While riding through the country (pp. 146-168), Quentin's thoughts continually return to Caddy's sins. His thoughts and remembrances give us clues to the motivations behind Caddy's promiscuity and reveal Quentin's desperate love for his sister. Caddy feels the need to reject all that the Compsons stand for, especially the world of Mrs. Compson and Jason IV. Even though she loves her father, his cynicism and nihilism are destructive to any type of significant relationship. Therefore, in order to reject everything connected with the false Compson world, Caddy commits acts of sexual promiscuity. She is searching for ways of rejecting and escaping from this awful world. Her method is to enter into sexual relationships with various men; to her, her sins are only more forms of disorder. In contrast, Quentin's driving impulse is to bring order into the world and into his life. Later in this section, we discover that he thinks that if he can convince his father that he, Quentin, committed incest with Caddy, the disorder of Caddy's sin will fade away. Ultimately, however, he realizes that incest would only contribute to the disorder rather than solve it.
Quentin's memory of the other branch scene (pp. 155-96) connects his section with that of Benjy's. Again, Caddy's lying in the branch, letting the water run over her, is her symbol of purification. Since her sexual indulgences are all forms of rejection, she feels the need for cleansing or purifying herself after each encounter. Then each new encounter is a new rejection.
The latter part of the scene is significant since Quentin is offering Caddy a double suicide pact. Caddy is quite willing because suicide would be a complete rejection of her parents, but finally it is Quentin who cannot bring himself to complete the pact.
The knife is also a Freudian phallic symbol. Consequently, on a symbolic level, we may say that Quentin is suggesting incest and that Caddy is again quite willing, but it is Quentin who is unable to carry through the plan. Caddy, who believes that there is a curse on the entire Compson family, is quite willing to commit either suicide or incest since both acts would be violent rejections of the Compson world. But for Quentin, who searches for a meaning in life through an ordered existence, both acts would only lead to further disorder by being violations of accepted behavior.
