Caddy and Conifers: The Lady Compson's Strange Connection to Our Earthy Friends

Article: Bass, Eben. “Meaningful Images in The Sound and the Fury.” Modern Language Notes, Vol. 76, No. 8. John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1961.

Through its discussion of significant objects related to recurring themes throughout The Sound and the Fury, this article helped me to think more about Caddy’s unusual relationship to trees. Whether it is through Benjy’s relating her scent to trees or in climbing up the trees surrounding the Compson house, many of the scenes of Caddy’s youth involve trees in some way, shape, or form. Mostly, this comparison serves to reference her loss of innocence throughout the story. With regard to Benjy, the few times in which he gets upset with her occur when she no longer smells like trees: when she first wears perfume, kisses a boy, and finally loses her virginity. Though not quite on the same level, her relationship to Quentin is also tied to her relationship to trees. The one defining scene for this connection occurs the night that Damuddy dies and Caddy climbs the tree to see what is going on inside the house. This occurs right after she has been playing in the branch, and as she is ascending the tree, Quentin sees and is disappointed by her muddy drawers, potentially symbolic of the struggles their relationship will undergo. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Quentin thinks back to this day, both on the day he commits suicide, and on the day when he discusses hysterically how muddy drawers used to be the biggest problem in Caddy’s life. Though Quentin’s relationship with Caddy is drastically different from Benjy’s, it is clear that she means the world to both of them and that her connection to trees is integral to each of these relationships. This article helped me to make this connection, and I am looking forward to more instances of this bond between Caddy and trees in the final section of The Sound and the Fury. (303)

What About Caddy?

From the way Quentin’s narration ends at the conclusion of section 2, it is clear that he is about to commit suicide. One question that I have about this is what has happened to the one person Quentin loved above all else, Caddy? When Quentin recalls the scene in which he holds the knife to Caddy, after saying that she will be permit him to kill her, she asks “Can you do yours by yourself?” (152). At the end of section 2, we finally see Quentin doing his by himself. My question is this: has Caddy already taken care of her part? Will the two of them finally be united in death, as they once dreamed of being?

By the end of section 2, all that we know of Caddy’s present situation is that nobody in the Compson household ever speaks her name. We do not know the particulars behind this, but it certainly fits that a suicide would be reason enough not for the Compsons not to mention their relative. Perhaps Caddy’s death was just one more example of the curse that seems to haunt the Compson family, particularly the children. (192)

Short Story Update

So far, in preparation for the Independent Short Story project, I have read four stories:

The Order of Things by Judy Troy
The Camera and the Cobra by Roger Nash
Admiral by T.C. Boyle
Puppy by George Saunders

Of these stories, I think the one that most attracts me is Puppy, which I believe could potentially lend itself to an excellent essay. Though I have not yet done extensive research on the author, George Saunders, the whole premise of this story intrigues me: an upper-class family visiting a much poorer one and deciding not to buy their dog because the rich mother judges the living situation of the family in question. In under ten pages, this story drags the reader through a gamut of emotions and uses two very different viewpoints to draw in the reader. I believe that this premise will make for abundant analysis and that I will be able to do enough research on Saunders, whose writing seems to have a common theme of morality, in order to make for a compelling essay. Overall, I believe that learning about an author that I have no past experience with and writing about such a loaded story will make for an interesting essay topic that will be reasonable for me to accomplish, but will still provide enough information to allow me to give a detailed account of both the writer and the specific story. (235)