Quentin's Father

The "father" of the "Quentin" who narrates this story (almost certainly Quentin Compson) apparently joins the hunt on its last day; he speaks to his son several times, and that son also remembers what his father told him about hunting safety (193), so "father said" - the phrase that haunts Quentin Compson's section of The Sound and the Fury, published in 1929, half a dozen years earlier - also appears often in Quentin's narrative here (193, 195, etc.). But in the wilderness setting of the story there is no anguish in the father-son relationship, and the "father" himself, based on what he does say, seems very different from the cynic in the novel. In fact, he seems hopeful about the future, and anxious to give his son good advice as a hunter. Even before his father appears in the story, Quentin remembers that "father had taught me never to take [his rifle's safety] off until I saw what I was going to shoot at" (193).