How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
His name's Benjy now, Caddy said.
How come it is, Dilsey said. He aint wore out the name he was born with yet, is he. (1.766-7)
Mrs. Compson decides to change Benjy’s name once it’s apparent that he’s mentally handicapped – she doesn’t want him to share her brother’s name. Dilsey’s comment offers us a perspective on how shallow Mrs. Compson’s sense of family is.
Quote #5
But I thought at first that I ought to miss having a lot of them around me because I thought that Northerners thought I did, but I didn't know that I really had missed Roskus and Dilsey and them until that morning in Virginia. (2.56)
The Gibsons (Dilsey and Roskus) could be said to play a larger role in the Compson children’s lives than even their own mother – a fact that Quentin, ironically, doesn’t figure out until he’s left the South to go to school. Northern stereotypes about racial relations allow him to understand his own real affection for Dilsey and Roskus.
Quote #6
My little sister had no. If I could say Mother. Mother (2.91)
Quentin can’t stand the fact that Caddy has a sex life – and he blames her sexuality on their mother. He’s right, but not in the way that he thinks. Caddy pushes against the strict morality that their mother tries to impose upon her children, and this contributes to her decision to hook up with Dalton Ames.