Quentin Blog 3/23

June Second, 1910 answer and discuss on your blog: 1) Share your visions of Quentin  2) give your impression of his fragmented mental state.  3) review Quentin in comparison to his brother—3a) both are obsessed with Caddy, but what are the differences in their obsession? 4) Choose one passage from Quentin's chapter and give a brief description of the following. make sure you identify the passage for your readers 4a) Who Quentin "is" during that passage—what are his obligations to his family? 4b) Who is he most concerned with? 4c) In what time period do his thoughts reside (in college, during the present, or sometime during his youth)?

1) First off, in the beginning of the chapter, it is to be noted that Quentin is struggling at Harvard. This is most likely due to the stress of being the hope of the family, receiving an education, and actually doing something with his life. Being a Harvard kid is a huge deal, but it is not always easy to go through a challenging school, like so, if your parents do not support you- let alone your siblings. 2) All children want is to make their parents proud of them and how much they've achieved. More specifically with Quentin's case, he wants to keep things orderly (after all he is a Harvard kid) but with all the messy relationships back home, it's hardly ideal. Thus introducing his scattered mental state. Another issue that leads up to Quentin's skewed mental health is his ideas social constructs being crushed by Caddy's pregnancy. Due to Quentin and Caddy being siblings, Quentin still sees Caddy as a little girl, and this pregnancy completely shatters that innocent image. 3) Now, the writing style Faulkner uses for both Benji are very similar even with the two consistently obsessing over Caddy; the difference here is that Benji looks back at his experiences remembering through sensory, innocence, and symbolism, while on the other hand, Quentin recalls his experiences more clearly through intricate details of living with the family.  4) On page 63 (in my book), Quentin recalls how if his sister might have tried to have a better relationship with his mother the rest of the siblings' relationships with the family might have been better, "If I could say   Mother.  Mother." 4a) Quentin switches from present and past to maybe about 15 years of age. His obligation to the family is to stay at Harvard and focus on his studies so he can succeed further in life, unlike his parents who just made a dysfunctional family. 4b) He is most concerned with Caddy in this passage due to the incident that leads to her pregnancy being on Quentin's mind. Faulkner never discussed clearly who the baby's father was, but it can be interpreted and suggested as an incident of incest. 4c) Giving a reason to leave the disorderly and dysfunctional world, these thoughts occur in college leading to his death.