Quentin's Time

Thoughts before reading "Time and Timepieces":

Quentin views time as a force that is actively working against him, thus causing tension. He cannot escape time since he constantly hears the ticking even when he rips off the hands of his watch. He tries to hide from time. When he passes a jeweler's window, he "looks away in time" (83). He is obsessed that time is able to control the meaning and importance of events in his life. His father has constantly told him that time will eventually make him forget anything bad in his life. He recalls that "Father said That's sad too people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today" (80).

Quentin wants to be able to show that time cannot control him by altering his perception of events in the past. Thus, he is pleased when he discovers evidence that time is "contradictory." When he goes into the watch shop and finds that the watches are all set to different times, he seems relieved to find that they are "contradicting one another" (85). Thus, time is not as powerful as it presents itself to be if it is contradictory. He does not want to forget about Caddy's loss of virginity since being upset by it establishes his sense of honor, thus he wants to stop time. He feels if he commits suicide, he can almost outwit time since now time cannot erase or ameliorate his feelings.

Both Benjy's and Quentin's thoughts all are connected back to Caddy and her loss of virginity. Benjy associates Caddy's promiscuous behavior with time stolen personally from him and given to someone else, ie. a lover. Quentin associates Caddy's loss of virginity with a loss of family honor and a loss of morals. Sequential time has no meaning for Benjy, and thus there is no distinction between events in the present or past. For Quentin, events in the past and present are also connected to Caddy (ie. the little girl he befriends probably reminds him of his desire as a child to care for and protect Caddy.) However, the progression of time is critical to Quentin because it threatens to alter his honor code by lessening his horror that Caddy was promiscuous.

The main thing we "learn" about from Quentin is that is father has no honor code or sense of values. He feels that life is a series of absurd events. Quentin is affected by his father's views. He constantly says, "Father says..." Quentin wants to believe in some sense of order and sense of right and wrong, but his father has always taught him that a sense of honor is meaningless and that life is absurd and one of "folly and despair." Throughout the section, Quentin repeats his father's motto, "Reducto absurdum of all human experience" (90).

After reading "Time and Timepieces":

One of the main points is that Quentin wants nothing to do with clocks and timepieces since they measure time and this specifically "involves" him in the events of the world and forces him into these events and thus face them. Specifically, "It is precisely such involvements, brought on, for example, by the coming marriage of his sister, that Quentin wishes to escape." This thesis opposes my previous thoughts that by escaping time, he will not allow time to take away the pain he feels about Caddy's loss of virginity. Instead, by breaking his watch, he is allowed to escape his involvement in the world. In fact, committing suicide stops time and thus in reality makes him ultimately forget everything.