Meaningful Images

In Eben Bass’s article “Meaningful Images in The Sound and the Fury,” she (or maybe it’s a he…. I don’t know if Eben is a guy or girl’s name! I’ll look it up later!) comments on Caddy’s slipper, the pear tree, the mirror and the fire. Out of these images I found the pear tree to be the most interesting. Bass points out how the tree connects Caddy and Quentin (her daughter). Caddy ascends the pear tree to observe Grandmother’s wake, but Quentin descends from it to meet with her lovers. In this way the tree connects mother and daughter, but Bass connects them through the tree on an even deeper level saying that Caddy’s muddy drawers offend Quentin (her brother) and foreshadow Caddy’s love affair, which results in the birth of Quentin (her daughter) who then uses the tree for her own love affairs. In addition, Benjy always associates Caddy with the smell of trees. These are all very good points that Bass makes and I agree with her.
She (or he) also says, however, that Caddy, metaphorically, becomes Quentin’s (her brother) wife through his “jealous incest-fantasy” and that his suicide is because of his “shame and remorse” and jealousy that he has had to “share” her with other men. Since Caddy’s muddy drawers, which offend Quentin, connect her to the tree and foreshadow her love affairs, Quentin and his death, in turn, are also connected to the tree. However, I disagree with Bass on these conclusions about Quentin’s suicide. Although it is a clever, well thought-out, and not without evidence, I think that Quentin’s suicide is motivated more by his feelings of disgrace and embarrassment about the family honor. It is not so much that he has incestuous fantasies and is angry about sharing her, but more that he wishes that everything could be simple like it was when they were kids. Caddy is, after all, his best friend, and it pains him to see her (and the family) disgraced. He loves her, has her on a pedestool, and despises the fact that she is now a “loose” girl, no longer the same little girl that she was when they were children. He feels trapped in life and in his situation and powerless to change Caddy and their circumstances, and he would rather die than lead his tormented life. In this way I disagree with Bass’s conclusions about the motive of Quentin’s suicide. I do, however, like her acknowledgement of the tree as a central image connecting Caddy and Quentin (her daughter), and ultimately all of the children.

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