Benji Blog 3/20

On your blog respond to this section answering these questions and reflecting on your reading. What role does Benjy play in the Compson family? What does his unique perspective show us about the Compsons? What might Benjy's need for consistency, and his extremely strong nostalgia for the past say about the concept of family? About the South as a place? Does Benjy fulfill a symbolic role in the novel?

1) Benjy does not have a role in the family that is deemed significant by the Compsons, all they think of him as is the root of all their troubles. Because Benjy is always taking the reader through time shifts mainly in the past, one can assume Benjy is not happy with how he is being treated now with the Compsons. Going back in time is his happy place, mainly consisting of Caddy and flowers and such. This personality aspect of his shows how mean and heartless the Compsons are.

2) Benjy is constantly being taken care of, so when the family is falling apart, Benjy has no idea what in the world to do. In order to remain his calm, he thinks of his childhood when everything looked a lot brighter. This is due to the fact that people will sympathize and feel bad for a little kid with a disability, but not a full grown man with a disability- something Benjy himself cannot understand fully. So he was treated fairly as a child, but when he had to live with the Compsons when he got older, they looked upon and treated him as a burden showing a lack of knowledge of how to care for a disabled person, something prominent through the society of the south in the 1940s. 

3) Benjy is a symbol for all that has failed in the family. Since the family sees him as only an animal with no brains, they really have no luck making anything any better. However, one could argue that Benjy symbolizes hope for the family for Benjy has glimpses into the future, only if he could communicate those occurrences to the family that hope could become reality.