Jason Compson, Money Obsessions, and Bad Apples

          

           Many families have a bad apple somewhere in its family tree.  Cinderella had some nasty stepsisters, and King Lear had two evil daughters, Goneril and Regan. The Compsons have Jason.  Jason Compson has no redeeming qualities.  I’m not even kidding.  As a child, Jason was a tattletale. Faulkner makes clear that even as a child, Jason’s telling is really only to get what he wants.  As Caddy points out at one point, “if you’ve already told…There’s not anything else you can tell, now" (Faulkner 42).  This "telling" doesn’t build friends or last long, but in reality, Jason’s not in for long-term relationship building.
            Furthermore, Jason is obsessed with money.  As a child, he cheats little kids into selling kites made from flour paste.  As a result, Jason has a flour barrel obsession throughout his life, and frequently comments on how much flour the house uses.   As an adult, Jason enjoys spending his time stealing his niece’s money, convincing his mother that he’s making tons of money, and watching the cotton stock market.  Strangely, Jason obtains lots of money, and things seem to be working out for him.  So far, Jason’s the only one who has made out good in the Compson family.  It seems that everyone in this novel loses the thing that they care about most.  Benjy loses Caddy.  Quentin loses Caddy.  Quentin Jr. loses Caddy.  And poor little Jason loses all the money Caddy sends.  
            Even though Jason has money, he’s unhappy, bitter, and mean.  His opening line, " Once a bitch, always a bitch, I say" (Faulkner 114), is an incredible way to show us just how nasty the guy is.  Like his brothers, Jason spends most of his life regretting the past.  Unlike the other Compson brothers, Jason always manages to find someone to blame for his sorry fate.  His fate is pretty sorry, as he lives in a shabby house with a self-absorbed mother.  He’s got a charity job at a hardware store that he wouldn’t even have that if his mother wasn’t a friend of the owner.
            At the end of the day, Jason finds a way to pin all his problems on Caddy.  It’s Caddy who doesn’t hook him up with a job at a bank.  It’s Caddy who sends money to Quentin and not to him.  It’s Caddy who took the family name and mangled it.  For Jason, it’s convenient for him to have a target to dump all his hate on.  Jason even extends his hatred of Caddy to women in general.  For example, at one point he says of his lover, “I never promise a woman anything nor let her know what I’m going to give her.  That’s the only way to manage them.  Always keep them guessing.  If you can’t think of any other way to surprise them, give them a bust in the jaw” (Faulkner 117).  Jason hates both women and other people, as he’s prejudiced against African Americans and Jews.  His hate for other races is even tied up in his own desire for economic profit as he states at one point, "I give every man his due, regardless of religion or anything else.  I have nothing against the Jews as an individual […] it’s just the race.  You’ll admit that they produce nothing" (Faulkner 125).  Jason’s opinion of black employees at the hardware store isn’t much better, and he says of them, "What this country needs is white labor. Let these dam trifling niggers starve for a couple of years, then they’d see what a soft thing they have" (Faulkner 143).
            All of Jason’s hate, bitterness, and all-around awfulness show his flatness in character.  He doesn’t really change.  He’s crummy as a kid and an adult.  He doesn’t keep us guessing.  He scams kids with kites as child, and then scams his mother as an adult.  In my opinion, Jason is a believable character.  It’s possible that a human being can be that unpleasant all the time.  Whether you agree with me or not (I know you won’t agree Mrs. Oles: yes, we can have an argument asap), Jason sometimes seems like the cartoon-character version of himself.  He’s as horrible a human being as he imagines Caddy to be.

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