Reading Quentin's Section

Quentin narrates in a stream of consciousness style, much like his brother Benjy. However, while Benjy's thoughts are easily scattered and redirected by external stimuli, Quentin is relatively consistent. We can learn much about Quentin's character by examining the way he narrates; for instance, as he gazes out of his window down at his fellow Harvard students running to chapel, his narration goes from steady and almost poetic to disjointed:

“He went out. The door closed. His feet went down the corridor. Then I could hear the watch again. I quit moving around and went to the window and drew the curtains aside and watched them running for chapel, the same ones fighting the same heaving coat-sleeves, the same books and flapping collars flushing past like debris on a flood, and Spoade. Calling Shreve my husband. Ah let him alone, Shreve said, if he's got better sense than to chase after the little dirty sluts, whose business. In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn't matter and he said, That's what's so sad about anything: not only virginity and I said, Why couldn't it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, That's why that's sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it, and Shreve said if he's got better sense than to chase after the little dirty sluts and I said Did you ever have a sister? Did you? Did you?” (78).

When he remembers being teased by Spoade about homosexuality and virginity, his thoughts become disjointed proportional to how emotional he feels. Paying careful attention to the context of Quentin's narrative fluxes is just as important as the fluxes themselves.