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“Ben quit wimpering. He sat in the middle of the seat, holding the repaired flower upright in his fist, his eyes serence and ineffable. Directly before him Luster’s bullet head turned backward continually until the house passed from view, then he pulled to the side of the street and while Ben watched him he descended and broke a switch from the hedge. Queenie lowered her head and fell to cropping the grass until Lester mounted and hauled her head up and harried her into motion again, then he squared his elbows and with the switch and the reins held high he assumed a swaggering attitude out of all proportion to the sedate clopping of Queenie’s hooves and the organlike basso of her internal accompaniment. Motors passed them, and pedestrians; once a group of half grown negroes…”
After looking very closely as this passage, I have reached several conclusions, as well as questions.
At the beginning of the passage we learn that Benjy had been crying, but was now calming down. What was calming him down? It could have possibly been the flower that had been broken, but was now “repaired.” Benjy is a simple person and it seems that the act of fixing a flower could relax and please him.
As Benjy is calming down Luster is watching a particular house and turns his head only when he can no longer see it. I can’t help but wonder, who’s house is it that Luster is so content on watching?
Once it gets to the point Luster can no longer see the house, they pull the car over and Queenie becomes upset. What happened to her that caused her to get emotional.
The next few sentences left me very confused. Something happens between Queenie and Luster, but I don’t really understand what. There is a discussion of mounting and hauling and Queenie’s “internal accompaniment.” I can’t help but wonder was there a sexual experience happening right here in which Benjy is watching? Or merely an argument or conversation? And what are all the bypassers thinking of this situation?
February 17, 2007 at 12:56 am
I haven’t read the chapter yet but I wouldn’t be surprise if there was sexual action going on. Remember when Benjy got upset because he saw Caddy having sex. Connections? I wonder.
Dawn
February 20, 2007 at 5:24 pm
As you mentioned the whole Benjy situation with the flower, it shows again how the slightest things can make him upset. Yet, once everything is “back to normal”, he calms right back down, and is content again. It does not take much to get Benjy into an episode, but he comes out of it just as quick. It makes me wonder why these slightest things affect him so much as well, and how he can change his moods so quickly, and forget it that anything was ever wrong in the first place.
February 21, 2007 at 4:39 am
I can understand why you’d assume that there’s something sexual going on here, except for the fact that Queenie was a horse. I think you touched on some good points, but I think there are a few others that you didn’t mention. I think that the flower was Benjy’s connection to the graveyard, and thus to part of his family. Therefore, for someone in his state, I can understand why he’d be so calmed by the repaired flower. I think that Luster was looking at the Compson’s house. I think that he felt a sense of attatchment to it, that it was almost inescapable. When he does get away, he mounts Queenie with a “swaggering attitude out of all proportion” to the horse. I feel like Luster thinks that he’s triumphed by escaping the Compson’s “home of the past.” Yet, even though he thinks he won, he is still being passed by motors and pedestrians. In the end, even Luster cannot escape the tragedy of the Compsons. I don’t know if you agree with any of this, but maybe it’ll help you make at least a little meaning out of that section.
February 23, 2007 at 8:20 pm
That’s a good question, what was calming him down? It seems like the simple things really affect Benjy. And since they are so simple, they have simple ways to be fixed.