The passage that I picked for my post this week can be found on page 151, the 6th line up starting with “then I was crying…”
In this situation Quentin is very upset and Caddy is trying to comfort him. Something was really upsetting Quentin, causing him to cry, but Caddy acted out her role as a mother and tried to make him feel better by talking to him. They begin to reminisce about the day of Damuddy’s death. Not just her actual death, but the situation when Caddy sat down in the water in her underwear and got in trouble for it. As soon as they discussed this the narrator, Quentin, says “I held the point of the knife at her throat.” This statement took my by surprise. I didn’t understand what Quentin was doing, nor did I understand his motive. As I read on, I realized that Quentin was going to slit Caddy’s throat, and then his own. She is telling him to push harder on the knife, but he starts to cry and she ends the crazy idea to comfort him. All of a sudden she jumps up, asking what time it was, and did not continue with the knife.
This passage really confused me just because, to me, it seemed as though it was such a random thing to happen: have Quentin kill Caddy and then himself. He just doesn’t seem as though he would have that inside of him. While, obviously, he did not go through with it at this point, he seemed pretty intent in the moment. I think that Quentin truly loves Caddy, possibly in more ways than one, and this is why he was willing to end her less than perfect life, and then take his own. It seems like this is a popular love for Caddy… that unconditional, will do anything for you. Benjy also has a love for Caddy that is not exactly like Quentin’s love, but it is a very strong and meaningful one.
