ve? It cant be simply to flout and hurt me. Whoever God is, He would not permit that. I'm a lady. You might not believe that from my offspring, but I am" (Faulkner 374).
This is the terror of solitude in the face of the haunting demon. It is also self-absorption, for Mrs. Compson lacks the maternal sense that could be the emotional anchor of a family. Quentin pines for a mother he has never had, so that he could go to her for comfort. How she managed to bear four children in the first place is something of a puzzle, for she has been lying in bed, dying of the same vague disease for eighteen years by the time The Sound and the Fury begins. A lady of quality, she seems to represent every pretense of the genteel and hypocritical South. Whatever the inconvenience or emotional cost to her family, Mother will keep up appearances, keep up the pretense of a social norm, insisting that the family--even Benjy--collaborate in the pretense of normality. She suppresses Caddy's nurturing instinct toward Benjy, in a mask of social pretense.
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