Benjy Quotes

Sex as a mode of escape from the insufferable myth of the Belle repeats when Miss Quentin, Caddy’s daughter, escapes her violent uncle Jason by climbing down the same tree years later to join her boyfriend. Unlike Caddy who is pushed out of her family, Miss Quentin actively seeks her own escape. She is a rebel who is sexually promiscuous and takes revenge on her oppressive uncle by reclaiming the money her mother Caddy has been sending her. Miss Quentin eventually escapes the myth of the Belle by violently destroying it. When Jason walks into the kitchen, he notices her kimono coming “unfastened, flapping about her, dam near naked” and her face looking like “she had polished it with a gun rag” (184). Then, when Jason accuses her of “hiding in the woods with one of those damn slick-headed jellybeans,” she explodes, “I’m bad and I’m going to hell, and I don’t care. I’d rather be in hell than anywhere you are” (323). Miss Quentin neither feels guilty about losing her

Benjy is an embodiment of the South’s erratic response to the loss of stability, culture, economic prosperity, and identity. Due to his intellectual challenge, Benjy’s world is in a constant state of chaos. Benjy cannot recollect the past because he “relives it” (Kartiganer 8). While he is seemingly “free from time,” he is unable to comprehend the significance of change that caused Caddy’s departure (Kartiganer 12). According to Kartiganer, Benjy cannot tell the difference between past and present because he cannot “interpret the past from the perspective of the present” (9). Benjy cannot understand that Caddy’s absence is because of her natural growth as a woman, which is her sexual maturity. Because Caddy fails to perform the role of the Belle which forces her to depart from the family, Benjy perpetually waits for her return so that his world may become stable