Benjy recalls several past events, but the earliest one is Damuddy’s death. This death symbolizes the end of an older generation and the beginning of a new one.
A barn that Benjy saw in 1928 carries his memory back to an earlier scene. In this memory, he and Caddy deliver love letters to Mrs. Patterson.
He wanted to buy a piece of land.
Benjy wants to buy a piece of land for his poultry business. He believes that he will be able to grow more chickens with the extra land, and he also needs more incubators, which are machines that hatch eggs. However, the family is concerned about his financial health. They think that he will not be able to afford to pay for the land and incubators, and they may not be able to continue supporting him financially.
The mention of the cold weather and the rattling of the leaves shifts Benjy’s thoughts back to an earlier scene, the same day. Faulkner often uses this technique to turn scenes backward and forward in time. If one reads the novel in chronological order, one might miss some of these changes.
In the earlier scene, Benjy is moaning because he instinctively knows that it’s Caddy’s time to come home from school, and he wants to be at the gate to meet her. When he sees the little girls, he begins to chase them, trying to tell them how much he loves and misses Caddy. However, the father of one of the girls hits Benjy over the head with a stick.
This episode reveals that the Compsons are a poor family living on a small farm in Mississippi. Although they are not wealthy, they work hard and try to raise their children. However, the mother’s inability to care for her youngest child causes tension between her and Benjy.
In the next chapter, the scene takes place at a funeral. The family is saddened by the death of Mrs. Johnson, who had been ill for a long time. The children are unable to express their grief, and they hide the fact that they are mourning from other people.
After the funeral, the family returns to their small farm and continues to work hard. They are able to earn enough money to continue supporting Benjy. Eventually, they will be able to afford to buy a piece of land and incubators, and the poultry business will thrive. In addition, the children are able to play computer games, which provide them with an outlet for their competitive spirit.
He wanted to buy incubators.
A moaning figure, Benjy evokes Christ’s image of impotence and hopelessness. He is thirty-three years old, the age Christ was when he died, and he is a voiceless victim of all the world’s misery. Critics have compared the character to Jesus, but there are some essential differences between them. The main difference is that Benjy is a man, while Christ is God. In addition, the story takes place in April, a month that symbolizes growth and also decay, life and death.
Although Benjy is an ignorant and amoral person, his parents love him. They gave him everything they had, and yet he did not show them gratitude or appreciation for their sacrifices. His simple, innocent looks were deceptive and hid his cunningness. He was selfish and cruel, and he showed no respect for his parents.
The scenes in this section of the book alternate between 1900 and 1928. Each change in time is indicated by a shift to italics or the return to Roman print. The shifts are meant to represent a shift in Benjy’s consciousness and his ability to understand what has happened. The passage of time is further emphasized by the use of recurring characters and settings, such as the gate, the branch, and Dilsey’s house.
Scenes in which Benjy is eating recur throughout this section, as do his comments to Luster. These recurrences suggest that his hunger for money and his desire to play with the golf ball have become permanent features of his life.
This section of the book focuses on the events that lead to Benjy’s marriage to Florence. At first, Florence seemed to be the perfect match for Benjy, but she soon became a burden. She did not appreciate his efforts to raise hens for eggs, and her lust for money was unchecked. She also had ugly legs and a mouth that would not keep shut. She was a nuisance to Benjy’s family, and her constant attempts to steal his food irritated him. She was also jealous of his relationship with Caddy. These feelings prompted him to kill her.
He wanted to marry Florence.
As he started earning money, Benjy began to deposit a lot of it in his bank account. Soon, he became wealthy and decided to buy some land that his father had rented. When he purchased the land, his parents were thrilled. They thought that it was the biggest accomplishment of their lives.
However, this was not the end of Benjy’s greed. He also wanted to marry Florence, one of his employees. He did not care about his parents’ disapproval, and he married her anyway. Florence was not good-looking, and she did not speak clearly. However, she was very good at cleaning chicken houses.
The marriage caused a lot of problems in the house. Benjy’s parents did not like her, and he was very indifferent to them. He even refused to give them the front bedroom. He said that he would be staying with Florence in the back of the house. His parents did not protest and moved to the back room. This hurt them, but they forgave him because they thought that he was a simple-minded man.
Hens were very important to Benjy, and he wanted to keep the hens that he had bought. He also needed to build new houses and cages for them, so he asked his parents to sell him some of their land. They agreed and sold him a portion of their land.
Benjy used the land he bought to expand his poultry business. He built more incubator houses, and he was soon selling the most eggs in town. However, he forgot about his parents and grew more selfish and cruel. He also did not treat them well, and they resented him for that. His innocent looks and the way he behaved did not match his cunningness. He was able to deceive people with his simple appearance. He was able to make them believe that he had a simple mind and he did not understand anything. In reality, he was a very cunning and selfish person who did not have any love for his parents.
He wanted to buy a house.
Benjy grew up in the South Bronx, where his father ran two bodegas and never turned away anyone who was hungry but broke. His mother was a religious woman who encouraged her children to follow their dreams. Benjy dreamed of becoming a professional gamer. He competed in online gaming tournaments to earn money. At first, he did not have much success, but he persevered and eventually became the best in his field. Soon, he was making hundreds of dollars per tournament. This money allowed him to buy a new computer and a high-speed internet connection. He also began to save money to purchase a house.
When Benjy woke up, the sun was shining, and he could hear his mother humming in her kitchen. He got out of bed and began to dress, taking care not to wake his brother. He then headed downstairs, where he found the chickens out in the backyard. He went out to check on them, but he found that they had all died from cold weather.
He then recalled a scene from his childhood. In this scene, he and Caddy are delivering a letter to Mrs. Patterson. When he looked at her eyes, he saw hostility and fear. This caused him to become rigid and frightened.
Then he remembered another scene from his childhood in which Caddy comforted him after he had been hurt. He then began to moan, which irritated Luster. This is an example of how memory works in the story. Visual and auditory cues trigger remembrances of past events, but Benjy does not understand that these are memories, and he thinks they are happening in the present.
As the novel progresses, Benjy becomes more and more interested in buying a house. He feels that a home will give him privacy and will enable him to concentrate on his computer games. Moreover, he wants to be able to make friends and enjoy his life. He also hopes to use the money to help his family. But he is worried that if he does not find a buyer for his home, it will be lost to creditors.
