La Familia

The Compson family disintegrates because of one reason. Every single member of the family fails to live up to the expectations of their role within the family setting. Every single member fails to do their duty and sacrifice for the survival of the family. They are all too selfish, in their own particular ways, to give up their pride and beliefs and be what the family needs them to be.

I’ll start with the parents. Mother is terrible. She does not at all resemble her namesake and does not fulfill any of her position’s requirements. It’s ridiculous. I do not feel that I even have to state any evidence to support the fact that she is selfish and does not sacrifice anything for well-being of her children or her family. She treats Benjy as an embarrassment and a trouble. We could not expect a stranger to show less compassion than Mother shows towards Benjy. She had no business becoming a mother and would be a far more suitable candidate for a high-class call girl than a home-maker or a family woman.

Her favoritism towards Jason is also beyond reason and propriety. Parents are not supposed to pick favorites. That’s a given, but it’s the real world and I can’t expect every action of every parent to be unbiased. Mother’s preferential treatment of Jason is so blatant that it has become a weapon that mother uses against her family and her husband. Her favoritism for Jason also displays her lack of judgement as Jason is nothing but a bitter little stool-pidgeon anyway. Mother’s support of this cowardly, base behavior does not help the situation either.

Father is also flawed. He is detached and aloof from the needs of his children. When his children need guidance and personal reassurance—as in the case of Quentin—he offers only his often pessimistic or fatalistic opinion. Sometimes, his children need to hear a certain thing, and he offers them only an extremely limited and in some cases harsh point of view. However, he is not harsh in the discipline of his children. In fact, his forgiveness of Caddy is admirable and very compassionate but he seems out of touch with the emotional needs of all his children—Quentin in particular. He forgoes his responsibility to console all of his children and instead sticks to his logic and pessimistic disposition when confronting his family. He also fails to take control of the situation—in this case the Caddy predicament--and be strong for his family. Instead, he drowns his sorrows in whiskey and abandons his responsibility as leader of the household. He forgets the problems of the family and, in a selfish way, concerns himself only with his grievances and turmoils.

The children also contribute to the family’s demise. Each child acts selfish in his or her own way. Caddy’s initial affair with Dalton Ames, although not evil, still begins the selfish trend. She, whether consciously or not, rejects her role in the family and focuses on her own life and passions. It may not be a malicious decision but in a family environment as fragile as the Compson’s, it was a tragic choice with dire consequences. She is then forced to abandon the family when she marries. Quentin, in his own way, also decides not to sacrifice his concept of honor for the good of the family and in turns runs away from his problems, whether real or imaginary, by killing himself. He also abandons the family in this way. Jason, on the other hand, does not physically abandon the family. His providing for the family after the death of Quentin and Father are to be commended, but he has long abandoned the family in an emotional sense. He does not make any effort to emotionally rebuild the shattered lives of his brother, sister or her daughter.(648)