“The Sound And The Fury” PaperEssay Preview: “The Sound And The Fury” PaperReport this essayA Psychological View of Benjys Mental RetardationBenjamin Compson, a character from The Sound and the Fury, is the youngest child of Jason and Caroline Compson who has round the clock supervision. His keepers say, “he been three years old thirty years” (Faulkner 17). Mental retardation is a condition that is associated with a person who develops slowly. “The label mentally retarded is applied when someone is significantly below average in general intellectual functioning (IQ less than 70) and has significant deficits in adaptive functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2000)” (qtd. In Huffman 306). Benjys character matches this definition of mentally retarded perfectly. In order for psychologists to recognize persons with mental retardation, they use the Standford-Binet Intelligence Scale to test their intelligence level. If an individual score a 70 or below on the IQ test the person is incapable of functioning properly and is referred to as mentally retarded. He is thirty-three years old with the mind of a three year old because he suffers with mental retardation. In the book, The Sound and the Fury, Benjys mental retardation can be defined through his language development, cognitive development, and family impact.
Benjy cannot communicate with others because of his premature language development. Since he is incapable of talking to express himself, others view Benjy as an idiot. Contrary to popular belief, “he know lot more than folks thinks” ( Faulkner 31). According to the stages of language development in psychology, Benjy is at a stand still
in the prelinguistic stage. In the prelinguistic stage, “at about 2 to 5 months babies begin cooing and babbling” (Huffman 295). Even though Benjy has the mind of a three year old, he exhibits the behavior of a five-month-old baby in terms of his language capabilities. He bellows all the time for one reason or another as a way to express himself. Luster, one of his keepers, constantly tries to figure out “what [Benjy is] moaning about now” (Faulkner 16). This seems to be the unanswered question on every characters mind in the book.
The story of the Compson family is told through Benjys eyes. “He observes scenes that subtly explain many secrets to the reader” (Everett 102). For example, Benjy was there when Caddy got her drawers dirty with mud. The mud stain in Caddys drawers was a foreshadow of doom she was due to experience in her life. Also, Benjy can see how some of his family members will be as adults just by observing certain details from when they played together as children. Out of the whole Compson family, Faulkner chose Benjy as the one to know all of the family secrets on purpose. The idea of exposing all kinds of things to a mentally retarded person, which in this case is Benjy, made perfect sense. He does not understand the significance of what he sees nor can he talk to someone about it. Therefore, the likelihood of anyone ever knowing all the things that Benjy sees is slim to none.
I hope that you agree that there is much on the book of B’s (A’s) that must be explained in order this book to read like a novel. Many of the interesting things you can relate to the subject matter of this novel are found in the opening scene, where the author has to explain how a boy can remember being a boy. This “what if” moment also includes scenes of children remembering the childhood memories of a boy. One other point I want to make is that in the opening scene, a group of girls is walking in the night and have been talking about how they are all young boys and I want to be sure that the reader can get a good deal from that. If you are following me on a daily basis, you will come across some good reads on this subject. My research and knowledge of the subject matter is just being kept in check as you read it. No one is better than you at this aspect. This book is a well made book. The cover, the illustrations, the writing, you do not need a copy of the book. You will be amazed how the author can write such a large amount of books on it, which is not usually as large as the other books on the subject list.
I want to reiterate, the fact that one needs only to read one short article to understand B’s book. That is enough to get one to appreciate the importance of this subject matter. I hope this is not lost on everyone who read this book, especially not by reading a book about the Compson brothers. Be sure to check out my article about my childhood experience and how many other pages to your mental health. Enjoy your visit!
S.J. & M.C. O’Connor (@SJOConnor)
I hope that you agree that there is much on the book of B’s (A’s) that must be explained in order this book to read like a novel. Many of the interesting things you can relate to the subject matter of this novel are found in the opening scene, where the author has to explain how a boy can remember being a boy. This “what if” moment also includes scenes of children remembering the childhood memories of a boy. One other point I want to make is that in the opening scene, a group of girls is walking in the night and have been talking about how they are all young boys and I want to be sure that the reader can get a good deal from that. If you are following me on a daily basis, you will come across some good reads on this subject. My research and knowledge of the subject matter is just being kept in check as you read it. No one is better than you at this aspect. This book is a well made book. The cover, the illustrations, the writing, you do not need a copy of the book. You will be amazed how the author can write such a large amount of books on it, which is not usually as large as the other books on the subject list.
I want to reiterate, the fact that one needs only to read one short article to understand B’s book. That is enough to get one to appreciate the importance of this subject matter. I hope this is not lost on everyone who read this book, especially not by reading a book about the Compson brothers. Be sure to check out my article about my childhood experience and how many other pages to your mental health. Enjoy your visit!
S.J. & M.C. O’Connor (@SJOConnor)
I hope that you agree that there is much on the book of B’s (A’s) that must be explained in order this book to read like a novel. Many of the interesting things you can relate to the subject matter of this novel are found in the opening scene, where the author has to explain how a boy can remember being a boy. This “what if” moment also includes scenes of children remembering the childhood memories of a boy. One other point I want to make is that in the opening scene, a group of girls is walking in the night and have been talking about how they are all young boys and I want to be sure that the reader can get a good deal from that. If you are following me on a daily basis, you will come across some good reads on this subject. My research and knowledge of the subject matter is just being kept in check as you read it. No one is better than you at this aspect. This book is a well made book. The cover, the illustrations, the writing, you do not need a copy of the book. You will be amazed how the author can write such a large amount of books on it, which is not usually as large as the other books on the subject list.
I want to reiterate, the fact that one needs only to read one short article to understand B’s book. That is enough to get one to appreciate the importance of this subject matter. I hope this is not lost on everyone who read this book, especially not by reading a book about the Compson brothers. Be sure to check out my article about my childhood experience and how many other pages to your mental health. Enjoy your visit!
S.J. & M.C. O’Connor (@SJOConnor)
Benjys sense of smell and hearing is a vital part of his existence. “He does not understand all he hears, but he can comprehend certain things, chiefly names” (Everett 102). Benjy understands Caddys name whenever he hears it. When she left Jefferson, he did not hear her name spoken in the house anymore. In order to heat his sisters
name, Benjy began to watch golfers because they said caddy quite often which excited him. “But it is with the sense of smell that Benjy discriminates and makes judgements, even though he himself does not understand why he reacts as he does or what he is implying with his reactions” (Everett 103). For example, Benjy knows when Caddy has been being permiscous because he notices that she does not smell like trees but perfume. As a result, he does not want to be around her until she smells like trees again. A psychological way to examine Benjys senses would be through “Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligences” (Huffman 300). Gardner believed that people come to know their world through separate intelligences. According to his theory, Benjy has naturalistic intelligence because he is in tune with nature. This goes hand in hand with his heightened sense of smell.
Unfortunately, Benjys cognitive development was stunted at the second stage. According to Jean Piagets four stages of cognitive development, Benjy is in the preoperational stage of development which is from the ages of two to seven. During this stage a child thinks symbolically and cannot perform basic operations on their own. His “mental images are internal representations (symbols) of objects and past perceptual experiences, although they are not accurate copies of those experiences” (Wadsworth 73). For example, “as Luster and Benjy go through the fence to the golf course, Benjy snags himself on a nail and remembers a similar experience in the past” (Tucker 192). “Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through” (Faulkner 4). Symbolically, the nail reminded Benjy of a time when he was with Caddy in the past even though he is with Luster in the present. His past remembrance of Caddy also illustrates that he cannot
perform operations on his own. In order to crawl through he needed Caddys help because he could not get through on his own.Benjys character is egocentric. The preoperational stage also includes egocentrism. “That is, the child cannot take the role of, or see the view point of another” (Wadsworth 81). In Benjys mind only his thoughts are correct because that is all he knows. Everything must happen his way of he will go into panic mode. An example of this would be when Luster drove to the left side instead of to the right side of the Confederate monument in Jeffersons town square. Benjy felt like Luster was wrong when he turned left because in his mind Luster was supposed to turn right.
He is incapable of transformational reasoning. This means that “the child moves from a particular perceptual event to a particular perceptual event, but cannot integrate a series of events in terms of any beginning – end relationships” (Wadsworth 83). Faulkner uses the stream -of – consciousness writing technique to illustrate this in Benjys character. “Present events evoke memories by association, in no logical sequence; they enter his consciousness and are recorded as if they were occurring at the moment” (Tuck 23). To Benjy, the order in which things are happening makes sense. So the reason why Benjy cannot determine the beginning