( application )

[shadowstepped]

CW: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE

player information
● name: Kath
● age: 26
● contact: whaleen
● other characters: N/A

character information
● name: Quentin Compson
● canon: The Sound and the Fury
● canon point: June 2nd, 1910 (immediately preceding death)
● age: 19

● (canon) background: Quentin Compson was born in 1891 to Jason Richmond Lycurgus Compson III and Caroline Bascomb Compson. He is the eldest of four children, preceding Candace (Caddy), Benjamin (Benjy), and Jason IV. His family is of the old southern gentry, boasting several distinguished governors and generals among their ancestry. Beneath the peeling veneer of such a respectable lineage, however, the Compsons are in the twilight of their former glory, just as the hierarchy of the Old South capitulates in the post-Reconstruction era. Quentin’s generation will be the last to bear the Compson name, and he himself is the first link in the chain to break.

Growing up on the family property in Jefferson, Mississippi (set in Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County), Quentin is fiercely attached to his sister Caddy, and as they near adulthood he grows more and more protective of her. Despite his wishes to protect her, she fails to adhere to the strict moral code set by society, exploring sexual relations with men and eventually becoming pregnant by one Dalton Ames. Ultimately, in order to salvage his sister’s honor, Quentin begs her to run away from home with him – and when Caddy refuses, he attempts to steer her into a suicide pact, which she also denies. In the meantime, Quentin is in the midst of his freshmen year at Harvard University, the tuition for which was paid for in part by the sale of a parcel of the Compson property. It is for this reason that he finishes the academic year before committing suicide by drowning himself in the Charles River.

His death has a profound impact on the remainder of his family. His father develops a severe alcohol addiction, eventually dying of liver failure. His youngest brother Jason is left embittered by the responsibility of being made the head of the household in the wake of both Quentin’s and his father’s deaths. Although Benjy is older, he is also severely developmentally disabled and thus unfit for such a position. Caddy, although essentially banished from the family, decides to name her daughter Quentin in honor of her dead brother. And all the while, his mother bewails the misfortune of their family as it fast unravels.

NOTE: The canon point from which I am taking Quentin is his section in The Sound and the Fury, but I am drawing on Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! for background information as well.

● (original) world: N/A

● abilities: Quentin possesses no supernatural abilities and few noteworthy skills. He has a keen academic aptitude, which has gotten him into Harvard, and having grown up in the countryside, he is skilled in horse-riding.

● strengths:

Thoughtful: Quentin is a highly sensitive and intelligent individual. He is capable of dedicating his full attention to listening to another, especially when the speaker is someone whom he respects, and he commits much of what he is told to memory. This is accomplished with seemingly little effort, as he regularly recalls lessons his father has taught him as well as Bible verses and other lengthy quotes, thus indicating a sharp memory. When faced with a problem, he is compelled to examine it from all possible angles, dissecting it that he may better understand it. His meticulous nature is also seen in his suicide preparations, purchasing flat irons to put in his pockets and leaving a letter along with some personal affects for his roommate Shreve.

Loyal: Quentin is extremely loyal to his family, and his sister Caddy above all. When they were children, he once picked a fight with another boy who seemed to have been bothering Caddy; when they are older, he confronts Dalton Ames, the man whose child Caddy is having, and orders him to leave town. He is loyal not only to the concept of his family’s honor, but also the principles upon which their society is built, namely the patriarchy in which men are defenders of women. He believes that upholding this structure is his duty.

Determined: When Quentin sets his mind to a task, little can deter him but for his own failure. In attempting to “save” Caddy’s honor, as he sees it, he does all that he can think of for her sake. When knocked down by Dalton, for example, he insists on continuing the fight regardless of his chances for victory. His final act of self-determination is, of course, his death.

● weaknesses:

Obsessive: However, all of the above strengths feed into Quentin’s primary flaw, which is his neurotic nature. He becomes obsessed with the matter of Caddy’s virtue to the point that it thoroughly consumes his thoughts. He is then triggered by even small reminders of his sister, such as when he assaults a classmate for a casual sexist remark, demanding to know, “Did you ever have a sister?” He has the tendency of turning a matter over and over again in his head, until it ultimately becomes a burden that he cannot escape. He takes it upon himself to be a vessel for the voices of the past, a chamber in which his family’s history as well as the advice and platitudes he has collected from his father echo endlessly.

Stubborn: Quentin refuses to relinquish the notion that he must be the defender of his family’s honor and, more specifically, his sister’s honor. He is thus driven mad by what he perceives as his own failure when Caddy makes choices that fall outside of prescribed social norms - because although he is impotent to change what happened, he insists on trying to “fix” the situation regardless. When all of his attempts fall short, he ultimately decides that only death will absolve both him and his sister. He refuses to accept any alternative.

Narrow-minded: In addition to being unable to escape his family’s history, he is unable to escape the place and time in which he is born and the flaws with which they are imbued. Quentin was born only a quarter century after the Civil War ended; his grandfather owned slaves. He is restricted by the prejudices of his era, in regard to race, sex, and class, however “benignly” these may manifest in him.

● skills (optional): N/A
● housing (optional): No preference

● network username: q.compson

● network sample: [REDACTED]

● prose/action sample: [REDACTED]