The Sound and the Fury: Character Map and Compson Family Tree
Spoilers: This guide discusses the novel in full, including its ending.
Two Quentins, two Jasons, and a boy whose name changes: identifying a person in The Sound and the Fury often means identifying a moment first. William Faulkner gives us three brothers’ voices and then a third-person section; their memories and judgments make the same household look different each time.
The maps below separate family descent from caregiving, marriage, and desire. Start with the Compsons, then use the narrator guide when a name or scene seems to belong to two periods at once.
Contents
The Compson family
Jason Richmond Compson and Caroline Bascomb Compson have four children: Quentin, Candace—usually called Caddy—Jason, and Benjamin, usually called Benjy. Caddy’s daughter, also named Quentin, belongs to the next generation. Dilsey’s family works in the household and supplies much of its daily care; the Gibsons have their own family tree below.
The two Jasons are father and son. The two Quentins are uncle and niece; Caddy is the connection between their generations.
Jason Richmond Compson: Father
The children’s father is the Jason named in Caddy’s formal wedding announcement. In childhood memories he is usually Father or Mr Compson; Caroline and Dilsey can also call him Jason or Mr Jason. He gives Quentin the watch inherited from Quentin’s grandfather, and Quentin repeatedly remembers his statements about time, virginity, and human suffering.
His drinking becomes a source of fear and resentment within the family. He brings Caddy’s infant daughter home and argues that Caddy should be allowed to return after Herbert rejects her. By the 1928 sections, he is dead. The grandfather associated with the watch is a different person from Damuddy.
Caroline Bascomb Compson: Mother
Caroline is the siblings’ mother, Miss Quentin’s grandmother, and Uncle Maury’s sister. The household address Miss Cahline means Caroline. She identifies strongly with the Bascombs and favors her son Jason, whom she treats as her remaining dependable child.
She excludes Caddy from the home and tries to prevent Caddy’s name from reaching her daughter. Her apparent rejection of Caddy’s financial support depends on Jason’s deception: the checks she burns are substitutes he has prepared. In 1928 she locks Miss Quentin’s bedroom at night, believing the girl stays inside to study.
Quentin Compson: the brother
Quentin is the male narrator of June 2, 1910, a Harvard student and Caddy’s brother. The family’s sale of the pasture helps finance his education. His present-day movements around Cambridge repeatedly break into memories of Caddy, her pregnancy, Dalton Ames, and conversations with Father.
His attachment to Caddy includes attempts to control her, a threat involving a knife, and a claim of incest. The remembered conversation with Father makes that claim a desired fiction through which Quentin hopes to isolate the two of them from the world; it does not establish that incest occurred. His section closes before the act of drowning, which Jason’s later account identifies as suicide. Caddy’s daughter bears his name.
Candace “Caddy” Compson
Caddy is the sister around whom the brothers’ memories and grievances gather, although she receives no narrative section of her own. For Benjy, her presence, smell, and acts of care are sources of reassurance. For Quentin, her sexual life threatens the meanings he attaches to family and virginity. Jason remembers her marriage partly through the bank position Herbert promised him and which he never obtains.
After being excluded from the household, she continues sending money for her daughter and tries to see her. Her speech reaches us through other people’s accounts. Jason’s insinuations about how she earns money cannot be treated as a settled occupation.
Jason Compson: the son
Jason is the narrator of April 6, 1928, the brother of Quentin, Caddy, and Benjy, and Miss Quentin’s maternal uncle. He works for Earl in a store, speculates in cotton, and controls much of the household’s money and correspondence.
His grievances coexist with financial deception and violence toward his niece. He intercepts Caddy’s payments and letters, substitutes checks for Caroline to burn, and gives Miss Quentin only $10 from a $50 money order. When the girl escapes and his hidden cash disappears, he pursues her and her companion. His claims to be the family’s sole provider have to be read beside Caddy’s continuing support.
Benjamin “Benjy” Compson: formerly Maury
Benjy turns thirty-three on April 7, 1928. He was originally named Maury and was renamed Benjamin at five. The adult Uncle Maury is a separate person.
Benjy does not use speech, but his narration records voices, smells, touch, firelight, and changes in familiar surroundings. Those sensations can move him into an earlier scene without an explanatory transition. Caddy and several members of Dilsey’s family care for him at different periods.
He has been castrated by 1928. His own account of the earlier encounter with a schoolgirl describes trying to speak and catching her; Jason supplies a hostile sexual interpretation. Keep the action and that interpretation distinct. Sending Benjy to an institution in Jackson remains a threat within the four narrative sections.
Damuddy and Uncle Maury
Damuddy is the children’s grandmother. The childhood sequence in which Caddy climbs the tree and the children struggle to understand the gathering indoors concerns her funeral. Young Jason has been especially attached to sleeping with her. The four sections do not specify which parent is her child.
Maury L. Bascomb, or Uncle Maury, is Caroline’s brother and the children’s maternal uncle. Caroline continues supporting him financially. In Benjy’s memories, he uses Caddy and Benjy to carry secret letters to Mrs Patterson. Mr Patterson, her husband, intercepts a letter; the adults’ later remarks connect Maury’s resulting trouble with Patterson. The Patterson boy in Jason’s childhood kite business is another person, whose given name is not supplied.
Caddy’s relationships and her daughter
Charlie, Dalton Ames, and Herbert Head belong to different episodes in Caddy’s life. Her motherhood is certain; her daughter’s biological father remains uncertain in the four-part narrative.
Charlie is the young man with Caddy in the swing scene Benjy remembers. Benjy interrupts their intimacy, and Caddy washes her mouth afterward to calm him. Charlie is separate from Dalton and Herbert.
Dalton Ames is Caddy’s lover in Quentin’s memories. Quentin demands that he leave town and confronts him at a bridge. Dalton demonstrates his skill with a pistol; Quentin faints. This encounter must be distinguished from Quentin’s later, actual beating by Gerald Bland. Quentin asks Caddy whether she knows whose child she is carrying, and the narrative never supplies a definitive answer.
Sydney Herbert Head, usually Herbert Head, is the man Caddy marries on April 25, 1910. His full formal name refers to one person. The wedding announcement places their future home in South Bend, Indiana. He promises Jason a bank position, then casts Caddy out; their separation is established in the later memories. Marriage to Caddy does not establish Herbert as her child’s biological father.
Miss Quentin: Caddy’s daughter
Miss Quentin is seventeen in April 1928, the niece of the three Compson brothers and the granddaughter of Caroline and Father. She grows up in the Compson household under Dilsey’s practical care. Caddy sends money and seeks contact, while Caroline and Jason obstruct a normal mother–daughter relationship.
The man with the red tie is her unnamed companion, associated with the traveling show. Benjy sees the two together; Jason follows them through Jefferson and into the countryside. On the night of April 7, Miss Quentin leaves through her bedroom window by the pear tree. Her absence and the broken lock of Jason’s cash box are discovered the next morning. Jason cannot recover her or the money. The show’s proprietor says he has expelled both her and the man; their next destination remains unknown.
Caroline fears a repetition of the older Quentin’s suicide and expects a note. That fear does not mean the younger Quentin has killed herself.
Dilsey and the Gibson family
Dilsey and Roskus are the parents of Versh, Frony, and T.P. Frony is Luster’s mother, making Dilsey his grandmother.
Dilsey Gibson has raised the Compson children and undertakes much of Miss Quentin’s upbringing. She feeds, dresses, protects, and disciplines people whom the family’s account of its own importance can push to the margins. She also buys Benjy’s birthday cake with her own money. On Easter she takes him to her church despite Frony’s concern about gossip. The last section follows her closely for long stretches, but its narrator speaks in the third person and also follows Jason and Benjy.
Roskus is Dilsey’s partner and the father of their children. He works around the Compson property, including milking, and his rheumatism increasingly limits him. His remarks about the family’s misfortune belong to his own understanding of what he witnesses.
Versh is a son of Dilsey and Roskus and Benjy’s attendant in early childhood scenes. He helps the children on Damuddy’s funeral night and appears in Quentin’s hunting memories. His presence can help locate a memory in Benjy’s childhood, though the novel also mentions a later expected visit from him.
T.P. is another son of Dilsey and Roskus. He attends Benjy in later memories, including Caddy’s wedding, when the two drink together, and the period of Father’s decline. He also saddles a horse for Quentin. In 1928 he normally drives Benjy to the cemetery on Sundays; Luster takes the reins on Easter while T.P. is away.
Frony is their daughter and Luster’s mother. She belongs both to the children’s early world—explaining the funeral to them—and to the adult congregation that attends the Easter service. Her objections to bringing Benjy to church differ from Dilsey’s insistence that he belongs there.
Luster is Frony’s son and Dilsey’s grandson. He looks after Benjy during the April 7 present, while trying to find a lost quarter for admission to the show. His care can be practiced and skillful, and he also deliberately provokes Benjy. On Easter his unfamiliar turn at the monument precipitates the distress that ends the novel.
The Easter congregation
Reverend Shegog is the visiting preacher from Saint Louis whose Easter sermon moves Dilsey to tears. The local minister introduces him; these are two men. Dilsey, Frony, Luster, and Benjy attend the service. The church gathers the Gibson family into a community beyond their work for the Compsons.
Quentin’s Harvard circle
Shreve, also addressed as Mr MacKenzie, is Quentin’s Canadian roommate and friend. He helps during the mistaken accusation involving the little girl and tends Quentin after the fight with Gerald. Spoade’s joking reference to Shreve as Quentin’s husband describes neither a marriage nor an established sexual relationship.
Spoade is a Harvard senior from South Carolina and a companion in the picnic party. His teasing supplies another person’s view of Quentin’s behavior. When he tells the judicial officer that Quentin’s father is a Congregational minister, he is improvising a story to help his friend; this is not Father’s occupation.
Gerald Bland is the Harvard student from Kentucky whom Quentin attacks during the outing. Gerald boxes him, leaving him bloodied. Mrs Bland, Gerald’s mother, organizes their social circle, boasts about her son, and dislikes Shreve. Shreve’s mocking name Semiramis refers to her.
Miss Holmes and Miss Daingerfield are the two women in Mrs Bland’s party. Their presence and seating explain references to the girls in the car.
Deacon is the elderly Black man who helps and befriends students around Harvard. Quentin entrusts him with a letter for Shreve. Quentin’s association of him with Roskus links a present encounter to a home memory; they remain different people.
The little girl and the mistaken accusation
The unnamed Italian girl follows Quentin after he buys her food. He tries to find her home and calls her sister, an address that does not make them relatives. Julio, her actual brother, thinks Quentin has taken her and attacks him.
Anse, the village marshal, arrests Quentin. The Squire, the judicial officer, questions him and dismisses the case after ordering payments. Anse and the Squire are separate authorities. The girl is not mute: she eventually speaks when she sees Julio.
People in Quentin’s home memories
Natalie belongs to a fragmentary childhood scene of sexual exploration and a quarrel involving Caddy. The memory does not establish a sustained romance or completed intercourse.
Louis Hatcher and Martha appear in hunting and flood memories; Quentin recalls hunting with Louis and Versh. A Louis who teaches Caddy to drive is mentioned separately, without enough information to identify him as Hatcher.
Doc Peabody is the doctor Quentin remembers when a New England buggy recalls home. The man riding that buggy is not established as Peabody. Miss Laura is Quentin’s childhood teacher, and Henry is the pupil she questions about DeSoto. Kenny is one of the fishing boys Quentin encounters during his New England day.
Jason’s Jefferson and the Easter journey
Earl employs Jason in his store and objects to his absences and conduct. Uncle Job also works there. Uncle is an address for Job, not a Compson family relationship. Professor Junkin is the school authority whose warning about Miss Quentin’s absences starts Jason’s day.
Lorraine is Jason’s intimate companion in Memphis, to whom he gives money. Her affectionate address daddy does not make him her father. His thoughts of her during the Easter pursuit concern someone elsewhere.
Mink is the hired hack driver who helps Jason rush the infant Miss Quentin past Caddy after she pays for a look at her daughter. The four sections give him no surname. Old man Simmons supplies the key to stored bank papers from which Jason obtains the old checks used in his deception.
Doc Wright, Hopkins, and I.O. Snopes belong to the cotton-market conversations. They help distinguish Jason’s dealings in the telegraph office from his work at Earl’s store; Doc Wright’s title does not establish a medical practice. Ab Russell is the man from whom Jason borrows a tire pump during his pursuit. Mac is the drugstore acquaintance who discusses baseball with him. Parson Walthall appears in Jason’s recollection of objections to Christmas pigeon shooting, not the Easter sermon.
Mr Burgess enters through Jason’s account of the schoolgirl incident involving Benjy: he is the girl’s father and is said to have struck Benjy with a fence picket. His daughter is unnamed. That hostile recollection must be read alongside Benjy’s account of trying to speak.
The failed pursuit on Easter
The unnamed sheriff questions Jason’s proof, his treatment of his niece, and the ownership of the missing money. His suspicions are not a court ruling. Myrtle and her husband Vernon are at the sheriff’s house when Jason arrives; Vernon is not the sheriff.
At the show in Mottson, an older man in the galley fights Jason. The show’s proprietor, a different man, intervenes and says he has ordered Miss Quentin and her companion away. Neither man is the lover with the red tie. An unnamed hired driver then brings Jason back to Jefferson. The chase ends without locating the fugitives.
Queenie, the old white horse drawing the surrey, belongs to the final journey with Benjy and Luster. When Luster takes the unfamiliar route around the monument, Benjy bellows. Jason intervenes violently and turns the horse onto the customary route. The return of familiar landmarks in their expected order quiets Benjy.
The four sections and their dates
The order on the page differs from the order of the dated days. The date heading supplies a present from which memories can range backward; it does not date every scene that follows it.
Section | Voice and time to keep in view |
April 7, 1928 | Benjy’s first-person narration. His thirty-third birthday with Luster repeatedly gives way to childhood, Caddy’s wedding, and other remembered moments. |
June 2, 1910 | The male Quentin’s first-person narration. His day around Harvard and a New England village is interwoven with memories of Caddy and home. |
April 6, 1928 | Jason the son’s first-person narration. Friday’s work, money schemes, and pursuit of his niece contain recollections of earlier family events. |
April 8, 1928 | Third-person narration on Easter Sunday. Dilsey’s household work and church visit, Jason’s pursuit, and Benjy’s outing occupy different stretches. |
A short chronology beside the memories
When | What has happened |
Childhood | Damuddy dies. Caddy climbs the tree to look toward the gathering indoors; the children’s uncertain understanding returns in later memories. |
Benjy aged five | Maury is renamed Benjamin. Uncle Maury retains his own name. |
Before Quentin’s Harvard year | The family sells the pasture, helping finance his education. Benjy later stands by a golf course occupying the former pasture. |
April 25, 1910 | Caddy marries Sydney Herbert Head. She is already pregnant. |
June 2, 1910 | Quentin prepares for the drowning that later accounts identify as suicide. |
Around Father’s death | Father brings Caddy’s infant daughter home; his funeral follows within a month. Caddy’s efforts to see the child and the financial arrangements continue over subsequent years. |
April 6, 1928 | Jason conceals the value of the $50 money order, gives his niece $10, and pursues her and her companion. |
Night of April 7 | Miss Quentin climbs out of her window. Her absence and Jason’s missing cash are discovered on Easter morning. |
April 8 | Dilsey attends church with Benjy, Frony, and Luster. Jason’s chase fails; the novel ends during Benjy’s surrey ride. |
In Benjy’s section, Versh often points toward childhood, T.P. toward later memories, and Luster toward the 1928 present. These companions are useful clues rather than absolute boundaries. Check the surrounding action too: whether Father is alive, which Quentin is present, and whether Caddy is a child, a bride, or an absent mother. The word caddie on the golf course can bring back Caddy without placing her in the present scene.
Places and memory landmarks
Jefferson, Mississippi is the Compsons’ home town. The house, Gibson cabin, branch or creek, barn, swing, pear tree, and former pasture recur across the novel. The swing links Caddy with Charlie in one period and Miss Quentin with the red-tie man in another; a repeated place does not guarantee a repeated person.
Harvard and Cambridge belong to Quentin’s June 1910 present. The outlying New England village where he meets the little girl is separate from remembered Jefferson. The bridge confrontation with Dalton belongs to his Southern memories, while the bridges and river around his final day belong to New England.
South Bend, Indiana is the future married address printed in Caddy’s wedding announcement. French Lick, or the Licks, belongs to the resort visit associated with Caroline, Caddy, and Herbert. Memphis is associated with Lorraine. Mottson is where Jason goes after the traveling show. Jackson is the feared institutional destination for Benjy. None of these places should be used as a substitute for the fugitives’ unknown destination.
Names and aliases at a glance
Name encountered | Who it means |
Father; Mr Compson; Jason Richmond Compson | Caroline’s husband and the siblings’ father, dead by 1928. |
Jason; Mr Jason | Often the son in 1928; in earlier family speech, also the father. Use speaker and period. |
Mother; Mrs Compson; Caroline; Miss Cahline | The siblings’ mother and Miss Quentin’s grandmother. |
Quentin, with male pronouns | Caddy’s brother, the Harvard student and June 1910 narrator. |
Miss Quentin; Quentin, with female pronouns | Caddy’s daughter, the seventeen-year-old in 1928. |
Caddy; Candace | The Compson sister and Miss Quentin’s mother. |
Ben; Benjy; Benjamin | The Compson brother who narrates April 7, 1928. |
Maury in Benjy’s early childhood | Benjy’s original name, before he becomes Benjamin. |
Uncle Maury; Maury L. Bascomb | Caroline’s adult brother. |
Damuddy | The children’s grandmother, whose funeral they remember. |
Herbert; Herbert Head; Sydney Herbert Head | Caddy’s husband, who later casts her out. |
T.P.; T. P. | Dilsey and Roskus’s son and one of Benjy’s attendants. |
Frony | Dilsey and Roskus’s daughter; Luster’s mother. |
Mammy, when Luster addresses Dilsey | His grandmother Dilsey; the address alone does not mean his mother. |
Shreve; Mr MacKenzie | Quentin’s Canadian roommate. |
Bubber, when Herbert speaks to Caddy | Her brother Quentin. |
Semiramis | Shreve’s mocking name for Mrs Bland. |
Sister, when Quentin addresses the little girl | The unnamed girl whose brother is Julio, not Quentin’s relative. |
Uncle Job | Earl’s employee, not a Compson uncle. |
Daddy, when Lorraine addresses Jason | Her intimate companion Jason, not a parent. |
Doc Peabody; Doc Wright | Two different people: a remembered doctor and a man in the cotton-market conversations. |
The man with the red tie | Miss Quentin’s unnamed companion from the show. |
Caddie | A golf-course call that reminds Benjy of Caddy. |
Queenie | The horse drawing Benjy’s surrey. |
Nancy | The dead animal in the ditch, recalled in the children’s memories. |
Benjy needs Caddy’s familiar presence; Quentin tries to bind her to his own account of purity; Jason controls the money through which she continues to reach her daughter. Dilsey’s care runs through those competing versions of the family, reaching people their judgments exclude.
For ways to keep moving through shifting voices without solving every uncertainty on the first pass, continue with How to Read Difficult Literature Without Getting Lost.
Sources
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury: the four dated narrative sections, consulted in Project Gutenberg eBook 75170, a digital transcription of a later Random House printing. The guide follows that narrative; the later Compson Appendix and its extended family history are outside its scope. Section dates are used for reference rather than page numbers from a different edition.
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