# Caddy Compson — The Sound and the Fury character guide

> Caddy Compson in The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Candace, Caddie, Miss Caddy, Quentin Caddy

**First appearance:** 0000-april-seventh-1928

## Snapshot

The only Compson daughter, Caddy Compson is the sister her brothers cannot stop remembering — beloved, lost, and blamed for the family's unraveling.

## Who they are

Caddy is the center of her brothers' emotional lives: Benjy's comfort, Quentin's obsession, Jason's grievance. As a girl she climbs trees to see into funerals, smells like trees to Benjy, and promises to take care of him; as a young woman she becomes pregnant, marries a man who divorces her, and leaves her daughter behind. She never narrates her own section, and her absence is the engine of the novel's first three movements.

## Relationships

### [Dilsey Gibson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/dilsey_gibson)

_friendship_

Caddy shares a warm, maternal bond with Dilsey, who serves as a surrogate mother figure and protector.

### [Quentin Compson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/quentin_compson)

_family_

Quentin is obsessively protective of his sister Caddy, whose lost virginity and marriage shatter his idealized view of her.

### [Versh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/versh)

_friendship_

Caddy shares a childhood bond of play and trust with Versh, one of the family's Black servants.

### [Benjy Compson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/benjy_compson)

_family_

Benjy's entire world revolves around Caddy, whose scent and presence are his only source of comfort and stability.

### [Maury Bascomb](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/maury_bascomb)

_family_

Maury is Caddy's uncle, a failed poet and alcoholic who is a source of family shame and minor comic relief.

### [Luster](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/luster)

_friendship_

Caddy's brief interactions with Luster are marked by her kindness and his youthful curiosity about her.

### [Caroline Compson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/caroline_compson)

_family_

Caddy's relationship with her mother Caroline is cold and distant, as Caroline is self-absorbed and disapproving of Caddy's choices.

### [Benjy Compson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/benjy_compson)

_family_

Benjy's entire world revolves around Caddy, whose scent and presence are his only source of comfort and stability.

### [Dilsey Gibson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/dilsey_gibson)

_friendship_

Caddy shares a warm, maternal bond with Dilsey, who serves as a surrogate mother figure and protector.

### [Dilsey Gibson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/dilsey_gibson)

_friendship_

Caddy shares a warm, maternal bond with Dilsey, who serves as a surrogate mother figure and protector.

### [Versh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/versh)

_friendship_

Caddy shares a childhood bond of play and trust with Versh, one of the family's Black servants.

### [Quentin Compson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/quentin_compson)

_family_

Quentin is obsessively protective of his sister Caddy, whose lost virginity and marriage shatter his idealized view of her.

## In the story

### [April Seventh, 1928](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/chapters/april-seventh-1928)

Central figure in Benjy's memories; comforts him as a child; her absence in the present drives Benjy's distress.

### [June Second, 1910](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/chapters/june-second-1910)

Quentin's sister, central to his memories and emotional turmoil, referenced in his thoughts about incest and loss.

### [April Sixth, 1928](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/chapters/april-sixth-1928)

Jason's sister; discussed in terms of her past marriage and her daughter's upbringing, with her name forbidden to be spoken.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters/caddy_compson
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_sound_and_the_fury_se/characters