Sometimes
I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane
until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It’s like it aint
so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks
is looking at him when he does it.
Cash relates these thoughts in Section 53,
as he discusses his family’s decision to commit his brother Darl
to a mental institution after Darl burns down Gillespie’s barn in
an attempt to destroy Addie’s corpse. Cash’s conclusion—that sanity
is a relative term and that Darl’s apparent insanity is nothing
more than his failure to conform to social norms—reflects an understanding
of the radical subjectivity that the novel’s various narrative perspectives
create. In light of the injury, property loss, and stench that the
Bundrens’ attempt to bury Addie has created, Cash does appear to
have a point with his suggestion that Darl is not insane. The reason
that Darl, and not the rest of his family, is declared insane may
be simply that the perspectives of the rest of the Bundren family
outnumber his.