Jason Compson IV

Although Jason Compson IV has an individual entry in the "Appendix," his scorn for his family resonates throughout the second half of the text, which reflects his sense that he is the only "sane" man in an insane family (338). He is described as "logical rational contained and even a philosopher in the old stoic tradition" (338). He blackmails his sister, fears the black servant who suspects him of blackmail, and "competed and held his own with the Snopeses who took over the little town" (338). As the final inheritor of the Compson domain, he shows his disregard for the legacy of the "solid square mile" of land that his namesake, the first Jason Compson, had settled (328). He sells the home to a man who turns it into a boardinghouse, and, having learned to "class and grade cotton" (339), becomes a broker and moves into a set of rooms in town to which a woman that the town calls "his friend from Memphis" visits on weekends (340). He is now fully modernized, living only steps away from his "cotton ledgers and samples" in the store (339), and having acquired female companionship without any of the usual complexities introduced by commitment or cohabitation.