Great American Books

This is the official blog for the students of Monica Osborne's Great American Books course at Purdue University.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury



A number of the characters in The Sound and the Fury might be characterized as insane, or borderline insane, but only Benji is mentally retarded. How do people distinguish between insanity and mental handicaps? What kind of statement do you think Faulkner might be making about the line between sanity and insanity? Be sure to use specific examples from the text to support your answers.

You should post your comment no later than Thursday, February 1, 4:30pm.

posted by Monica @ 2:50 PM  

32 Comments:

  • At 6:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I don't think that there is a great distinction between insanity and mental illness or retardation. I feel a lot of people use "insane" and "insanity" more as adjectives to characterize someone who acts eratically or in a non-acceptable way; where as mentally retarded is a term people use for individuals who have actually been diagnosed with a condition. I also think that insanity has more of a dangerous and threatening connotation. I think Faulkner might be hinting at the same kind of statement in TS&TF. It is stated clearly that Benji is mentally retarded, but the mental states of the rest of the characters is left in our own hands. I feel that the obsession of Quentin with Caddy is borderline insane. Also his obsession with time is quite insane. The part of the book that stands out most to me to represent Quentin's insanity is on page 84 when he asks the man in the shop if the clocks in the front of the store work. The man begins to tell him what time it is and Q says that he doesn't want to know what time it is, he just wants to know if the clocks work. I do not understand that at all. I think that is insane behavior. I think Faulker is provoking the reader to view Benji in almost the same light that Hawthorne wanted the reader to see Hester. The judgement of Benji and Hester has already been made, but it is up to the reader to decide for him or herself about the other characters.

     

  • At 6:45 PM, Blogger brittany t said…

    I think that there is a diffence between mental retardation and insanity. When I think of mental retardation I see it as an illness that people can't always control. Some people are born with it. When I think of someone being insane I see them as crazy. The do things that are not seen as acceptable in society. In The Sound and The Fury Benji is mentally disabled. He is seen as a person that doesn't know anything. For example on page 31 when Frony says "He dont know nobody's name." I believe that all of Caddy's brothers are somewhat insane because of their obsession with Caddy. They all seem to be constantly watching her.

     

  • At 8:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I feel that Quentin's insanity is most visible with his constant attempts to solve Caddy's problem of being banished from their family. He loves her so much and needs her to be a part of his life. His obssession leads to some interesting solutions to the problem. First, he suggests that the two of them convince their family that he is in fact the father of Caddy's child, and he pictures the two of them moving out to the country. Eventually, he predicts, he and Caddy will actually believe the story as well and live happily together. His only attempt to put this plan into action occurs when he trys to tell Mr. Compson that he has committed incest. Quentin's father dismisses him and makes some rather provacative suggestions; perhaps virginity is just an abstract concept fabricated by humans and does not mean anything in the grand scheme of the world. When his first plan fails, Quentin suggests a much more desperate plan that he and Caddy commit a double suicide. Emotionlessly, Caddy agrees to this plan, probably just to calm Quentin's insanity and put his mind to rest on the subject. I believe that Quentin's insanity is of a different variety than Benjy's due to Quentin's ability to communicate with the world around him. Benjy cannot ever release any of his inner thoughts, driving him further into insanity.

     

  • At 8:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    There is definently a fine line between mental retardation and insanity, and while only Benji has jumped over that line into his own little "pasture," the others are flirting with the crazy side of things. I have several mentally challenged cousins that my aunt has adopted and while they are wonderful children, it takes an enourmous amount of patience to deal with them without growing frustrated. I can only imagine what life would be like with a mentally challenged person in my immediate family, and I believe that I would also be flirting with that line that is insanity. Throw in the abolishment of slavery and throwing thier lives upside down, I think that this family was a little insane but they ad thier reasons...it was a very different time back then and we have to keep an open mind when reading books like this to understand the difference between being mentally challenged and insane, and I think that pretty much everyone in the story falls into the vast "gray area."

     

  • At 9:29 PM, Blogger Monica said…

    Great job so far!

     

  • At 10:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I believe that sanity revolves around one’s level of intelligence primarily. A sane individual may have a higher level of aptitude, but they may also be quite offensive towards those who are not on their level. I don’t think a person with “book-smarts” makes them any better, than a person who is mentally handicapped. Sane people can take their knowledge for granted, and they can also use it as a mockery for those people who are different from them, and who don’t understand things quite as well as they do. Insanity can lead to a constant stride for acceptance along with trying to understand the little, meticulous things about life. Small things seem to mean a whole lot more to them, and they appreciate the moments of life always with that longing to blend in. So, from this, if I were to compare mental illness to insanity, I don’t think it would be that simple. I definitely agree with Allie, I think the term “insane” is referred to differently today, and almost in a describing sense to the way a person is acting in a particular situation. Mental illness on the other hand, isn’t usually referred to as an adjective, but a medical condition that has been diagnosed. I feel like in The Sound and the Fury, Benji was treated inadequately for his actions, and I think a lot of that should be referred back to his diagnosis of mental retardation. If he hadn’t been diagnosed with that title, I don’t think the other characters would have been quite so demanding and confrontational with him involving his actions and emotions. Quentin clearly had issues of his own, but his family didn’t question him as they did Benjis. Even though, Quentin could’ve also had problems, which undoubtedly were apparent in the second chapter. A lot of Quentin’s personality showed through in the second chapter, and qualities of “insanity” also became evident. He estimated time in his head, and he also watched shadows to be able to know what time it was. In a way, his life, metaphorically speaking is quite similar to time ticking away. He was afraid of his time to stop unexpectedly on his watch, so instead he chose a way to end his life before it ended itself.

     

  • At 10:12 PM, Blogger Jennifer said…

    I think that insanity is something that can eventually happen to you. I believe you become insane when someone or something causes you go over the edge and lose control of your feelings. A mental handicap is something that you are born with and it is a problem in your brain. That usually can not be fixed. I think that Faulkner is trying to show the affects society and surroundings have on peoples sanity. The family grows up around a child that is mentally retarded and i think that makes it a little bit easier for them to be "different." The children all grow a strange "interest" in caddy that eventually grows into being insane. I think this comes out through the different social changes around them and the fact that they are growing up. They begin to feel and wonder about different things.

     

  • At 12:13 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I agree with Jennifer about the fact that insanity may develop during the course of one's life through the exposure of many social changes, as apposed to mental retardation which is something one is born with. However, with this said I to use a different perspective for this particular question. I think that Faulkner's theme of time, and the chaos and order in which stem from it, strongly correlate with our class contemplation of distinguishing the differences between insanity and mental illness. In a way we are like Benji, he will never fully understand the past or present of time and we may never understand the true difference between mental illness or insanity. I also think that the level of mental illness may not necessarily be a terrible thing. Since Benji cannot understand time, he is forced to draw connections, make thoughts/ memories through other various forms of the senses. His illness may be a burden but his ability to make certain connections between what was then and what is now, can be thought of as a gift. I say gift considering the fact that others such as his family do not have the ability to draw such connections. Sometimes disabilities cause one to use their brains in ways we may not understand thus we fear the unknown and categorizes it in the form of a negative term like "insane." But really many of these characters feed off of each other to border the fine line of insanity and mental illness. Maybe Benji is the one who is the most stable despite his illness for he uses his abilities to escape from the insanity surrounding him in the Compson family.

     

  • At 1:07 AM, Blogger Aditi Sindhal said…

    When considering questions of sanity, insanity, and mental disability, it is always important to take note of the environment in which the story takes place. In a foreign culture, acts might be the norm, though they would appear odd, even insane, in the Deep South. These social norms are the standards by which society judges us. When a person does not meet the standards, he must be identified as different. Consensus, however, does not mean that society is correct. Perhaps the illogical, "ïnsane" person is the only one who can see the truth. Perhaps we don’t dance, because we cannot hear the music. To a great extent, the same can be said of people with mental disabilities. Though commonly not fully integrated into society, they are, however, much more accepted than people classified as being insane. This is likely due to the fact that mentally challenged persons are more readily studied/predicted than insane persons. In the end, all these classifications have much more to do with societal insecurities, than with personal qualities. Perhaps Faulkner is attempting to establish that very fact.

    When Benji grabs the girl mistaking her for Caddy (p. 53), he is seen as a threat and subsequently castrated. His actions fuelled the judgment that he was mentally retarded, though a simpler explanation could be a harmless misrecognition of a face. Quentin’s decision to claim Caddy's baby as his, is wholly illogical. However, society does not label him as insane. Faulkner's point, I believe, is to challenge all of society. Perhaps he is saying that society is not capable of making rational decisions and thereby unable to make judgments concerning personal competence.

     

  • At 9:41 AM, Blogger Samantha R said…

    I think it's important to keep in mind that mental retardation is something that is completely pre-determind. It is not something that a person chooses to be with, while saying that not all people who have a mental "illness" are unable to communicate on some level. This is illustrated when Benji tries to stop Caddy from doing something that would cause her to be unpure. He does this by making noises or crying. I believe that insanity starts from an unnatural obsession or guilt. This is illustrated when Quentin tries to rationalize or take blame for Caddy being pregnant. One could say that him taking an incestuous role could be him taking Caddy's absolution onto himself. I think the real question here is, is sanity something that you can control or is it something that pre-determind like mental retardation?

     

  • At 11:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I agree with Brittany T in that mental retardation is something that is not controllable. People can be in therapy or be on medication to help with insanity, but mental retardation is an illness that is uncurable, at this point. While people may be insane, they still have thought processes that can be followed somewhat easily and engage in conversation, whereas, many times it is hard to converse with mentally retarded people. This is a big frustration for them because they're not able to say what they want in an understandable fashion. I think that is why Benjy resorts to moaning and making sounds, instead of saying, "Hey. Remember when this happened..." On p. 16, we see Luster telling Benjy to "hush up" because he was moaning after he heard the word "Caddie" on the golf course. I think Faulkner is trying to evoke a sense of compassion within the reader for those who are mentally retarded. We feel bad for Benjy because everyone is always bossing him around, even those who are insane themselves.

     

  • At 1:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The distinguishing line between a mental handicap and insanity is a hard one to draw from this story. I agree with Ali in the fact I think Benji could be the most stable despite his handicap. Just because people do not recognize a handicap, does not mean it does not exist. Benji may not have been able to handle and accept things that took place in his life, for example Caddy leaving, but I do not think that anyone in the family accepted things that happened. Benji escaped into his own world to handle things. This was probably a better solution then his father drinking and eventually dying from it, or Quentin who committed suicide. Jason handled things by getting angry and Mrs. Compson would be so upset that she would repeatable say that she would be gone soon and the family would be better off without her. These are just some of the reasons I think Faulkner was trying to say that just because Benji was the only one diagnosed with a mental handicap; it does not mean he was the only one that had one.

     

  • At 1:42 PM, Blogger Adam Miklius said…

    I agree with Karen that Benji seems to be the most stable but this is because he can not comprehend what is going logicaly in his life. He was born with this disability and had no control over it. Quentin on the other hand slipped into insanity during the course of his life. Quentin has the ability to hide his insantiy from the world by being able to think logicaly and function in society. Benji on the other had has no control over what happens to him in his life besides what is presently going through his mind. Insanity to me seems similar to mental retardation except that the person who is considered insane at one time in their life not been insane so until they completely loss their mind they can hide it from the rest of society.

     

  • At 4:34 PM, Blogger kelli m said…

    I think that Faulkner is trying to show us to have sympathy and caring for all, despite any disabilities or problems they might be having. Benji has a medical problem of mental retardation. This should not make him a bad person by all means, but the characters in the book treat him this way. I think Faulkner tries to make Benji a very likeable character to the readers so that we have sympathy for him. He shows that Benji deserves to be treated just as well as everyone else. It takes a lot of patience to have to deal with someone with a disability, but we must remember that they are people too with feelings just as fragile as our own. I also think that Faulkner is showing how important family and family support is in The Sound and The Fury. No one could count on anyone to help them through any situation, and that lead them all down paths of sadness, anger and towards death. I don't feel like the Compsons were insane, they just went about handling their problems in the complete wrong way.

     

  • At 8:50 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I agree with the overall idea that mental retardation is something someone is born with, and cannot necessarily control. I believe insanity, on the other hand, is not something some one is born with, but it is not something someone can always control. I believe it is triggered by some chain of events. I also believe mental retardation is something that can be diagnosed; insanity is often times an opinion. I liked Aditi’s example that if someone is from a foreign culture people could view the way they act as insane, because they do not fit into the norm. There are also cases where someone is actually insane, but they are able to hide it. Quentin, for example, is an intelligent, Harvard student. He is able to present himself as “normal, but in his head he is planning how he could claim to be the father of his sister’s child, or how they should kill themselves together. Benjy does not really have the option of hiding his mental illness. He has no way of expressing himself other than crying and moaning. Throughout his section he would sometimes say that he was not crying, while those around him were trying to calm him down. I wonder if maybe in his mind he was saying something. It would be like the movies where a dog is trying to tell the human something but all the human hears is barking. It is not a very sophisticated example, but it is all I have.

     

  • At 8:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    When we are talking about insane characters we must look at the mother. Caroline Bascomb I believe could the person with the most problems. It seems to have slipped by the other bloggers. Maybe this family is so screwed up because their mother is screwed up. The occurance that I found happens on pages 102-103. When Caroline goes into a rant about her family name. She goes on to tell us that she is going to take her good son Jason with her and leave the rest. Also, did anyone notice there is no puncuation in this hystarical tangent she goes on. That it self just screams "I'm nuts"! Now if we bring up Benjy, we can look at his problems and see, he might be the most normal of this bunch. Quentin has a closet full of demon. Ranging from his sister Caddy to obsessions with clocks. There seems to be no normal characters other than Benjy. Besides the short simple sentences, and the unique observations, I would say Benjy is the last person we should worry about.

     

  • At 8:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Quentin is filling a void that he didn't really have and he's using Caddy to do so. Because of not really having a mother figure. But, people mainly distinguish someone who is insane or mentally challenged by judging if they are "normal" or not. But what's normal? I tend to think that Faulkner is trying to say that most people tend to think that the mentally challenged people are the ones who are insane; but in all actuality I think that he is trying to say that they are the sanest out of all of us. That they tend to see the gold lining in the things that we don't see or the things we choose not to see. Such as, something as simple as Caddy: she enjoys life and tries to make the best of it, and she loves her family (or most of them). Where as Quentin, who is so concerned with time and Caddy he can't enjoy life. And I think that's one of the reasons why we are given such detail but in all the wrong order, or in an order that makes sense to Benji. Yes, I totally agree with Kelli, that I too, believe that Faulkner is trying to show us that no matter what someone's physical appearance is they still have needs, wants, and the willingness to love and love others. But, I don't agree that he is trying to make us feel sad for Benji, I think that he is trying to get us to see what the every day life is like being mentally challenged. Another thing is, I don't know if Quentin is really obsessed of Caddy or if he is just so overly jealous of the fact that she lost her virginity before he did? And the only reason that I say that is of the fact that he has a prostitute.

     

  • At 9:51 PM, Blogger Lisa W said…

    the thing i dissagree with, what most of you are saying, is that insanity is "a choice". In my onw thinking, i classify insanity with such things as depression and bi-polarism. people have no choice in either of these conditions. conditions, that is exaclty what these are, along with mental retardation as most of you have already said you agree with. as Adihti had said, it is important to take note of one's environment. with this i feel that a person can be more at risk for such things as "insanity" or the like. a person naturally has the capability to go down that path of insanity. the environment one is in simply determines when or if they aquire that condition. Mental retardation is different in the fact that it is present from the begining. Environment does not have an affect on it. in a sense this kind of goes along with what Jennifer said. and i agree totally wiht what sara said. in addition to that, it seems as if each of the family members aquired some type of insanity through the years, each to a different extreem. the mother was a hypochindriac and was constanly beleiveing herself to be sick. Quintin is obvious, with his insestuous obsesion. Caddy, she seems to be classified as insane on the sole purpose of her "actions". she is classified as normal by her famliy becasue woman are whores naturally. Mr. campos states that it is not her fault, she was born like that. so if he is saying she was born like that, then he is saying she is mentally handicapped, as yuour definitions state. This also goes to say that if the family classifies Caddy as normal becuase its not her fault, they should therefore categorize benjy as normal because it is not his fualt either. the thing i notice most about benjy, is that waht he sees and tells is exactly what happens. when someone else in the book is telling hte story, they interpret what they see as opposed to just telling it as it is.

     

  • At 10:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I agree with Greg that Caroline is probably the most insane character and that she is sort of a catalyst for everyone else's problems. Rather than be a mother to her children she seemed pretty cold and uncaring. On page 59 when Benjy is upset about burning his hand she gets angry at his caretakers for letting him cry. I feel like the childrens' problems stem from their mother as well as the fall of their family's prosperity/honor. I am going to have to disagree that Benjy is the most sane character in the book though. To me it seems like Caddy is the most sane character because she isn't obsessed with anyone like her brothers are with her or like her mother is with herself. The only thing that Caddy did in this book besides care for her siblings was get pregnant out of wedlock, which really isn't so bad by today's standards (although it was definitely a problem back then). To me it seems like Faulkner is saying that the root of insanity is obsessing over something/someone, (Quentin with time and Caddy, Benjy with Caddy and the purity, Jason with hating Caddy and money, and the mother with herself) which makes me wonder if we can call Faulkner insane since he seems obsessed with Caddy as well. Just a thought. A final thought is that Benjy is not only mentally handicapped, but I would venture to say that he is border line insane due to his inability to articulate himself and understand the world around him. Lik Paige said, that can be frustrating and when you combine it with an obsession it would probably be enough to drive someone insane.

     

  • At 12:02 AM, Blogger Linzy said…

    I think that the major difference is that people are born with mental handicaps and insanity can be developed over time. The term insanity comes with a very negative connotation in that it usually comes with violence or some other horrifying experience. I think that Faulkner draws the very fine line between sanity and insanity in "The Sound and the Fury" by showing perfect examples of how people can gain insane notions at the drop of a hat, like the infamous instance of Caddy's dirty drawers on page 39. Also, I think Jason is driven insane and grows to have the obsession with Caddy because not only is she his sister, but the main motherly figure in his life. He witnesses his brothers’ growing obsession with her and realizes that he is the one that will be stuck to help the family name from falling. On page 181 he says, “I never had time to go to Harvard or drink myself into the ground. I had to work.” This shows his vendetta for his family members because he is forced to stay on home and raise Caddy’s bastard child.

    I agree with Allison that all of the characters have their equal share of insane moments. Quentin's obsession with time is very interesting being that he grew up in the South, in a family that did not seem to be bothered by time or have any concept of it. They went on living their lives one day to the next, not having a care in the world what came next. Like Danielle stated, Caroline is mostly to blame for this because she took no part in raising her children. This was probably for the best, being that she was a hypochondriac and did not seem to have an ounce of good judgment in her. She ridicules everyone in her family except for her beloved Jason who, to me, has the worst character flaws of them all.

     

  • At 12:42 AM, Blogger Paul Shelton said…

    People generally distinguish insanity and mental handicaps on how well the person in question can operate within the majority of society. Insanity is farther outside the accepted norms than a "mental handicap", and is generally seen as something acquired rather than something you are born with such mental retardation. For whatever reasons these people come to be the way they are I feel that these classifications are necessary only for society to categorize, separate, and connotate because heaven forbid all of us were just part of one group, humanity. I mean then when we looked on someone elses faults, we would also have to look at ourselves since they wouldn't be part of the "other group"; but I digress.

    In the book, Benji is an easy target because his condition is blatantly obvious while someone like Quentin may just come off as eccentric and his insanity/time fetish can be easily hidden from the masses. Caroline's

    To me, this feels like Faulkner's form of commentary on this situation of separate from the norm. With the world changing the way it is around these characters at the time this story takes place it would be easy to say they are all insane for not being able to adapt or for somewhat hiding who they truly are.

    Like Aditi said, Benji and Quentin's separate forms of love for their sister also seem to cite a point about labels of insane and mentally handicapped. Benji, saddled with the stigma of being mentally retarded is indeed castrated for his actions involving the schoolgirls while Quentin's actions which are much more articulated are simply shrugged off in comparison.

     

  • At 3:19 AM, Blogger Curtis M said…

    I would have to totally disgree with allison when she said there little distinction between mental retardation and insanity. First off, mental retardation is a defect someone has because of head trauma or being born with it. Mental retardation is where the person has developmental delays in their learning ability and intellect. Insanity is where a person has the proper intellect and learning ability, but lacks rational thinking. There is a distinct difference between the two. Rational is where you can't think straight and your brain/illness/obsession skew your thought process to where you start making decisions and acting on those decisions that don't make any sense. With rational, you can be either smart or handicapped and be thinking irrationally making temporary or permanently insane. I believe what Faulkner is saying is that there is a very fine line between sane and insane. The moment I look to to show the line between sane and insane is when Benjy thinks back to a time when he ran out of the house to look at girls walking by their gate. He then runs to the gate and the girls get scared and run. He manages to open the gate and chase one girl down wanting to tell her how much he misses Caddy. After Benjy is attacked by someone and the town is in a stirr Mr. Compson discusses castrating Benjy for this little incident. Benjy didn't even attempt to rape the girl and in sake of the "family name" Mr. Compson is willing to castrate his own mentally retarded son.

     

  • At 3:23 AM, Blogger Curtis M said…

    by the way that post by "purduekid85" is me Curtis Mitchum. I just messed up my profile thing. yeah.

     

  • At 7:42 AM, Blogger kerri d said…

    Mental Illness is unfortunately something one can not control. Mental illness relates to the total emotion and intellectual response of an individual. How they interact with reality and people around them is different than how a healthy individual responds. One may believe that being insane can be considered the same, however, I believe it is quite different. Insanity is an unsound state of mind or lack of understanding. Those who are insane aren’t born that way; rather they are pressed into this state of mind because of the events and people around them. The unstable and unkind atmosphere makes one mentally uneasy. That said I agree with Curtis, insanity is a person who has the proper intellect and learning ability, but lacks rational thinking. In The Sound and the Fury I believe Faulkner is clearly differentiating between the two. In his character Benjy he has a mentally ill individual. Benjy can not rationally think for himself, his learning ability is not like a healthy individual however he still is conscious of his surroundings and feelings of those around him. Through the characters around Benjy I think Faulkner shows that most individuals believe they are the same. In Benjy’s section, Luster calls Benjy, deaf and dumb (49), when in reality Benjy does understand that people are fed up with him, and treat him differently. Mentally he is not deaf. As a reader we can see Benjy’s intentions are good, he means well however those around him lack the ability to accept his mental illness.

     

  • At 11:40 AM, Blogger BlainMcDowell said…

    As far as mental retardation and insanity go, I think the lines between the two are often blurred. We subconciously tend to group them together, when there are obvious fundamental differences between the two. As Kerri stated, people with mental handicaps have little or no control over there situation and/or behaivor. They unfortunately have never had the chance to be "normal" and have never known anything else. For the those we consider mentally unstable or insane, they have typically erroded into their state. Insanity is a degenerative condition as few, if any, are born insane. As also mentioned above, insanity is usually caused by events, often traumatic in nature, that occur during a person's life. They usually have far-reaching effect and tend to almost haunt the person. The primary difference in the first two sections and characters, Benjy and Quentin, is their awareness. Benjy has no concept of time and isn't capable of distinguishing past events from the present. Quentin on the other hand is very complex in his thought process and has the ability to distinguish such things. However he seemingly cannot escape his past, and he constantly dwells on those past events to a point of obsession. He is also obsessed with time and sees suicide as his only way out. His obsession with his past and time drive him to commit suicide, as he sees it as his only real escape. Both characters also seem to care a great deal about their sister and her activity. However the difference between the two, is that Benjy is much more pure-hearted about it and seems to be upset out of genuine concern for his sister. Quentin's motives seem to be much darker, as he seems upset because of disgrace to the family and a possible attraction to his own sister.

     

  • At 2:04 PM, Blogger cneff said…

    I think it is nearly impossible to distinguish between insanity and mental handicaps. The word "insane" is thrown around quite a bit as a way for people to describe others as crazy, and I think that tends to be a common thread throughout the book. Faulkner plays with the line between sanity and insanity, only to make people realize that there may not be such a thing as "crazy" or "normal." It is hard to tell a difference or to technically define either. During the kidnapping scene and the arrest on pages 140-141, "crazy" is used to describe Quentin twice.

    After discussing this topic with a friend of mine who is a nursing student, she said that medically, a mentally handicapped person just is someone with a low IQ. An insane person, on the other hand, is someone who could technically be a genius, but has some chemical imbalance in his brain. Insane is a broad and vast term, that doesn't necessarily define a certain problem. It seems to be in the eye of the beholder, and is used more as a stereotype for people who are different, or "crazy..."

     

  • At 2:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I like the examples this far, and I agree with Greg that the insanity in the Compson family stems from Caroline. She is an awful mother, and her inadequacy negatively affects all of the family members, not just the children.
    I also agree with Danielle that Caddy is the most sane. She is a free spirit and simply wants to shake the order and restraints of the South and her own family. What is so wrong or different about that? I believe that all children, at some point in their lives, have a need to break loose from the rules. She had a child out of wedlock. Isn't that a result of lust? Is lust an insane activity? I don't believe it is.
    The OBSESSION with Caddy's lust and her life is what is unhealthy and an example of insanity. I think that, even though Mr. Compson is a drunk and flirting with insanity himself, he deals with Caddy's issue better than anyone else in the family. Maybe he realizes that change is occurring in the Southern way of life and you can't stop it all.
    Also, I disagree with some of the comments saying that Benjy is mentally retarded AND insane. They are saying that he is insane in his obsession with Caddy. I believe it is just part of his mental illness. Since he has no real mother figure (Caroline is never present), he relied on Caddy during most of his childhood. Being mentally unstable, he cannot help but want to keep that security and love with him. That doesn't seem to me to be insanity at all. Those are the wants and needs of any individual, mentally challenged or not.

     

  • At 3:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I think the line between insanity and mental retardation is very thin. However, in Faulkner's world especially, it seemed as though insanity was more accepted, then mental retardation. Benji was usually referred to as the "looney", or just known by his mental retardations, whereas the other members of the family who acted insane were not called names or looked down upon. I thought one strong example from the story was Mother. She acted as though she was insane, she referred to Benji as her baby, even though he was thirty three years old, and was afraid to leave the house. However, there is one instance when Jason tells Mother to stop acting so hysterical or she will"...get that damn looney to bawling in the miidle of the square." Even though Mother was the one who was making the scene, Benji is the one who gets called a "looney". I believe Faulkner was trying to say that we all have our own idioscencrecies that could be considered "insane" or weird, but it is usually only those who are medically recongnized as mentally retarded, that are discriminized against.

     

  • At 3:18 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I think that their is a big difference between being insane and being mentally retarded. I feel that people like Benji that are mentally retarded are born that way and that people like Quentin, have become insane due to how they were raised. I also feel that insane people do harm to others while mentally retarded people do not. I agree with Jennifer in that Faulkner is trying to show the affects society and surroundings have on peoples sanity. I also think he wants the reader to realize how parents affect the way their children turn out. I think that the parents had become insane and therefore thats how all of the kids became that way. I also believe that even though Benji is mentally retarded, he may end up being the only one that does not turn out to be insane in this story. I think that he is the only one that understands what is happening around him and that his main problem is that he can not communicate his thoughts in words to others. He is able to communicate emotions as we see on p. 90 when Dilsey says "Benji knew it when Damuddy died, he could smell it and he cried". I feel that Faulkner also wanted the reader to realize that even though Benji was mentally retarded, he was the only one that was able to show normal emotions such as crying.

     

  • At 3:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm going to agree with the class and say that there is a difference between mental retardation and insanity. Mental retardation is a disease that can't be fought. An example of this would be Benjy's case throughout chapter one. Benjy has no distinction of time and that is shown through Faulkner's writing. For example, in section 1 (pages 27-29) Benjy is all over the place. The only way I could decipher what time frame he was in is by the people that are surrounding him. After reading section one I was really confused on what happened in 1928 and what happened throughout the 33 years of his life. After the class discussion I felt much more confident in where I was in the book. Insanity though is something that you are driven to, there are probably many things that could put you in this state. For example taking care of somebody like Benjy could probably put you into temoporary insanity. An example of this would be castrating Benjy. Personally I think punishing a mentally handicapped person with something like that is insane. On a different note, I believe that Faulkner might be a little bit insane for choosing to write a book this way, and he was definately a creative person. For a well respected writer to do a whole section with short sentences and random thoughts must have been hard to do.

     

  • At 3:47 PM, Blogger Johanna said…

    I also agree with everyone who said there is a difference between insane and mentally retarded. I believe both can be diagnosed. Mentally handicapped is when you have a part of your brain or nervous system that causes lack of function over an area or areas of your body. Benji had damage to his brain which caused loss of function. However the other characters in the story had no diagnosable damage to their brain. They may have had a chemical imbalance where they weren't releasing the right amount of neurotransmitters but this wasn't diagnosed/discovered until recently. But this problem of insanity could also be caused by their way of thinking and obsession. This is usually not a disease but a pattern of thinking people fall into and can't, or don't want to, get out of. We see this in Quentin's obsession with the clocks. Even when he tries to stop thinking of the time he can't. He even goes so far as to break his watch. Then when he passes the jewelers he can't help but look. This is a thought pattern that is controlling his every movement. I think that once you lose all control of your thinking in an area you have gone insane.
    I think Faulkner could be implying that there are many more borderline insane people than we realize. I'm sure that to many people, Quentin would have appeared normal. They would reason his behavior to the fact that he was upset over his sister, or that he was just being a young man when he left college. After all, as Paige said, the family certainly went through hard times.

     

  • At 3:55 PM, Blogger Amy S. said…

    I also agree that there is a great distinction between insanity and mental illness. I think that mental illnesses are biological, whereas insantity is the emotional response to an inability to cope with life circumstances. I think that John Z. summed it up very well when he said that insanity is something that you are driven to. To take his idea a step further, I would say that insanity is something that life choses for you, and mental retardation is something that biology choses for you. I also agree that because the first section of the book was written from Benji's perspective, it was really hard to follow. I know most of the class feels this way also. The thing that suprises me about Falkner's desicion to tell the first section of the story from a mentally challenged individual is that it almost causes the reader to be lost in a story that they haven't really even began yet.

     

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