He’s the bright hope of the family. guidance, Quentin feels even worse when he learns that his father Turning to Mr. Compson for And since this novel is a part of a larger cycle or chronicle, the more experienced reader of Faulkner's entire works knows something about Quentin from an earlier novel. Quentin Compson Quotes. It is through Quentin that the novel articulates its thematic focus on the loss of meaning in the modern world. nebulous, abstract concepts such as honor, virtue, and feminine Born, Jefferson, 1891. by his obsession with Caddy and his preoccupation with a very traditional Died, Cambridge, Mass., 1910. pact with Caddy or the desire for revenge against Dalton Ames, but Like Thomas Sutpen and Charles Bon, Quentin Compson is all too painfully aware of the complexities of the society into which he was born. (1936). Quentin Compson Grandson of Thomas Sutpen's first Yoknapatawpha County friend. Southern code of conduct and morality. occurred and which are mere fantasy.Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.SparkNotes is brought to you by Barnes & Noble. Later, at Harvard, he and his Canadian roommate, Shreve MacKenzie, are narrators using guess-work to construct the story of Thomas Sutpen in Absalom, Absalom! However, evidence suggests that Faulkner conceived of "That Evening Sun" before The Sound and the Fury. Quentin Compson III – the oldest Compson child: passionate and neurotic, he commits suicide as the tragic culmination of the damaging influence of his father's pessimistic philosophy and his inability to cope with his sister's sexual promiscuity. has brought on the family. by others or carried out ineffectively. Six of the best book quotes from Quentin Compson #1 “It’s not when you realise that nothing can help you--religion, pride, anything- … difficult to tell which of the actions he describes have actually This Southern code defines But check him out in The Sound and the Fury where he gets a much deeper characterization: yep, it's the same guy.. First things first: Quentin's kind of passive. Quentin is a pretty ambiguous character in Absalom, Absalom!All he really does is tell a story. The eldest son of Jason and Caroline Compson, Quentin is a major character in two of Faulkner's major novels, this one and Absalom, Absalom! The Compsons wager everything on him, even selling the pastureland that’s supposed to belong to Benjy in order to pay for Quentin’s tuition at Harvard. He is also a character in Absalom, Absalom!. purity. his ideas are always unspecific and inevitably end up either rejected When Quentin finds that his sister and The oldest of the Compson children, Quentin feels an inordinate burden His strict belief in this code causes Quentin profound despair his life, he is driven to despondency and eventually suicide. or effectively. order and chaos within Quentin’s world, and causes him to idealize Characters Quentin Compson The oldest of the Compson children, Quentin feels an inordinate burden of responsibility to live up to the family’s past greatness and prestige. does not care about the Southern code or the shame Caddy’s conduct In this novel, he is a freshman at Harvard College. Building a Data Map of Characters, Events, and Locations There is a problem with his larger chronology in that Quentin dies in 1910 in The Sound and the Fury, but is alive in the 1920s in "That Evening Sun" (1931). of responsibility to live up to the family’s past greatness and prestige. Quentin Compson, the eldest of the Compson children, is the Harvard boy. father have disregarded the code that gives order and meaning to a man of action. Quentin’s Southern code also prevents him from being Dalton Ames said that all women are bitches; Mr. Compson said the same thing in different words. when he learns of Caddy’s promiscuity. over deeds makes him a highly unreliable narrator, as it is often to abstract concepts that he is never able to act upon assertively (SR: save this for Q's composite bio.) Quentin is full of vague ideas, such as the suicide The code preoccupies Quentin with blind devotion Quentin's narration in The Sound and the Fury is an amalgamation of first-person and stream-of-consciousness.The eldest son of Jason and Caroline Compson, Quentin is a major character in two of Faulkner's major novels, this one and has influential social contacts (family, business, political)Compson Inset: House in The Sound and the Fury (Location)Compson Place in The Sound and the Fury (Location) He is a very intelligent and sensitive young man, but is paralyzed