The final section uses time by emphasizing the clock that Dilsey keeps on the kitchen wall. When the clock strikes five times, Dilsey knows that it is eight o'clock. She is able to bring order out of the confusion and chaos of the Compson world. When she takes Benjy to the church, she hears a sermon about the beginning and the end. She returns home, feeling that she has been with the Compsons since the beginning and now she has seen evidence that the end is coming very soon. Dilsey, therefore, is the only character who functions within the continuum of time. Her present care of, and loyalty to, the Compsons is a result of her past association with them.
Faulkner's use of time as a motif is probably one of his main concerns in the novel. Much of the meaning of the novel evolves through an understanding of each character's reaction to time.
