Quentin

Character Analysis

Okay, don't get confused, but there are really two Quentins in this story: the narrator, who's twenty-four, and the nine-year-old child. There's the adult who's telling the story, and then the child version of himself who's in the story. 1 Quentin + 1 Quentin = 2 Quentins.

This story, many critics argue, is really about the roughly twenty-four-year-old Quentin (even though we barely notice him) because he's the one who changes: his stance on what his family's relationship with Nancy meant alters while he recollects and narrates the story.

The process of remembering, in other words, changes him and his views. You can read all about that by looking at our "Summary" and "What's Up With the Ending?"

Here, though, we're going to focus on the sorts of qualities that make Quentin the kind of person liable to sit around pondering and pondering his memories in the first place. Sure, we all take trips down memory lane. But individuals such as Quentin, the quiet, sensitive types, seem to live in their heads more often. Just check out his role in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury if you don't believe us, though you don't need to read that big ol' book to understand this much smaller story.

It's a cinch to prove that nine-year-old Quentin was a quiet type. Just look at the story and try to find examples of him talking out loud. There are a few, but only a very few, times when he does. On the other hand, the whole story is him "talking" by narrating in his head. So he's an introspective, quiet kind of guy.

Quentin's also a sensitive dude. Dilsey and Mr. Jason try to help Nancy in very practical ways, but it's Quentin who directly encourages her to share her feelings. When Nancy is sitting in the kitchen, finished with the dishes, Quentin notices her looking and looking at him and asks her to tell him what's wrong:

I went to the kitchen. Nancy was through. The dishes were put away and the fire was out. Nancy was sitting in a chair, close to the cold stove. She looked at me.

"Mother wants to know if you are through," I said.

"Yes," Nancy said. She looked at me. "I done finished." She looked at me.

"What is it?" I said. "What is it?" (1.25-28)

Here's another instance of Quentin's sensitivity. He's able to tell by ear what people mean when they say ambiguous things. For example, when his mother calls out for Jason, Quentin thinks:

She was speaking to father. You could tell that by the way she said the name. Like she believed that all day father had been trying to think of doing the thing she wouldn't like the most, and that she knew all the time that after a while he would think of it. (1.55)

Maybe it's that sensitivity that allows him to change how he thinks of his family's relationship with Nancy. He—the adult, narrating one—starts off with the attitude that hey, it's no big deal that the black residents of Jefferson are doing the laundry for the white people. That's just the way the cookie crumbles, right?

By the end of the story, he's arguably changed enough to remember the self-damning line he said as a nine year old—"Who will do our washing now, Father?" (6.9)—after his family abandons Nancy.

He also ends the story with the uncaring remarks of his siblings, thereby emphasizing just how unimportant they viewed Nancy to be. He's been thoughtful enough to change his mind about what he recalls… that his family acted like real jerkos, and that Nancy was totally mistreated.