The Sound and the Fury Chapter Summary & Analysis - Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 Summary

This section of the book is extremely difficult to understand because severely mentally retarded Benjy relates it, and his recollections move from one period of his life to another without any organization or sequence, in a confusion of memories. It is further complicated because there are two characters named Quentin, one male and one female, and two Jasons, one the father and the other the son.

The opening scene is on the day of his thirty-third birthday in April 1928. Through the fence, he is watching golfers on the course adjacent to his garden and following their progress along the fence. When one of the golfers calls "Here, caddie," Benjy starts moaning.

Luster, his companion, and the grandson of the family's cook Dilsey, tells him to stop moaning, reminding him that he had been all the way to town to buy Benjy a birthday cake. Luster is only concerned with...
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