Sorry Everyone! I do apologize about not having this quote up here sooner, but it is 9:10 p.m. and I am still at school working on photocopying and folding those letters of recommendation. IF you ever need to apply to multiple places again, be nice to your letter-writers and give them self-adhering envelopes, okay???
So...here it goes...
"Quentin is a distraught Alice in a haunted wonderland."
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From the point of view of the Compson family, Quentin is living the ideal life. He is brilliant and getting a good education at Harvard. In their eyes, he is living in a Wonderland of sorts; a world where everything wrong in his life should come together again. Quentin's distraught feeling comes from the realization that the Old South, his true idea of Wonderland, no longer exists.
ReplyDeleteOne passage that really illustrates the idea of his "haunted" existence is on page 112.
"The road went into trees, where it would be shady, but June foliage in New England not much thicker than April at home. I could see a smoke stack. I turned my back to it, tramping my shadow into the dust.....I could still see the smoke stack. That's where the water would be, healing out to the sea and the peaceful grottoes."
This passage has a tone of loss and longing into it. The superficial beauty of the place hides the dark feelings Quentin experiences. And this may be a bit of a stretch, but by "tramping his shadow", he could be referring to destroying the shadow of the past, the shadow of the Old South.
Throughout her journey in Wonderland, Alice faces a series of doors and paths in which she must rely on chance and blind faith to "move forward" (so to speak). If she eats the green mushroom instead of the red one and becomes large (when she really wants to be small) she must pull herself together and approach the situation in a different way.
ReplyDeleteLike Alice, Quentin is forced to brave this "haunted wonderland" alone. He is trapped in a dense fog he is never able to emerge from. His Wonderland is a maze which leads him no where. But the ramifications of Quentin's decisions are much more intense then those of Alice. Alice might take a wrong turn, but no path leads her to suicide.
^Becca Silverman
ReplyDeleteAlice's adventures in wonderland are only wonderful for her until she begins to face troubles. When she wants to go home, everything seems to become more difficult. Such is Quentin's situation at Harvard. It originally is a dream of his. When he begins to long for the Old South, much like Alice longing for home, he too faces problems.
ReplyDeleteBecca commented on how Quentin "is forced to brave this 'haunted wonderland' alone." She said that this is a similarity Quentin has to Alice. I disagree; I think this is the very thing that makes Quentin's wonderland haunted. Alice had assistance from a number of different characters, some more useful than others. The crazy people she met (the Cheshire Cat, the March Hare and Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, and more) all helped Alice along her journey home. Quentin on the other hand is very much alone. He keeps out the few people who could have helped him, too absorbed in his own thoughts and internal problems. This makes him a distraught "Alice," stuck in a haunted, rather than wondrous, wonderland.