The second chapter of the Sound and the Fury is narrated by the second oldest Compson brother, Quentin. Although Quentin is eloquent in his language, as he is a student of Harvard, his chapter can be harder to understand than Benji's. For Benji things are black and white. He understands by using his senses and only can grasp concrete things. Quentin however has guilt, jealousy, anger and all the other complex emotions that every human experiences. On top of that Quentin is not in a healthy mental state while narrating. All of this can make Quentin's chapter hard to follow and takes dedication to read and decipher it.

Quentin seems to have an obsession with escaping time. He also seems to be escaping himself throughout his day. He never establishes a clear "I" to narrate the chapter. It almost seems as if Quentin is having an out of body experience. He is not focused on the present and what is going on around him but rather is obsessed with the past. For example when he breaks the glass of his watch on his side table he doesn't even notice that he cut his finger until he looked down and saw red. He is so out of touch with the present he cannot even experience pain. This makes for a dangerous and potential downfall. The past is consuming him. He wants nothing more than to escape the past and he feels the only way to do this is through suicide.

Quentin is going mad because of his frustration. He cannot do anything right. He cannot win in a fight, he cannot save Caddy, he cannot finish Harvard. No matter how hard he tries to fix Caddy's problem nothing he tries works, even after he tells his father he commits incest so he could take the blame rather than Caddy. He also can't solve the problem in his family or stick to Southern code. Quentin fees defeat and frustration which also is another factor to his suicide. He is giving up. Suicide is a way for him to escape himself and his past.