A Psychological View of Benjy’s Mental Retardation
Benjamin Compson, a character from The Sound and the Fury, is the youngest child of Jason and Caroline Compson who has round the clock supervision. His keepers say, “he been three years old thirty years” (Faulkner 17). Mental retardation is a condition that is associated with a person who develops slowly. “The label mentally retarded is applied when someone is significantly below average in general intellectual functioning (IQ less than 70) and has significant deficits in adaptive functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2000)” (qtd. In Huffman 306). Benjy’s character matches this definition of mentally retarded perfectly. In order for psychologists to recognize persons’ with mental retardation, they use the Standford-Binet Intelligence Scale to test their intelligence level. If an individual score a 70 or below on the IQ test the person is incapable of functioning properly and is referred to as mentally retarded. He......
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