Mr. Compson

Mr. Compson is a lawyer who has stopped practicing, a father who lectures his sons on the futility of honor, and a husband who has long since retreated from his wife's anxieties into whiskey and quotation. He gives Quentin the grandfather's watch with a speech about time as a mausoleum of hope, and his voice echoes through Quentin's section as both comfort and poison. His death leaves the family without even the pretense of authority, and his children spend the novel trying to escape or fulfill what he taught them.