That’s
what they mean by the love that passeth understanding: that pride,
that furious desire to hide that abject nakedness which we bring
here with us, . . . carry stubbornly and furiously with us into
the earth again.
Peabody has these thoughts about the
dying Addie Bundren at the end of Section 11.
A seasoned doctor, Peabody approaches Addie’s situation with an
objective, hard-nosed realism. Here, Peabody comments on Addie’s
love for her favorite son, Jewel, who has refused to come to her
and bid her farewell before setting out on a short trip, even though
there is a good chance she will be dead when he returns. In Peabody’s
mind, Addie’s love for Jewel is unrequited, and her determination
to continue loving him with such force is a sign of stubbornness,
irrationality, and pride. From our perspective, there is some irony
in Peabody’s statement. Peabody does not know, for example, that
Jewel is the product of Addie’s illicit, passionate affair with
Whitfield and thus that her devotion to Jewel may not be as irrational
as it seems. Additionally, Peabody says that Addie is no more than
a “pack-horse” to Jewel, unaware that the living creature to which
Jewel shows more devotion than any other happens to be a horse.
In making reference to the “love that passeth understanding,” Peabody
invokes a reference to the biblical book Ephesians, in which the
same phrase is used to describe the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:19).
Peabody’s use of a biblical reference to describe a very human relationship
demonstrates the degree to which the characters in the novel understand
their experiences along religious lines. As I Lay Dying is
not itself didactic or moralistic, and Faulkner’s aim is not to
suggest that God is exercising judgment upon the Bundrens. However,
this passage reveals the extent to which the characters themselves
consciously and unconsciously interpret their lives using the values
and explanations provided by the Bible.