Caroline Compson and Dilsey As Term Paper

Toward the end of the novel, Caroline even remarks, with stark irony and insensitivity, to Dilsey: " 'You're not the one who has to bear it... It's not your responsibility... You don't have to bear the brunt of it day in and day out..." (p. 272).

While Caroline is unable (and/or unwilling), to cope with, or even cease denying to herself, the realities of present life for the Compsons, a family in decline in the post-bellum South,

Dilsey, offers stability and reliability. Since both Caroline and Jason III are emotionally bereft, Dilsey substitutes as a parent for both of them. However, since Dilsey is not really a Compson family member, it is Dilsey who remains objective enough to state, near the end of The Sound and the Fury: " 'I've seed de first en de last... I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de endin' " (p. 297), in reference to the family's rise, decline, and fall.

While Caroline spends her life complaining from her bed, then, Dilsey, having borne the gravity of real life, shows physical signs of "wear and tear." As Faulkner describes her, the way her clothes fit, and her overall physical condition: "The gown fell gauntly fro m her shoulders, across her fallen breasts, then tightened about her paunch and fell again" (265).

The final chapter of The Sound and the Fury provides a kind of implied hope for the family, based on Dilsey's values and diligence in raising the children.Through reinforcement, also, of Dilsey's strong, consistent values, attitudes, and responsible actions (likely the same sorts of qualities that had once made the Compsons great in the first place, but which they themselves now lack) Dilsey also implies hope for the family, and, by association, the post-Reconstruction South itself. At one point, Dilsey even tells Luster, her grandson, that "you got jes es much Compson devilment in you es any of em" (The Sound and the Fury, p. 276), underscoring the similarity in how Dilsey has raised both the Compson brood and her own.

In concluding The Sound and the Fury through Dilsey's perspective, Faulkner also implies hope for the Compsons, and, by association, the post-bellum South itself. Throughout The Sound and the Fury, however, Caroline Compson, the children's real mother, has been sadly lacking as either a mother figure or a positive influence of any kind, while Dilsey Gibson has admirably fulfilled both roles. In that sense Dilsey also effectively points the way toward renewed hope for the Compsons, and the South. In reflecting on relative strengths and weaknesses of Caroline and Dilsey, respectively, then, it is clear that Dilsey Gibson, not Caroline Compson, finally exerts more influence over the Compson family.

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