okay so quentin didn't boink caddy. but why did he tell

>>8028985
*her

>>8028985
Because: he boinked caddy, that stays between the family and it's his fault.
She boinked someone, on the other hand, and it's her fault.

Funny part is his father wouldn't have given a shit

Incest is the key element here.

Quentin loved his sister so much that he was willing to sacrifice his own reputation (admitting to a rape he did not commit) rather than see her life ruined by losing her own. He was specifically trying to prevent her from being shunned by making her out as a victim instead of a promiscuous young girl. You really missed his character completely if you think he wanted Caddy to be hated.

The dad's disbelief isn't explained iirc, but I always assumed it was because he could tell that Quentin was too gentle and/or that Caddy got around.

>>8028985
Good posts in the thread already, but I'll add a theory of my own: Quentin is not simply concerned with Caddy's reputation and some vague southern gentleman code of honor. Rather, he is opposing the regenerative and active force of nature itself.

The Golden Bough, a book that was very influential within many modernist writers (especially T. S. Eliot), postulated that every religion was nothing more than an incarnation of the Fertility God paradigm. In the Sound and the Fury, this fertility God becomes associated with masculinity, power, and (most importantly) movement forward.

For Quentin, the fertility gods in the novel are Herbert Head, Gerald Bland, and (most of all) Dalton Ames. Dalton Ames is responsible for impregnating Caddie, the movement forward into the rebirth and regeneration cycle of nature. Quentin cannot handle this, and opposes Dalton Ames, though he is ultimately powerless against him. His obsession with incest is borne of a belief that it is the malt extreme sin possible, and committing it with Caddy will send them both to the lowest level of hell, within the "clean flame." This is where his aversion to progress and movement becomes apparent, because he cannot actually commit the incest. He feels the blood pumping in caddie's neck, signaling the fertility force, but when she hands him a knife (which becomes phallic in this scene), he cannot consummate the act, cannot kill her, for that would be an act of impetus, of progression.

Thus, he wishes to have committed incest so as to cease motion and bring the cycle of nature to a halt. His existence as the opposite of the fertility God, however, prevents him from truly committing the act.

the only good thing that falkner wrote it's apres midi d'un faune and even that is a rip off of some even more obsucre french writer

>>8030284
fuck me. true true. good post sir. yeah I did miss that little bit. I remember Shreve saying he was a Virgin so I know he didn't boink caddy. thanks niggers.