Engliterarium

A careful study of Hemingway’s novels and short stories reveals that he consistently repeats his major subject and themes. The 2nd book of “The Sun Also Rises” starts with the fishing trip – the subject which he has discussed in his several other novels and short stories. However, it is a great mastery of Hemingway’s art that even his repetitions do not create monotony.

After the exposition of chaotic conditions of life in Paris where every one is physically and emotionally sick, the fishing trip scene is a healthy shift to the serenity and tranquility of Burguette where only Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton go because Mike and Brett Ashley fail to reach Pamplona on the expected day.

Their journey to Burguette is slightly troublesome as the motor bus is full of passenger. However, they enjoy beautiful scenery and exposed their bodies to the sun and the wind. As the bus moves upward, Jake is enchanted by the beauty of rocky hills, grain growing up hillside and in the way a cloud hangs behind the bus. His poetic appreciation of the scene and communication with nature are in a sense aromantic escape from the injuries of war and complexities of life in Paris.

If we critically examine the position of this scene, it is quite clear that Hemingway has consciously inserted this trip midway between the scenes in Paris and those in Pamplona to lend it a structural and symbolic significance. Fishing scene is a kind of fulcrum that helps in measuring the frustration and unhappiness of the former or later episodes.

Fishing trip is neutral as it is set high in the Spanish mountains with the plains of Paris on one side and those of Pamplona on the other side. There are Jake and Bill, “Men without women”, without Brett to create jealousy among them and Jake is free from complexities of sex. It is one of those few occasions when Jake is found happy. This excursion is therapeutic process for Jake. He briefly speaks of his hindered love for Brett, but as religion is no more valid and love is no longer possible, he finds happiness through private and imaginative means. Thus, he constructs a more positive code to follow, which brings in him help, pleasure, beauty an order, and helps to wipe out the damage of his troubled life in Paris. Pamplona is an extension of Burguette which on the surface level is gayer and more joyous than Burguette but essentially more serious and eventful.

One of Faulkner's chief concerns in his works is time and timelessness. It is often connected with his views of how often and how much past intrudes upon the present. Faulkner’s use of time in this novel is startling, new and effective. Time concepts are used differently in every section.

In Benjy’s narration clock tie is totally disregarded. Benjy is completely oblivious of time. Events of the past are constantly juxtaposed with various events of the present or of some other time in the past. Benjy makes no distinction between an event that happened only hours ago and one that occurred years ago. The memory of the episode at the branch (1898) is as recent and vivid as an episode in 1914 or on the morning of April 7, 1928. Therefore, for Benjy there is no distinction between the past and the present and there is no such thing as future. If he stands at the gate waiting of Caddy to return in 1928 it is because he has waited since 1902. The many years that he has waited in vain are non-existent to him because he remembers only those events which gave him pleasure. Faulkner violates traditional time in order to emphasize Benjy’s rejection of the distinction between various times and to show how actions of the past are important to Benjy because they gave him pleasure. The time motif is highly stimulating when we realize that Faulkner is writing about Benjy in 1928, and the event which Benjy remembers in 1898 foreshadows events which occur in 1906-10. Benjy remember a past event of Caddy getting her drawers muddy which foreshadows a future event about Caddy’s promiscuity in 1906-10. 

Quentin expends all his energy trying to understand time. His section opens with his remembering his father’s comments about the futility of trying to keep up with time. He tears off the hands of his watch. By this act, he hopes to escape into a timeless world. But he cannot remove himself from time. He constantly hears his own watch ticking even though it has no hands. He asks the boys at the river if they know where a clock is. And in the midst of all these links with time, Quentin is constantly remembering various cynical comments that his father made about time. 

The time motif carries significant implications about Quentin's character. Whereas Benjy made no distinction between time past and present. Quentin is more concerned with trying to understand how time in the past can influence time in the future. His major problem is that his father has told him that time will make a person forget all sorrow and remorse. But Quentin’s problem is that he does not want to forget. He must remember his present feeling of bereavement because if the forgets them, the feelings will have no meaning and then Quentin feels that his life will have no meaning. Therefore, Quentin tries to stop time from passing. The only way he can do this is by committing suicide which he does at the end of his section. 

For Jason, time plays an important role and every second counts. In his section, we have Caddy returning for a five-second glimpse of her child, and we see Jason watching the clock and timing his every act. We have undelivered telegrams, wild chases and various assignations. But Jason sees no importance to the past except that certain events occurred which deprived him of a position in Herbert Head’s bank. Jason’s world is in the immediate present. He has rejected all ties and allegiance to the past and he exists only for his own selfish aims in the present moment. 

The final section uses time by emphasizing the clock which Dilsey keeps on the kitchen wall. When the clock strikes five times, Dilsey knows that it is eight o’clock. She is able to bring order out of the confusion and chaos of the Compson world. When she takes Benjy to the church, she hears a sermon about the beginning and the end. She returns feeling that she has been with Compsons since the beginning and now she sees the end coming very soon. Dilsey, therefore, is the only character who functions within the continuum of time. Her present care for loyalty to the Compsons is a result of her past association with them. 

The use of time motif is probably one of Faulkland’s main concerns in the novel. Much of the meaning of the novel evolves through an understanding of each character’s reaction to time.

Basically the novel presents the story of the decline of a family. The family shown in the novel has traits which

The Compson family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Compson, their four children Quentin, Caddy, Jason and Benjy. Mr. Compson is the first clear sign of decay in the family oppressed by the traditions. His self-pitying wife is a terrifying example of the functionless southern lady. Their children depict different degrees of degeneracy. Benjy is an idiot, Caddy is promiscuous and her daughter afterwards takes her path. Quentin drives himself to suicide by an obsession with his sister’s dishonour. Jason is villainous. Faulkner thus identifies the sources of destruction of the family in their individual character, which are full of self-destructive urges and impulses.

One aspect of the deterioration in the Compson family is the lack of parental love. Mr. Compson’s cynicism and nihilistic views have a very disturbing effect on the sensitive Quentin. Compson has a negative attitude towards time. He wishes to escape from time and regards his watch as a “mausoleum of all hope and desire”. To him victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

Mrs. Compson always seems to be complaining about her sickness and children. She believes that Benjy is a punishment for her and Jason is a source of “joy and salvation”. As a mother, she is a nonentity and we find Quentin lamenting in his monologue upon the fact that there was no one to which he could call Mother. Mrs. Compson’s hypochondria inflict sufferings on the family. She is chiefly the cause of the family’s misfortunes and disaster.

Benjy is the born idiot, incapable of speaking and expressing and almost all the time mourning and slobbering. Benjy is a grotesque character representing the degeneracy of an upper class white family.

Caddy, whom Faulkner adorned most, does not give any cause for rejoicing or even enthusiasm. When seventeen, she becomes promiscuous and becomes pregnant unaware of her seducer. She married in haste and soon becomes discarded by her husband. In this way she becomes a “fallen woman”. She is not allowed to visit her parental home and the very mention of her name is forbidden by her mother. Caddy certainly possesses some redeeming quality. She shows a great affection for Benjy and looks after him. She also possessed certain feminine charm which attracts different man and even her own brother. But these qualities cannot redeem the essential corruption of her nature. Thus she is the great cause of degeneration of the Compson's family.

Quentin started as a very promiscuous boy. He was sent to Harvard even though the family had to sell a part of estate to pay for his expenses. But he proved an incestuous passion for his sister. His unfulfilled incestuous love and his terrible sense of disappointment of Caddy’s dishonour give rise to the feeling of despair in him. This leads him to commit suicide. He is also a string reason for the fall of the Compson's family.

The youngest child of the family grows into a villain. The only positive aspect of his nature is his sense of humour. He deceives his mother by giving her fake cheques to burn while he uses to deposit the genuine cheques sent by Caddy in his account. He defrauds his niece Quentin for small amount of money. His treatment towards his niece shows his cold heartedness and callousness. He constantly suggests that Benjy should be sent to metal asylum. The moral sense is totally missing in him. His attitude towards Dilsey’s loyalty is unique.

The girl Miss Quentin proves to be much worse than her mother. Whereas, her mother shows great affection for Benjy but Miss Quentin even does not like to sit with him and does not care even for her grand mother. She becomes promiscuous at early age. Although her action in stealing Jason's money is the punishment which Jason richly deserved yet her theft for the money and her flight from her house with a lover leaves a very bad taste.

Mrs. Compson, Quentin and Jason are the protagonist of chaos. Each of three characters are bent upon self-pitying and self-justification.

Sexual perversion and violation of conventional behaviour play significant role in the story of the Compson’s brother. Uncle Mauray was beaten by neighbour for carrying on an adulterous affair with the neighbour’s wife. Jason has a mistress called Larrine but he is averse to marriage. According to a critic, in a Freudian sense both Benjy and Jason might unconsciously be attracted sexually by Caddy.

This degeneracy of the Compson family is heightened by the striking contrast between the member of this family and the servant Dilsey. She is a symbol of fidelity, companionship, love, devotion to duty, power of endurance, religious piety and much more as against the chaos of the Compson family.