April 6, 1928 (Jason's Chapter)

       Even though Jason’s chapter was the most clearly written and precise in its narrative, it was the most unbearable chapter to read. Jason is quite the character. He is cruel, bitter and greedy. Having to read about his personality for 52 pages, and along with his self-pitiful mother who blindly loves and adores him for being of Bascomb quality,  was overwhelming to my. His account did clear up confusions and confirmed pieces that were missing in the plot about the Compton tragedy , such as Caddy being divorced from Herbert and Quentin drowning himself (to which he makes a snarky comment saying “at Harvard they teach you how to swim at night without knowing how to swim”). But the way he expresses himself is obnoxious.
Upon reading the chapter, you immediately get a sense of his bitterness. The first thing he states is “Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say.” This displays his sardonic attitude in life. He is bitter about having to work in a farming supply store. He feels he has become the lowest Compton after having to succeed his great grandfather, who was a Civil War General, and a grandfather, who was a governor. He is mostly bitter about how his siblings have wronged him. The family sold land and furniture to send Quentin to Harvard, but he ends up committing suicide. Caddy has ruined the family’s name by bearing a bastard child, causing her husband, Herbert, to divorce her. This causes Jason to believe that she “deprive me of a job that was promised to me” from the arrangement of the marriage. Now Jason has to care for Caddy’s child to which he comments “instead of me having to go way up north for a job they sent the job down here to me”. Along with his family, he blames just about everyone else for his misery and misfortune. For example, he blames the Jews in the North for the dropping value of his stock in the cotton market. It goes to show that Jason is narcissistic and self-pitiful.
Jason is also selfish and greedy. All he cares about is money. He thinks about money, the stock he invested in, and he will frequently count the money in his chest just to look at it. For the last 15 years, he has been scamming his mother and stealing money from Quentin as he cashes in the checks Caddy has sent him to be given to Quentin and his mother. He lies to Quentin about the money and tricks his mother to burn what she thinks are the Caddy’s checks because they don’t need anybody’s charity and “certainly not that of a fallen woman.”  He then later will cash in the check for his own usage.
Most of all, Jason is downright cruel. Not only does he scam and deprive his mother and his niece of money that is rightfully theirs, he enjoys tormenting other people and is sadistic. He has threatens to beat Quentin and even Dilsey who comes to Quentin’s defense. When Caddy comes to her father’s funeral (which no one cared to notify her of), Jason is infuriated and boasts about how “We dont even know your name at that house” and that she would be “better off if you were down there with Quentin” in which he is saying she should be dead. He agrees to let Caddy see her daughter “Just so I can see her a minute” in exchange for one hundred dollars. He shows up to their meeting spot up, holds the baby to the window briefly, and then darts away, cheating Caddy from their deal. In another instance of Jason’s cruelty, he happily torments Luster who wants his two tickets to a show he does not even want to attend by first offering to sell them for a nickel and then burning them in front of his eyes because he has no money to pay for them.  Lastly, he is very cruel to Benjy, wishing he had put him in Jackson sooner so that he would not embarrass the family. He sarcastically thinks “Rent him out to a sideshow; there must be folks somewhere that would pay a dime to see him”. His nastiness can be seen from these passages.