On Paths Unknown discussion

Hello members, once you have read through the Quentin section, you can start commenting here in the Jason thread.

I was very puzzled starting off with this section, thinking it was a negro servant talking, because of the bad grammar, and wondering when Jason is going to start talking, but apparently this IS Jason!
I thought the Compsons were so high and mighty and educated, at least....

NOTE: This narration takes place one day after the Benjy narration.

Faulkner's tenses are all over the place; the one moment it's in the present tense, and the very next moment it's in the past tense. And where is there ever a world where it will be correct to say: "I says"? It can only be "I say; I said; or I am saying, or I will say. It can never be "I says", yet that is what Jason says all the time... It drives the bit of OCD part in me nuts.

"I never had time to go to Harvard or drink myself into the ground"
At first I wondered if this meant that Quentin drank, but Jason is referring to Quentin re Harvard, and to his father re the father's drinking.

Ok, I have a copy with notes that I'll share with you guys; when Jason goes to the telegram place, he is finding out about the stock price of cotton, because he speculates on cotton. so, where it says:
"It was up two points. They were all buying ",
this refers to the fact that Jason has on the previous day "sold short" some cotton futures: that is, he has borrowed from his brokerage futures that he doesn't own. Unlike his fellow-investing townspeople, he therefore wants the stock to go down, to a price below what he sold the borrowed shares for, and wants to buy at the absolute rock-bottom price in order to increase his own profits. If the price goes below what he has borrowed, he repays his broker the original loan plus interest, and pockets the difference; if the price goes above what he has borrowed, he loses that much (Morrison 467). Thus he notes that the market is up two points, which his fellow investors take as a favorable sign and begin buying, hoping to buy low and sell high later in the day or in the week. Jason, however, has a telegram from "some people who're right there on the ground" in New York (192:10), some investment professionals he is paying $10 per month for advice (192:32); the telegram tells him to ignore a "deceptively positive" market opening and not buy. Fifteen minutes later he receives the news that the market has gone "up two points more. Four points" and although he is nervous, he decides for now to stick to the advice that he is paying for.

- from: Reading Faulkner. The Sound and the Fury : Glossary and Commentary. Reading Faulkner Series. by Ross, Stephen M. and Polk, Noel (1996)

Jason thinks he's very smart, but he's not as smart as he thinks - I love how you read between the lines when other people are messing with him. He's such a d_ck.
What a cad and a cheat, and rude as hell.

Benjy still goes to the gate every evening to wait for Caddy to come home from school, even so many years later.

The way Jason speaks - I've actually heard people speak like that. It's self referential, not that it makes it any easier on the ear! It's literally "talking out loud!"

I meant all the bad grammar; yes, people do speak like that, of course, but mainly uneducated people. My point was that the mother makes such a big deal about how upper class the Bascombes and the Compsons are, but nothing about them seems upper class to me, to be honest, besides that they think they need to have servants working for them and seem to have owned a bit of land at some point.
But any low-class farmer can also own land, I don't see how that makes you so upper class just to own land and have servants, while in the meantime you behave like a hooligan and speak like one.

I agree. Earlier on I had said, that when the parents spoke to one another, there was a smattering of education. That jaxtaposed to the kids' babbling away was noteworthy. I think you made a valid point, that because they spent so much time hanging out with the servants - they spoke like them.

Bonitaj wrote: "That juxtaposed to the kids' babbling away was noteworthy. I think you made a valid point, that because they spent so much time hanging out with the servants - they spoke like them.."

Hmm, I suppose you could be right that that could be the reason (despite them going to school), that it's yet another way to highlight the parent's carelessness and neglect of the children - the father was always drinking and the mother was always in bed, complaining.

So what do you think of Jason as a person? This chapter reminded me even more of Nabokov's skill in exposing a sociopathic character via his own speech and thoughts.

Ok, let's throw out some discussion questions to help us along: after reading the 3 sons narrations, it struck me how very different the 3 Compson sons are from one another; how would you say the three sons differ in: 1. their worldviews in general (as in, their paradigm of the world), 2. their style of relating to the world and the people in it, and 3. in how they view themselves?

Also, differences in how they treat the women in their lives?

Caroline Compson features quite strongly in this section; how would you say she rates as a mother? Do you agree with Caroline's attitude towards 1. Benjy, 2. Caddy , 3. Quentin, 4. Jason the son?

Do you agree with Jason Jr's assessment that Caddy had ruined his life? Do you think that justifies his actions?

Could you discern that perhaps Quentin, Jason Sr and Jason Jr all had different conceptions of the ideal forms of how masculinity should be expressed? Please elaborate. Do you think each of them managed to live up to what you judged might be their ideal of masculinity?

Would you say that honesty and integrity would have been part of the Southern gentleman of yore's code of honor? If so, how much irony do you read into the fact that Caroline Compson, with her pride in the honorability and nobility of the Bascome family, does not censure Jason Jr's disgraceful behaviour, or do you think that she is simply unaware of it - do you think Jason has her fooled, or is she simply too weak as a personality to make a stance?