Summary
Caddy smells like trees.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Note: Benjy, the narrator
of the difficult first section of the novel, has no concept of time.
He portrays all events in the present—April Seventh, 1928—regardless
of when they actually occurred in his life. The events that actually
take place on April Seventh are rather insignificant. Far more important
are the memories evoked by Benjy’s experiences on that day. The
summary below therefore includes not only the events that take place
on April Seventh, but the past events that these cues from the present
cause Benjy to recall.
On the day before Easter, 1928,
a teenaged “Negro” boy named Luster is watching after Benjy, the
severely retarded youngest son of the aristocratic Compson family
of Jefferson, Mississippi. It is Benjy’s thirty-third birthday,
and Dilsey, the Compsons’ cook and Luster’s grandmother, has baked
him a cake. Luster takes Benjy around the Compson property to search
for a quarter he has lost. Luster had intended to use the quarter
to buy a ticket to the minstrel show in Jefferson that weekend.
Luster leads Benjy to a nearby golf course, hoping to
earn back his lost quarter by fetching lost golf balls from the
rough. The golf course lies on a stretch of what used to be the
Compson pasture, which Mr. Compson sold to developers to pay for
his son Quentin’s education at Harvard. When Benjy hears one of
the golfers calling out to his caddie, he moans because the sound
of the word “caddie” reminds him of his sister.
Luster helps Benjy climb through a fence. Benjy catches
his clothes on a nail, which brings back a memory of a time when Caddy
helped Benjy free himself from that same nail twenty-six years before.
This event occurred around Christmas, 1902,
when Benjy was seven years old. In this memory, Mrs. Compson and
her brother, Uncle Maury, are arguing inside the Compson house.
Uncle Maury lives off of the Compsons’ money and hospitality, and
he is also having an affair with Mrs. Patterson, the Compsons’ next-door neighbor.
Uncle Maury uses young Benjy and Caddy as messengers to deliver
his love letters to Mrs. Patterson. Mrs. Compson worries that Benjy
will get sick from the cold, but she seems more concerned about
the prospect of Benjy’s sickness ruining her Christmas party than
about his actual welfare. These memories of Caddy make Benjy moan
again, which annoys Luster.
Returning to 1928, Benjy and Luster
walk past the carriage house on the Compson property, which reminds
Benjy of a time he saw the carriage house long ago during a trip
to the family cemetery. In this memory, from approximately 1912 or 1913,
Benjy and his mother are riding in the Compsons’ carriage to visit
the graveyard where Quentin and Mr. Compson were laid to rest. Dilsey
mentions that Jason should buy the family a new carriage, as the
current one is getting old. Jason mentions that Uncle Maury has
been asking for money from Mrs. Compson. Luster chides Benjy for
his crying once again.
Luster leads Benjy through the Compsons’ barn. The barn swings
Benjy’s memory back to a time in 1902 when
he and Caddy were delivering one of Uncle Maury’s love letters to
Mrs. Patterson. Benjy then thinks of a different time when he was
delivering one of the letters by himself. In this memory, Mr. Patterson
notices Benjy delivering the letter. Worried, Mrs. Patterson runs
over, which scares Benjy. Mr. Patterson gets to Benjy first and
intercepts the letter, learning of his wife’s affair.
Back in the present, Benjy and Luster walk down toward
the “branch,” or stream, that runs through the Compson property.
The branch causes Benjy to recall the day his grandmother, Damuddy, was
buried in 1898. Benjy is only three years
old at the time and his disability has not yet been discovered.
In this memory, Quentin, Caddy, Jason, and Benjy are all playing
together in the stream. The children’s black attendant, Versh, tells
Caddy she will be whipped for getting her dress wet, so she takes
the dress off. However, Caddy gets mud on her underclothes. Walking
back to the house, Caddy and Quentin worry that Jason will tattle
to their parents about Caddy’s wet clothes. The children see Roskus
milking a cow in the barn, which shifts Benjy to a memory of Caddy’s
wedding in 1910.
