The Compson children are ignorant of the death of their grandmother. Caddy is the only one of the Compson children brave enough to climb the pear tree and look through the window to "spy" on the visitors who have come to attend what she realizes is the funeral wake. While Caddy does this, her brothers stand below, gazing up at her muddy underwear, which were soiled earlier when they were playing in a creek adjoining the Compson estate. Faulkner uses the muddy underwear as an emblem of Caddy's incipient sexuality; he frequently introduces bathing scenes in which water is used as a cleansing and purifying agent.
Many of Benjy's other memories focus on Caddy, including when she uses perfume (1905), when she loses her virginity (1909), and her wedding (1910). Benjy also has impressions of his name change (from Maury to Benjamin) in 1900, his brother Quentin's suicide in 1910, and the horrific sequence of events at the gate that lead to his being castrated, also in 1910.
Section Two is seen from Quentin Compson's mind on June 2, 1910, the day he prepares for and eventually commits suicide. Alone in his regard for the illustrious history and tradition of the Compson family, Quentin's reflections on time introduce another significant theme. Just as Benjy did, Quentin reflects on Caddy, her emerging sexuality, and the mortification he experiences at the implications of her unwed pregnancy. In many ways, Quentin represents pre–Civil War views of honor, Southern womanhood, and virginity. He cannot accept his sister's growing sexuality, just as he cannot accept his father's notion that "virginity" is merely an invention by men. Just as many of Benjy's flashbacks directly concern his involvement in Caddy's sexual maturation, so do Quentin's. The flashbacks dramatize just how ineffectual Quentin is in his dealings with his family, his Harvard studies, and his belief that the Compsons can return to their earlier days of Southern tradition.
