Dilsey the Sweetheart: April 8th,1928

Here goes my farewell piece! Bear with me as this might be lengthy.

Faulker ends with a third person voice, though the chapter emphasizes Dilsey, one of the Compson's most loyal servants. Dilsey is one of, if not the only, sane and mentally strong human running around on the Compson property. The last chapter is lucid and comprehensible, something significantly different than the other three chapters. Within the fourth chapter, character traits are solidified. Mrs. Compson is seen having just as little independence as before. My favorite example of this is when Mrs. Compson becomes angry with Dilsey due to the "poor" placement of Mrs. Compson's bible by Dilsey. Mrs. Compson replies "Do you want me to have to get out of bed to pick it up?" because God forbid she move, or fill her own water bottle, or take care of her children. Jason is just as greedy and horrible as he was before, but now we have more against him. He still continues to dwell on the bitterness he feels due to his lack of the stable banking job he was promised. When Quentin is discovered missing (the true end to the Compson name), I mistakenly, and unwisely, assumed Jason was going to seek and find Quentin, but really Jason just wanted the money Quentin stole.

This fourth chapter, though not nearly as eventful or complicated as the first three, was a pleasant conclusion of the demise of the Compson family. This is exemplified in the sermon given to the Dilsey's congregation. The pastor preaches on the death of Jesus Christ. This brings Dilsey to tears as she repeatedly mumbles "Ise seed de first en de last" referencing her lengthy stay with the Compson family, from the earliest times to the present, or the death of their family. Although the pastor does mention the crucifixion of Jesus, he also focuses on the resurrection. This symbolizes the new future that awaits the South.

To conclude, I believe Faulker chose the order of the chapters to go from confusing to almost perfectly comprehensible in order to allow readers to unravel a story on their own. With Benjy, we received unbiased facts, but had a hard time following the time line. And with every chapter beyond that, we added onto the already existing facts we held in our memory. I think that Faulker also chose the order to be Benjy, Quentin, and Jason because each is obsessed with Caddy in a different way, and in a lesser way as the book progresses. Benjy is reliant upon Caddy due to his own mental ineptness, but also due to the fact that she is the only one genuinely close to him. Quentin is not necessarily obsessed with Caddy as much as he is obsessed with the idea of her sexual innocence. Jason is not obsessed with Caddy in any way, but is instead bitter and obsessed with her choices, and how they ultimately affected him. This type of narration supplies us with increasing insight into the death of the Compson family name as we kept reading, which provided an incentive as the pages turned.

And now the tough part. What is the meaning of this novel? What does it signify? This book contains a million little messages, from the silly concept of virginity to our obsession with time, but one of the most important messages is the farewell of old values, and the acceptance of modern values. In the end, the Compson family is just a symbol of the South clutching onto old values, and refusing to yield to any type of change. The attitude of do or die is clearly doomed, as the Compson family name abruptly halts. Although the Southern values are obsolete, the Compson family clings to them, and their fate is somewhat unfortunate. Faulker is pleading readers to accept change. Our world will always be changing, and rejecting change only further damages ourselves.