Benjy walks the fence with Luster while golfers shout for their caddies, sending him into agitated mourning for his absent sister.

Young Caddy climbs a tree to look through a window while her siblings realize below that their grandmother Damuddy has died.

Benjy accosts a schoolgirl while searching for the long-absent Caddy, and the misunderstood encounter results in his castration.

Quentin wakes at Harvard on his final morning and deliberately smashes the grandfather's pocket watch his father passed down to him.

Quentin visits a hardware store on his final day and purchases several flat-iron weights to carry with him.

Quentin confesses to Father that he and Caddy have committed incest, but Father does not believe him.

Caddy tells Quentin she must marry someone and admits there have been other men besides Dalton Ames in her life.

Quentin carefully cleans his soiled clothes with gasoline, brushes his teeth, and leaves his Harvard room alone in the dark.

Jason physically drags Miss Quentin from the kitchen and drives her to school himself to assert his control over her.

Jason intercepts Caddy's letter containing a check for Miss Quentin and sends Caddy a deceptive telegraph in reply.

Jason spots Miss Quentin walking with a man in a red tie and pursues them through town and by automobile.

Jason goads Miss Quentin into tears at the supper table until she runs crying to her room.

Miss Quentin is discovered missing from her locked room and Jason finds his hidden cash stash has been stolen.

The sheriff refuses to help Jason find Miss Quentin and implies he is aware of Jason's financial misdeeds.

The carriage carrying Benjy approaches the cemetery from the wrong side and Jason leaps from a passing car to correct it.

The Compson family's fall is traced through its most headline events, from Benjy's anguished life along the golf fence to the final chaotic Sunday. Quentin Compson spends his last day at Harvard collecting weights and settling affairs before drowning himself a week after his sister Caddy's marriage. Jason takes over the household in the years that follow, scheming to steal money intended for his niece Miss Quentin while controlling her daily life with an iron fist. His grip finally slips when Miss Quentin disappears overnight, taking his stolen hoard of cash and escaping with a man from the traveling show. Jason's desperate attempts to retrieve her are thwarted at every turn, culminating in humiliation at the sheriff's office and a brutal attack by a show performer. The novel closes with a quiet image of order restored only in the smallest way—Benjy's carriage turned back in the right direction—as the Compson family's long decline reaches its silent conclusion.

The Compson family's most pivotal moments of decline and collapse.

Luster searches the grass for a lost quarter he needs to buy a ticket to the traveling show coming to town.

Mother hesitates over letting Benjy stand in the cold waiting for Caddy to come home from school at Christmas.

Young Caddy threatens to run away when the siblings face punishment, then immediately comforts Benjy by promising she will not leave.

T.P. discovers Father's hidden cellar alcohol and gets both himself and Benjy drunk during Caddy's wedding celebration.

Roskus tells Dilsey that Benjy senses the family's misfortune the way an animal senses approaching death.

Quentin finds Deacon near campus and hands him a letter with strict instructions not to deliver it until tomorrow.

Herbert Head tries to bribe Quentin with cash to stay silent after Quentin discovers Head was expelled from Harvard for cheating.

Quentin buys pastries and bread for a young foreign girl who silently follows him and will not tell him where she lives.

Julio runs toward Quentin and the girl, accuses him of kidnapping his sister, and has Quentin briefly detained by authorities.

Quentin asks a college friend out of nowhere if he has a sister, then attacks him in a blind rage.

Jason recalls Caddy arriving uninvited and heavily veiled at Father's funeral, begging for a chance to see her infant daughter.

Jason arranges for a hired carriage to race past Caddy so she gets only a fleeting glimpse of her infant daughter.

Mrs. Compson calls repeatedly for a hot water bottle from her bedroom while Dilsey struggles to manage the chaotic Sunday morning.

A guest preacher delivers an unexpectedly powerful sermon at the Black church that moves the entire congregation, Dilsey, and Benjy.

Jason surrenders his search for Miss Quentin and pays a Black man to drive his car back to Jefferson for him.

Behind the headline events of the Compson family's decline are quieter moments that reveal the emotional undercurrents of their daily life. From Luster hunting a lost quarter to attend the traveling show, to Caddy comforting a sobbing Benjy by promising never to leave, these scenes build the intimate portrait of a fractured household. Quentin's final day includes buying food for a bewildered foreign girl and being briefly arrested before his college friends secure his release. Jason's memories of Caddy at their father's funeral and his calculated cruelty in granting her only a fleeting glimpse of her own infant daughter illuminate how deliberately he wields his power over both women. The final section offers a moment of spiritual grace as Dilsey attends a moving church service with Benjy, a small island of dignity amid the household chaos. Jason ultimately surrenders his pursuit of Miss Quentin and must pay someone else to drive him home, a broken and defeated man.

The quieter secondary scenes that fill in the texture of the family's world.

Mr. Patterson intercepts the letter Benjy is carrying for Uncle Maury to Mrs. Patterson, exposing the ongoing affair.

Caddy's familiar scent changes from trees after an encounter with a local boy, and Benjy recognizes her innocence is gone.

Caddy assures teenage Benjy twice that she is not going away, a promise that circumstances will eventually force her to break.

Benjy watches Miss Quentin cozying up with a suitor in the backyard swing, which triggers vivid memories of Caddy's own behavior.

Quentin notices his own shadow falling onto the river and contemplates that a drowned man's shadow waits for him in the water.

Quentin confronts Dalton Ames over his relationship with Caddy and demands he leave town, but is physically humiliated in the encounter.

Quentin holds a knife to Caddy's throat in a failed attempt at a mutual death pact, unable to go through with it.

Father tells Quentin that a man only destroys himself when he finally realizes that even his own despair signifies nothing.

Jason's employer hints that he knows the real source of Jason's new car, implying he is aware of the financial scheme.

Jason threatens to have Benjy sent to the Jackson asylum if Caddy ever attempts to contact her brother again.

Jason tricks Miss Quentin into signing over her mother's money order without letting her see the full fifty-dollar amount.

Jason returns home to find Benjy clutching Caddy's left-behind slipper and crying, then threatens Dilsey for allowing the visit.

Luster casually reveals to Dilsey that he and Benjy have watched Miss Quentin climb out of the window many times before.

The sheriff tells Jason directly that his own tyrannical behavior is what drove Miss Quentin to run away.

Dilsey tells her daughter Frony that she has seen the beginning and now sees the ending of the Compson family.

The Compson family's fate is shaped not just by dramatic events but by the private turning points and revelations that accumulate across generations. Benjy senses Caddy's lost innocence through scent alone, and Caddy's broken promise to never leave him marks the first fracture in the family's core bond. Quentin's obsession with Caddy culminates in a failed murder-suicide pact with a knife and a final crushing conversation with Father about the futility of despair. Jason's section reveals the full architecture of his treachery—from tricking Miss Quentin into signing away her money to threatening Caddy with Benjy's institutionalization to keep her compliant. The final section delivers its own quiet bombshells: Luster's casual disclosure that Miss Quentin's window escapes were nothing new, and the sheriff's blunt verdict that Jason himself drove her away. Dilsey's solemn pronouncement that she has now witnessed both the beginning and the ending of the Compsons gives the novel its most devastating closing truth.