In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T. S. Eliot writes the devastating line, “It is impossible to say exactly what I mean,” which has been referenced incessantly as the thesis of modernism. Although William Faulkner's writings expound a wide range of themes, his widely varying pieces endlessly reiterate Eliot's statement; As complex, profound, and exquisite as their thoughts and emotions often are, Faulkner's characters consistently fail to express themselves adequately. With this scheme, Faulkner alludes to the very nature of writing and what may be his greatest struggle, that of communicating his ideas to others on paper. communication deficiencies of the child. In the first chapter, Benjy mistakes the girl Burgess for his sister Caddy, and his attempt to hug her is interpreted as an attack. Benjy describes the scene this way: “They came. I opened the gate and they stopped, turning. I was trying to say, and I caught her, as she was trying to say, and she was screaming and I was trying to say and I was trying and the light shapes started to stop and I was trying to get out” (SAF 53). He tries to speak, to explain himself, at least four times, but his mental disabilities make it impossible for him to say anything and trap his true intentions inside him. By showing his readers Benjy's punishment for the apparent attack—castration—Faulkner shows the castrating and perhaps dehumanizing helplessness that comes from unsuccessfully translating thought into words. Furthermore, as a prime example, Benjy's incapacity is so strong that he disconnects words from speech, which Faulkner illustrates through his punctuation. With "'Silence, Benjy.' Caddy... center of card... actors who fail to express what they think to communicate nonverbally, as in the case of Cash's audible response to Darl's silent thought (AILD 144) and Darl's unspoken conversation and Dewey Dell on Addie's impending death (AILD 27) in As I Lay Dying However, even then there is uncertainty, and the stream-of-consciousness style of parts of that novel and of The Sound and the Fury reflects the. Faulkner's fixation on the process of developing words and explanation. In “Spotted Horses” the male characters observe Eck motionless: “Watching him, they could almost see him visibly gathering and arranging words, speeches” (PF 339). his characters do in all his works: they personify the human need to organize the mind to collect and organize words, a goal that cannot be achieved perfectly; however, for Faulkner, it is approachable and therefore must be attempted.