struggles to remember what happened during summer fifteen on the her family’s private island. At the beginning of the book, the reader is unsure of what is wrong with Cady, just that she takes a lot of medicine for headaches. As the books unfolds, the reader realizes that the headaches and memory loss was trigger but a horrific event that involved a fire that killed her cousins. However, the fact that her cousins are dead are not realized till the end of the book, but at the beginning Cady hallucinates them. The song, “Medicine” by Daughter can be used to describe the
Flannery O’Connor lived most of her life in the southern state of Georgia. When once asked what the most influential things in her life were, she responded “Being a Catholic and a Southerner and a writer.” (1) She uses her knowledge of southern religion and popular beliefs to her advantage throughout the story. Not only does she thoroughly depict the southern dialect, she uses it more convincingly than other authors have previously attempted such as Charles Dickens and Zora Neale Hurston. In other works, the authors frequently use colloquialism so “local” that a reader not familiar with those slang terms, as well as accents, may have difficulty understanding or grasping the meaning of the particular passage. O’Connor not only depicts a genuine southern accent, she allows the characters to maintain some aspect of intelligence, which allows the audience to focus on the meaning of the passage, rather than the overbearing burden of interpreting a rather “foreign language.”
William Faulkner uses multiple narrators throughout The Sound and the Fury to depict the life of Caddy Compson without telling the story from her point-of-view. Benjy, a mentally disabled 33 year old, Quentin, a troubled and suicidal Harvard student, and Jason, a racist and greedy man, each give their drastically different sides of Caddy’s story to create an incomplete chronicle of her life. Faulkner’s first chapter explores Caddy’s life through the silent narrator Benjy. As a result of Benjy’s inability to talk, much of how he describes the world is through his heightened sensory awareness. Benjy constantly repeats the fact that, which, to Benjy, symbolizes Caddy’s innocence (Faulkner 6). Later in the novel when, Benjy realizes that Caddy has lost the innocence Benjy once idolized and loved (Faulkner 40).
Throughout the story, Faulkner so painstakingly attempted to maintain as much attention to detail so the reader would not loose sight of her plight of the times. The poor woman, once a pillar of society in her fathers' eye, had no one left once he was gone. Her feeble attempts to maintain a sense of serenity and purpose were always shutdown from within herself. While the world changed outside, Miss Emily's mind never changed from that early state that was bore in her soul.
By focusing on the figure of Caddy, Bleikasten’s essay works to understand the ambiguous nature of modern literature, Faulkner’s personal interest in Caddy, and the role she plays as a fictional character in relation to both her fictional brothers and her actual readers. To Bleikasten, Caddy seems to function on multiple levels: as a desired creation; as a fulfillment of what was lacking in Faulkner’s life; and/or as a thematic, dichotomous absence/presence.
One of the major conflicts is the intrapersonal conflict Cady has with herself. Cady goes from being home-schooled in Africa to entering the “girl-world” in high school. Throughout the movie, Cady is trying to fit in, become popular and to get the attention of her crush, Aaron Samuels. This causes Cady to ultimately lose herself in the process of becoming Plastic. In the effort to take revenge on Regina for taking Aaron back, Cady loses her own self by attempting to be Regina. This gets Janis to notice Cady’s transformation especially when Cady throws party the same night of Janis’s art show and doesn’t even show up to the art show. Janis came to Cady’s house tell her: “You think that everyone is in love with you, when actually, everyone hates you.” Cady then has to decide whether she wants to become a better person or become someone she’s
In the novel The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, a fictitious migrant family, the Joads, travel west in search of a new life away from the tragedies of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. Along the way, Steinbeck adds a variety of minor characters with whom the Joads interact. Steinbeck created these minor characters to contrast with the Joad’s strong will power and to reflect man’s fear of new challenges, and to identify man’s resistance to change. Three minor characters who fulfill this role are Muley Graves, Connie Rivers, and the tractor driver.
...ovel. Though she is not ever physically present, she is still always there. She shapes the story into a story of family, difficulty, sex and values. Caddy is not the best behaved character to ever enter a story, she can frequently be promiscuous, controlling and easily taken advantage of. None of which are considered to be character qualities we as a society value. But, she is strong and compelling. A hugely intriguing woman, and a character that we can love and empathize with. William Faulkner did a brilliant thing centering his book around her, he made her alluring. Had he told the story from her perspective, it seems that she would not have been a loveable character at all. He said it right, she was, “....to me too beautiful and too moving to reduce her to telling what was going on, that it would be more passionate to see her through somebody else’s eyes.” (WfotW)
William Faulkner used indirect characterization to portray Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted women through the serious of events that happened throughout her lifetime. The author cleverly achieves this by mentioning her father’s death, Homer’s disappearance, the town’s taxes, and Emily’s reactions to all of these events. Emily’s reactions are what allowed the readers to portray her characteristics, as Faulkner would want her to be
By reading closely and paying attention to details, I was able to get so much more out of this story than I did from the first reading. In short, this assignment has greatly deepened my understanding and appreciation of the more complex and subtle techniques Faulkner used to communicated his ideas in the story.
One of the most important symbols that Walker incorporates into the plot is the letters written by Celie to either God or Nettie, signifying the power of voice. The epistolary format of the novel itself enables readers to understand Celie, whose letters are initially addressed to God. After being raped by her stepfather at the age of fourteen, he tells her to “never tell nobody but God” (Walker 1); thus, Celie’s original letters are presented more as confessions and prayers. This first letter itself “initiates the story of Celie's unrelenting victimization” (Bloom, and Williams 77-88), and the audience notices that the way in which Celie narrates ...