June 2, 1910 (Quentin's Chapter)

William Faulkner really tricked me with this chapter.  After I read Benjy's chapter, I truly didn't think that the book could get any more confusing.  I was excited going into the Quentin chapter—the first few pages were relatively easy to read.  And then I realized Quentin suffered from some kind of stress-induced thought-degenerative disease.  Short sequences of lucidity are interspersed throughout long, punctuation/grammar devoid, run-on paragraphs (and sometimes pages).  Because of this, I actually found Quentin's chapter harder to read than Benjy's—after all, at least Benjy's chapter employed basic English grammar.

Quentin's chapter was confusing for several reasons.  First, when Quentin enters into his narrative state of rambling, he frequently switches "in and out" of narrating.  For example, Quentin can be narrating a story and then, BAM!  Quentin begins repeating what other characters, such as Caroline, have said to him in the past.  Unfortunately, Quentin doesn't say, "And then my mother said, '...'."  He goes right into it, and he used the first person voice, too.  So one minute, Quentin is the speaker, and the next, Caroline is speaking through Quentin.  It's awfully confusing.

Apart from the speaker switching, Quentin's chapter is confusing because, throughout much of the text, it doesn't use proper punctuation or grammar—it seems like a run-on gathering of nonsensical ramblings.  And to be honest, I didn't understand most of these sequences.  But then again, I don't know if I was supposed to understand...

Quentin's mental state says a lot about his character.  Many of his ramblings relate to Caddy and his endearing (yet also creepy) worry for her.  I believe that Quentin's breakdowns are stress-induced, and just about all the stress in his life relates to Caddy.  So, the reader knows from Quentin's narration that he cares deeply for (or even too much for) Caddy.  He would prefer death over seeing Caddy get hurt.

Again, I'm excited to read the next chapter to make sense of this one.  Hopefully my wish to understand comes true this time....