Caroline Bascomb Compson

Mrs. Compson is the mother of 4 children: Quentin, Candace, Jason and mentally deficient

Benjy. She is always aching, considering herself sick, but in fact a healthy, manipulative, unpleasant, passive-aggressive woman. Her brother Maury, who lives with the Compsons, is a lazy alcoholic. After her daughter’s disappearing Mrs. Compson swears that her granddaughter, Quentin, would not even know the name of her mother. She is sure that their family will be forever disgraced because of Candace. She forbids her to come and wants never to see her again.

Mrs. Compson sees her only support and joy in her son — Jason, saying that he was the only one of her children who was born not with the Compson’s blood, infected with madness and death, but with Bascomb’s (Her maiden name was Bascomb). She strongly objects to send Benjy to the lunatic asylum, insisting on the need to bear her cross, but at the same time trying to see and hear about her insane son as little as possible. She lives in sweet self-deception, ignoring the fact that her family is dying, only carrying about her reputation and crying over the past.