The Slipper and The Pear Tree

In "Meaningful Images in The Sound and the Fury," Eben Bass cleverly explains it is the physical objects such as, a "yellow satin slipper...now cracked and soiled," and a blossoming pear tree, that abstractly explain to us the relationships between the characters over time. Eben Bass describes the slipper as being to Benjy what a pacifier would be to a baby, as it calms him down and acts as a relic. Bass explains, "the daughter (Quentin) hates the slipper as a soiled, worn reminder of her mother's and her own disgrace." This is because after the wedding, where Caddy wore the slipper, Herbet Head figures out Quentin is not his child, and Caddy and Quentin are forever separated. The slipper therefore represents this separation, and the feelings of anguish Quentin feels when she sees her mother's wedding-slipper. Caddy's wedding (includes the slipper) along with Quentin's harvard tuition were paid for by selling Benjy's pasture, this is ironic because Caddy's wedding and Quentin's going to college were two events that lead up to them never coming back to the Compson household. We do not figure out the slipper was worn by Caddy at her wedding till the end of the story, which wraps up its significance because the wedding acts as a turning point for Caddy's relationship with her family, especially Quentin who never knew her mother.  According to Bass, the pear tree also holds extreme significance in the novel. We first witness the pear tree when Caddy climbs up it and soils her under garments. This foreshadows her future promiscuity. This is interesting because it is the same tree that her daughter Quentin climbs down from at night to meet her many lovers. Therefore the tree connects the mother and daughter's promiscuous ways. I thought it was powerful when Bass explained that as the tree blooms on Easter it represents Quentin's escape, using the same tree her mother climbed when she symbolically soiled her under garments. The point Bass makes throughout the article is that both these symbols appear in Benjy's section, but we do not fully understand their significance till the last section where they are able to show us relationships between characters that otherwise hard to understand. 

• Meaningful Images in The Sound and the Fury
• Eben Bass
• Modern Language Notes, Vol. 76, No. 8 (Dec., 1961), pp. 728-731
• Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• http://www.jstor.org/stable/3039942?seq=2