Quentin Compson Timeline and Summary

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• Quentin insists that he knows more than Caddy. He goes to school.
• He watches Caddy squat down and get her dress wet. Versh says that her mom will whip her for getting wet.
• Caddy argues that she won’t get whipped.
• After all, she’s seven. She should know.
• Quentin says she will. He knows more. He goes to school.
• Versh, Quentin, and Caddy get into a fight.
• Declaring that she’s going to run away, Caddy says that she doesn’t care if she gets whipped or not.
• Quentin gets into a fight at school because some kids are mean to the teacher.
• He comes home with a black eye.
• Quentin finds Caddy down in the branch (that’s a stream, remember?).
• She’s lying down with her legs in the water.
• Quentin asks her over and over if she loves the man.
• Caddy doesn’t say anything, but she puts Quentin’s hand over her heart, where he feels her blood throbbing.
• Quentin asks if she remembers the time that she sat in the branch and got her drawers muddy.
• Remember how we told you that this was an important scene in Benjy’s section? Here’s why:
• Quentin suddenly pulls out a knife and threatens to push it into Caddy’s throat.
• He can’t do it, however.
• He fights Dalton Ames because Caddy is pregnant.
• Quentin meets Caddy’s fiancé, Herbert. He hates Herbert on sight.
• Herbert mentions to Quentin that he once thought Quentin was Caddy’s lover, not her brother. He’s all she ever talks about.
• Herbert keeps trying to push a cigar on Quentin. Disgusted, Quentin refuses.
• Herbert’s a bit smarmy. He insists that he wants to be Quentin’s brother. After all, he went to Harvard, too.
• Quentin points out that Herbert was kicked out of Harvard for cheating.
• That stops conversation for awhile.
• Herbert threatens Quentin in an attempt to get Quentin to keep quiet.
• On June 2, 1910, Quentin finds himself "in time again."
• Translation: he just woke up.
• He hears his watch clicking away the seconds and remembers when his father first handed him the watch.
• Quentin hears his roommate, Shreve, getting up.
• He rolls over, deciding to forget about time.
• As soon as he decides this, however, thinking about the time becomes like an itch he can’t scratch. It’s all he can think about.
• All of a sudden, a memory intrudes upon his thinking (or not thinking) about time:
• A girl runs out, smelling of roses. His mother and father have announced a wedding….
• Quentin remembers telling his father that he’s committed incest.
• Shreve barges in on Quentin, reminding him that he’s late for chapel.
• Quentin promises to get up soon, and Shreve leaves.
• Left alone, Quentin remembers the time that Shreve defended him in a fight: Quentin got really angry when someone talked smack about some girls.
• Watching out the window, Quentin sees Spoade pass by.
• Spoade’s a campus legend: he’s always late to everything, but he’s always well-respected.
• The campus chimes sound off the hour.
• Quentin listens to the sound of the bells fading away into the air.
• Quentin gets up and walks over to his dresser, where his watch is.
• He breaks the glass of the watch, then he twists off its hands.
• Noticing red smears on the glass, Quentin realizes that he’s cut his finger.
• Quentin packs a suitcase with a change of clothes.
• He writes two letters: one to his father and one to Shreve.
• Shreve walks in, interrupting Quentin’s thoughts.
• He quizzes Quentin about missing chapel, but Quentin mutters an excuse and leaves.
• He sets off to find Deacon – maybe he’s at the train station?
• (Deacon is an old black man who seems to do odd jobs for college boys.)
• As he walks, Quentin thinks about forgetting time again.
• Passing a jewelry store with lots of clocks in the window, he pauses, then walks in.
• He asks the man at the counter if any of the clocks are right.
• The man says no, it’s actually…
• Quentin shuts him up before the man can finish telling him the time.
• He just wanted to know if any of the clocks were right.
• The man looks at him strangely. Maybe this kid has been drinking?
• Quentin realizes that he can’t hear the clicking of his own watch over all these other clocks. It’s a comforting thought.
• Quentin walks to a hardware store, where he buys a pair of flatirons (weights). He wraps them up so that they look like a pair of shoes.
• A streetcar passes, and Quentin gets on.
• He sits beside a black man and starts thinking about race relations in the North.
• Quentin gets off the railcar and stares over a bridge at the water below.
• He watches his shadow in the water, thinking that he wishes he could find a way to drown his shadow.
• He watches a classmate of his, Gerald Bland, punt on the river.
• Arriving at the station, Quentin sees Deacon.
• Quentin promises Deacon a present if he’ll deliver a letter to Shreve tomorrow.
• Suddenly, looking into Deacon’s slightly absurd face, Quentin sees the wise, sad eyes of Roskus.
• The moment passes – Deacon agrees to deliver the letter.
• Quentin walks back to campus, thinking about his childhood.
• In his room, Shreve greets him.
• Apparently, Gerald’s mother has sent Quentin an invitation for a party.
• Shreve’s glad that he’s not invited.
• Quentin starts thinking about the costs of being a gentleman.
• Quentin watches three boys fishing for a big ol’ trout.
• He sees the trout in the water, but no one has ever been able to outsmart it.
• The boys argue about how to catch the fish.
• Quentin finds a silent little girl in the town.
• Quentin walks all through the town, trying to ask the little girl where she lives.
• At the end of town, Quentin gives the girl a coin and runs away from her.
• All of a sudden, a group of men run up to them.
• The little girl finally talks. She points at one of the men, saying, "There’s Julio."
• Julio charges at Quentin, trying to beat him up.
• Apparently, he thinks Quentin is trying to run off with his sister.
• The sheriff is right behind him. He arrests Quentin.
• Julio accuses Quentin of stealing his sister.
• Quentin finds this so incredibly farcical that he sits down and laughs.
• He can’t seem to stop laughing, even after the sheriff begins to think that he’s hysterical.
• As the group walk back to town, a car with Gerald, his mother, Spoade, Shreve, and two girls drives up.
• Mrs. Bland (Gerald’s mother) demands to know what’s happening.
• Of course, when they all hear that Quentin’s been arrested, Shreve is the only one who immediately gets out of the car.
• The girls, especially, look at Quentin in horror.
• Shreve joins them as the walk to the jail, where the sheriff books Quentin.
• Quentin hasn’t said anything about helping the little girl. We’re not really sure why, but we’re guessing that his silence is important.
• Spoade insists that Quentin’s arrest is a mistake.
• The sheriff, calculating a bit, charges Quentin six dollars for Julio’s trouble.
• (In those times, six bucks is a decent amount of cash.)
• Shreve’s outraged – but Quentin pays the money, and they all leave.
• In the car, Quentin gets himself into a huge fight.
• Gerald was telling bawdy tales about the women that he’d had sex with, and Quentin went crazy. He hit Gerald.
• Unfortunately, Gerald’s been training as a boxer.
• As Shreve recounts, Quentin got kicked around for awhile.
• Quentin enters his dorm room.
• It’s dark. Shreve left him a letter telling him that the Blands are having another get-together.
• Quentin notices his bloody clothes again.
• Thinking half-completed thoughts, he begins to clean the blood off with gasoline.
• Quentin stuffs the bloody clothes into his bag and puts on the clean set.
• He drowns himself in the river.