For Benjy and Quentin Compson, memory in “The Sound and the Fury” is a tool for discovering and escaping reality. Both brothers struggle to see the past as part of a chain linked to both the present and the future. Benjy does not recognize linear time, giving his memories the same qualities as his contemporary experiences. Quentin chooses to ignore his present and live in his childhood memories. Both brothers find comfort in their memories of the past as they seek protection from an unpredictable world that changes faster than they can keep up. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayBenjy is allowed to tell first, because he is the only one incapable of lying. He can't embellish stories or control his memories. Due to his severe mental disability, he cannot think subjectively; for him, life is an endless present of images, sounds and thoughts that he cannot decipher, reflect on or organize in any meaningful way. He has no concept of time; because his memories are perfectly connected to the visual and auditory signals of the present, he considers them equivalent to current experiences. As a result, he ignores the concepts of cause and consequence and does not harbor grudges or guilt like his brothers do. Unlike Quentin and Jason, who are so obsessed with Caddy that their perceptions of any history with her are skewed by their ability to consciously shape their memories, Benjy's unconscious merging of memory and reality contributes to his almost inhuman objectivity. He has no opinions, no real differentiation in his descriptions. He imposes his neutrality on those he quotes, always reporting “he said”, “she said” – never “he warned” or “she laughed”, whatever the situation. Free from the movement of time and judgments, Benjy is completely static, letting the story fall into order while he figures it all out. The timelessness of Benjy's narrative means that he cannot distinguish between the present and the past, and therefore relives both memory and experience as they unfold. occur. As a result, he is stuck in a process of constantly regenerating Caddy's memory and losing it at the same time, building while simultaneously tearing down. It's as if he sees the shadow of the dead Caddy, only to replace it with herself. He lives in a continuous cycle of loss and degenerative change, which Quentin has failed to accomplish; its memory is composed of infinite life-death rotations. His mind has the ability to bring something back to life only to quickly abandon it moments later. Rather than measuring a moving stream of memories on a linear time scale, Benny compares his rush of experiences to a powerful, instinctive sense of order and chaos. His memory is predictable; his memories are all connected to each other. However, his memories of the typically linear past-present-future structure, as floods are to flows, as seas are to rivers: discrete blocks collapsing on top of each other with no clear direction. He responds to the world by comparing his perceptions and experiences to his mind's pattern of order and familiarity. Benjy's reality is a game of association: it operates from inflexible relationships linking a word to an object, an emotion to a scenario. Names are rarely replaced with pronouns because names like Quentin, Caddy, or Jason make up the entirety of a person's identity. Benjy doesn't bother to discriminate usingdescriptive details about gender, race or age. It processes an entire site, perceiving flashes of impressions before being aware of individual elements of a scene. When he hears the golfers calling, his extreme literalism kicks in and the cries of “Caddy” draw the only possible response. The Dilsey Cemetery only exists when the two blue bottles are placed on top of the mound; without them, Benjy's rigid pattern of recognition is disrupted. Benjy responds strongly to novelty and change because he relies on the stability of patterns. Any deviation from this familiarity triggers turmoil in his mind and upsets him, causing him to cry or moan. For example, Caddy's first experience with perfume shocks Benjy's sense of constancy: he detects something wrong and it deeply disturbs him. However, he does not force the reader to accept his emotional reaction, unlike Quentin and Jason, whose respective shame and bitterness permeate the fiber of their stories, so that these emotions are the only acceptable ones if we want to take their memories face to face. value. Benjy, however, asks readers to organize his jumble of memories. Although it can instantly shape random facts and meanings, we cannot pass off an anarchy of images as reality without driving ourselves crazy. Once the disorder is brought under control, we realize that Benjy's objectivity has a cost; the events are too transparent, the story too simple, the characters too basic and crude. Benjy's inner compass demands that everything he encounters be an immutable archetype: Caddy is the embodiment of love, Jason the devil incarnate. The lack of subtlety in his worldview makes Benjy's testimony borderline robotic; it’s too abrupt, too emotionally depleted. There is no single "Benjy context" to help the reader understand the significance of Benjy's memories for Benjy himself. His mind does not expand as his memories increase, nor do his perceptions become more sophisticated. For example, every time he remembers a death, he conjures up the same images of buzzards undressing a corpse. He is stuck in an interpretive rut, reliving each memory with the exact feelings and reactions he experienced when it first occurred, repeating his past life in spaces where a normal person would study the meaning of present life. Benjy's memories, therefore, compose a scenario which belies the humanity of the tale. Its reality is only valid in a perfectly still world, where all experiences have the same value for everyone, but because our world is never static and because human consciousness is intrinsically judgmental, the impartiality of Benjy is meaningless to the reader. A “detached truth,” without imagination or a mind actively engaged with reality, is not the kind of truth that can successfully describe human experience. Quentin's memories also operate in an inescapable cycle. He is trapped in a fantasy world where time is everywhere: in clocks, watches, ticks and heartbeats. Quentin's obsession with the relentless linearity of time conflicts with his attempts to retreat from his uncertain reality to a place of predictable tradition. Although he is supposed to be the smartest member of the family, Quentin is tormented by the prospect of having to act decisively, facing his destiny as Chief Compson without Caddy by his side. All he wants is to return to a world that conforms to his ideals without having to lift a finger. Quentin prefers to think about something rather than act, rathertell a story than participate in it, because he is afraid of making a mistake in the present and spoiling the pattern of the past. Everything happens as if withdrawal into oneself slows down the present and delays the march towards destiny. Quentin finds security in the calm of the past, in his strict moral code, in the refuge of Caddy's past purity. Quentin tries to involve himself as little as possible in his current environment. He lives in a romantic reverie where there is no clock to nudge him, where his days are not numbered, where he can play the hero and make decisions for Caddy instead of pining for her. He is threatened by the constantly changing modern world, the changing of the guard, the rejection of its outdated myths and moral ideals. As he watches, Damuddy, the only Compson representative of the old and genteel South, dies. Hard Fist Jason replaces Mr. Compson, and Miss Quentin, the only new generation Compson, is an unapologetic bastard who flaunts her promiscuity without a hint of guilt. For Quentin, changes in his established reality disrupt his sense of balance, as Caddy's absence does for Benjy. For both men, “all of this came to symbolize night and unrest…where all stable things had become dark and paradoxical” (211). As this strange and erratic future constantly weighs on Quentin, his thoughts become tormented and confused. His identity shifts with Caddy's, and for the first time in his life, he is lost without a role model to safely follow and numbed in the heady rush of time and movement. Quentin cannot control “the sequence of natural events and their causes” like he can control his memories. Each day brings its own pattern of probabilities and circumstances, making Quentin “a seagull clinging to an invisible thread tied across dragged space” (123). He longs for a kind of stability and constancy, and becomes obsessed with time, with the repetition of beats and tics that remind him of the momentary fleeting but ultimate permanence of the daily norms of his youth. Clocks and watches invade Quentin's narrative, but while these clocks recall the past, they also warn of times to come, trapping Quentin in a present suspended between a past to which he cannot return and a future that terrifies him. The ticking of his watch haunts him even after he smashes the watch against his dresser. Quentin asks the clock shop owner if any of the clocks are correct, but doesn't want to know what time it is. The inexorable ticking, the infinitesimal movements of the moments that replace each other become a momentum of change that always brings Quentin closer. to the ultimate calm: death. Apocalyptic bells and lengthening shadows prophesy Quentin's inevitable night. Ultimately, it is the permanence and stillness of his memories and the control he has over them that makes death so appealing. It is a state without suspense, as clear and stable as the past. He prefers to face stagnant certainty rather than the roaring, active surprises of the future. However, even his attempt to block the movement of time with a self-imposed end ultimately fails, as the ticks, bangs, and chimes that tormented him during his life will simply continue after his death. Quentin's suicide is just the beginning of times without Quentin. Quentin's tragedy is perhaps most visible through his quixotic attempts to control an ephemeral entity (like Caddy, or period-specific moral concepts), to make time permanent before it transforms his beloved past . in an indiscernible blur. He wants to preserve the rawness and intensity of his emotions from the moment he first feels them, fearing that analysis. (126).