Assignment- Read through the hypertext version of Benjy's narrative.
Through reading the hypertext of Benjy's thoughts, I was surprised about a few things. I thought the story would read ten times easier, but it didn't seem to make the original version make more sense to me. Again, this all goes back to Benjy's unconventional use of time compared to how I'm used to reading novels. This got me to thinking again about how Benjy felt about time and I remembered a comment Phil Seo said in class about how Benjy remembered major emotional events like his father and Quentin dying. After re-reading the section, I thought of Benjy in a different light. Before, I assumed because of his disability he just remembered random events that had a meaning to him, but perhaps the events he recalls are due to the intense emotion he felt about them. Time and emotion have a strong bond, in my opinion. This bond I think is explained well from a Bible verse from Ecclesiastes. (below)
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven — A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing. A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.
King Solomon, The Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Like this quote, Benjy relates his thoughts to times that had strong centimental value to him rather than just excitement as I had thought before. I guess I was being very close-minded before about Benjy and I wasn't giving him enough credit for his thought process, thinking it was just about random connections of instances that has similarities instead of events of emotional importance to him.
In terms of the hypertext, I think i prefer the original text because it makes Benjy's character come alive more.
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