In William Faulkner’s novel, he exemplifies Jason Compson as a very malicious character who is heartless, conceited and has strong animosity towards women. Through stream of consciousness, and first person point of view, Faulkner is able to demonstrate the feelings and thoughts through the character of Jason in order to portray Jason’s misogynistic and disrespectful demeanor towards women due to his complicated relationship with his sister Caddy. Jason sets the theme of the chapter and reveals his true nature through various actions towards his family and his greed for money. Jason inevitably self pities himself, blaming Caddy for many conflicts. Taken place in a Southern family, Jason represents the Old South as he is utterly repulsed by the promiscuity of Caddy when he was a child (Shmoop Editorial Team). As he is an insensitive boy, he snitches on Caddy’s wrongdoings. However, Jason’s animosity only grows as his life progresses within the novel, well aware of the broken southern traditions Caddy displays. Once Caddy’s virginity is broken, complications seem to erupt rapidly. Jason blames everything on Caddy and his hatred of her only …show more content…
However, Jason’s evilness spawns from most of his past. Hence, Jason’s hatred towards women is the result of his mistreatment as a child and his opposed perspective of Caddy’s promiscuity. His complicated relationship with Caddy constructs him to be a satanic figure, within the novel, hating all women, deeming them derogatory terms and such. The lack of love Jason received was also a contributing factor to his bitterness. Greed for money has also turned him into a manipulative and cold hearted person. Jason’s character is what one would call an antagonist for actively opposing the ways of Caddy and
When a young author from New York City decides to take a trip to the southern city of Savannah, he finds himself falling in love with the town and ends up renting an apartment. He encounters many different characters, including Danny Hansford and Jim Williams, that gives the reader a good look into the aura of Savannah. The main conflict in the book occurs when a murder happens in an old mansion located in the town. The book follows the progression of the trial and the outcome following the court’s decision.
Faulkner has distinctively outlined the differences between the antagonist and protagonist. As on account of Colonel Sartoris Snopes, youthful wiry with blurred pants and uncombed dark colored hair is left in a predicament of equity and his family (Faulkner 226). The boy looks pale and miserable, but he is the determinant of the case at hand. He fears the gaze of his father and the look of people around him. He has a crucial decision to
It all began when Cady’s mom accepted a professorship at Northwestern University. For Cady, it meant that she was leaving Africa to move to the suburbs of Illinois. Also, she was no longer going to be homeschooled; instead she was going to attend Evanston High School. On the first day of school, she was stressed because in each of her
It wasn’t just his approach to romantic relationships that he retains this “know better then thou” mentality. In the case of the rest of his family, particularly Jason, he again, shows no remorse for his own stubborness and unwillingness to bend the blinders that his own strict, blind faith shackled his vision with. (Coupland, 2003)
To Dilsey, Benjy is innocent and in need of protection. Besides Caddy, the Gibsons are Benjy’s true caretakers and family. Dilsey’s actions prove that she is a devoted mother figure to the “idiot”, Benjy. Dilsey willingly employs her son and grandson, T.P and Luster, respectively, to be Benjy’s personal caretakers. Furthermore, on Benjy’s birthday, Dilsey purchases the cake with her own money. Dilsey lights the candles on the cake and tells Luster and Benjy to eat it before Jason sees and makes a fuss about an expense he has not paid for. Dilsey is more familiar with Benjy’s tendencies than anyone else, even Caddy. She is the only one who knows that Benjy will break into a state of hysteria if the left turn is taken at the monument of the Confederate soldier at the end of the square. She instructs Luster to take the right turn, since she knows that it’s a symbolic sense of order and security for Benjy. Associations define Benjy’s world. Furthermore, Benjy knows what time is, since he feels Caddy’s loss when he no longer “smells trees”. But, being mute and not possessing will nor deliberation, Benjy is unable to act, and helpless before the intrusions of the past. The past defines order and sequence in Benjy’s consciousness, and when the pattern is broken the loss is unbearable. After Caddy’s departure, Benjy unintentionally scares away a girl after he
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner presents yet another example of a woman who possesses feelings of adoration and hatred but is constantly in despair and isolation because of the male influences in her life. Like the woman, Delia, in “Sweat”, she holds these hateful and even fearful feelings held up inside of herself until she acts out and does something drastic, for example, murdering Homer Barron (913). In “A Rose for Emily”, like in “Sweat”, the male figures are characterized as being very authoritative and controlling, in the case of Emily, her father is this male figure. The narrator provides a detailed description of him next to Emily as others pictured them, as a “tableau”. “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the backflung front door.”(909). The imagery of the father clutching the whip next to the fragile Emily against a such a pure white background brings one to see and acknowledge the dominating and controlling nature of their relationship, better than any passage of conversation ever could
Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.
Jason’s innate desire for self-fulfillment included leaving his wife and children to marry the princess so he could be ranked higher. After the father realized his doings and how it affected his life from there on out he tried to fix it. Time was no longer on his side medea already plotted the revenge plan. Depression and madness struck jason.
Faulkner’s use of southern gothic writing style helps the reader build a mental depiction of Miss Emily. When the town sent their ambassadors to discuss the taxes that were owed, Faulkner described Miss Emily as “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water” (2182). This description gives the reader the sense that the character is not well. Faulkner’s description that Miss Emily looked bloated achieves the desired effect on the reader to show how hideous she appears. This graphic description, combined with the author’s depressing description of the parlor (2182), makes the reader think of death. The reader gets the sense of being in a funeral parlor which helps to strengthen Faulkner’s narrative.
Jason does not repay her altruistic spirit though. She kills her own brother to help Jason escape. Jason doesn't even have the goodness to let his wife know about the impending marriage, more evidence that he is doing it for more reasons than just his son. Jason tells her she should think of the marriage purely as a good thing. Medea, clearly, can only see the dark side of it. This injustice committed upon her is why she is able to commit such a travesty upon her own children. Medea tries to appeal to her husband that she should not be exiled from the city of Corinth. She brings up the fact that he has betrayed her in their marriage–Jason retorts that the reason she is being exiled is because of her threats against the king. Jason has a very patriarchal feeling about society. At one point he goes so far to say that he wishes there was some other way to go about getting children, then women would not be needed. This entails that he feels that women are only useful for bearing children. Medea senses the foul ingratitude in Jason with these words: "...I think that the plausible speaker who is a villain deserves the greatest punishment. Confident in his tongue's power to adorn evil, He stops at nothing. Yet he is not really wise." As well as: "If you were not a coward, you would not have married behind my back, but discussed it me first." Jason's ideas about women in society, and hence Medea's role in society, should be one of adoration and supplication
In Black Swan Green, I was particularly struck by Jason and his complicated relationship with himself. Throughout the first few chapters of the novel, Jason shows himself as someone who can be easily influenced by the darkness and uncertainty that surrounds him. Through inner personalities, as well as the undeniable influence of society and culture, Jason’s true character is often repressed by his environment and inner cautions. What struck me about the novel, and Jason in particular, were the moments in which Jason’s true character was revealed amidst the conflict in his life. Communities have an extremely strong influence in our lives, and they help shape our behavior, but no amount of external or internal influence can change who we are.
There are also parts in the play where one may begin to have an understanding of Jason’s motives. In Jason’s first argumentative speech to Medea, he claims that money, possessions and social status is of no importance to him. He declares that his choice to marry the royal Glauce is of good intention, not merely because he is bored with Medea’s bed. Later, when Medea begs Jason to forgive her for her foolishness, he shows kindness and understanding towards her. After all that Medea said about him and his new wife-to-be, Glauce, he states that he is still willing to provide Medea and their sons with anything they may need. Medea pleads for Jason to convince Creon to let their sons stay in Corinth and Jason agrees to try to convince both Creon and Glauce to allow the boys to stay. Jason is still compassionate, showing at least some loyalty to Medea and his family. At the very end of the play, after Medea has killed Glauce, Creon and their two sons, Jason admits that she has ‘destroyed’ him. Jason is completely shattered; everything has been ripped away from him. It’s also unfair when Medea refuses to let Jason bury and mourn the bodies of their sons. Some may feel it is impossible to feel no sympathy for him.
By focusing on the figure of Caddy, Bleikasten’s essay works to understand the ambiguous nature of modern literature, Faulkner’s personal interest in Caddy, and the role she plays as a fictional character in relation to both her fictional brothers and her actual readers. To Bleikasten, Caddy seems to function on multiple levels: as a desired creation; as a fulfillment of what was lacking in Faulkner’s life; and/or as a thematic, dichotomous absence/presence.
The most controversial character is Medea, she chose to murder her own two children just to cause pain to Jason. The children represent innocence and purity. Children are represented as free of any sins or impurities because their minds do not have the capacity to fully comprehend evil as adults ' do. The nurse is fearful for the boy’s life, so she tries her best to keep them out of cite from their mother. The nurse wishes Medea would leave the kids out of her and Jason problem they are not the ones to blame. But the nurse also states that she was brought up willful and powerful in a great house with no rules.
In “Stereotype and Reversal in Euripides’ Medea,” Shirley A. Barlow argues that the protagonist refuses to play the customary role of an ancient Greek woman, except when it benefits her, which shows that Medea is a reversed stereotype (158). This is further shown when the Tutor states, “Take heart! You too, will, journey back with children’s help” (1015). In this circumstance, the Tutor is declaring how the children will be able to help their mother come back home, yet this is an example of dramatic irony because Medea ultimately kills her children at the end for revenge. Euripides uses dramatic irony to convey Medea’s strength and power. The characters mistakenly assume that Medea is weak, yet her will-power and desire for revenge is shown when she kills her sons. Next, Jason is expected to be strong and powerful, yet is weaker than any female. Rabinowitz also speculates that Jason’s role has feminine aspects: “Jason would seem to be the perfect example of a woman with a man” (152). For example, Jason exclaims, “I have come, however, to save my children’s lives, to keep the king’s family from making them pay for the foul murder committed by their mother” (1303-5). Jason hastily runs back to the house to save his children from a masculine