Darl
Darl is standing with Anse when Jewel passes them, heading
for the barn. Anse remarks to Darl that Jewel is disrespectful for
not coming with them to bury the body. Cash proposes that they leave
Jewel behind. Darl says that Jewel will catch up to them, and he
sets out with the rest of the family in the wagon, which bears the
coffin.
Anse
Anse frets that Jewel lacks respect, even for his dead
mother, and Darl begins to laugh in response. The wagon has just
passed Tull’s lane, and, just as Darl has predicted, Jewel approaches
swiftly behind them on the back of his horse.
Darl
Darl sees Jewel approaching. The group passes Tull, who
waves at them. Cash notes that the corpse will begin to smell in
a few days, and that the coffin is still unbalanced. Darl proposes
that Cash mention these observations to Jewel. A mile later, Jewel
passes the wagon without acknowledgment. As Jewel passes them, his
horse’s hooves kick up a spot of mud on the coffin, which Cash diligently scours
off.
Anse
Anse reflects on how unfair the life of the farmer is,
and reflects on the reward he expects in heaven. The family drives
all day and reaches the farm of a man named Samson just before dark,
only to find that torrential rains have caused the rivers to swell
and flood the bridges. Anse takes comfort in the fact that he will
be getting a new set of teeth.
Analysis
The Bundren children show their grief in quite disparate
ways, but these reactions can be broken into two rudimentary categories: physical
and mental. Darl lives entirely in the realm of the mind, and almost
never expresses emotion. He is so bent on rationalizing events that
he refuses to acknowledge that his mother even exists anymore. Dewey
Dell finds herself similarly lost in thought, although she appears
to place the loss of her mother completely second to her own fears
and sexual longings. In fact, for Dewey Dell, the possibility that
a life is lurking inside her is more frightening than the idea of
death. Cash, on the other hand, lives in a world that is entirely
physical. He copes with, or ignores, the death of his mother by
absorbing himself in the construction of her coffin. This fixation
with building does not stop when the coffin is finished, and we
see Cash fretting over the imbalance of the coffin and bringing his
toolbox to the funeral. Cash’s manner throughout the turmoil of Addie’s
death is incredibly deliberate, and it seems fitting that he acquires
a limp, the perfect physical complement to his slow, stunted approach
to all things emotional.
Vardaman and Jewel, however, come close to finding a
middle ground between these extremes. Jewel’s reaction to Addie’s
death is highly emotional. He almost single-handedly muscles the
coffin into the wagon, and loudly curses his various siblings—actions
that indicate a very strong physical and mental reaction. Moreover,
Jewel displays great determination in refusing to ride with his
family and in the speed with which he rushes by the rest of the
Bundrens on his horse. Darl’s equation of Jewel’s mother with a
horse certainly parallels the thinking of Vardaman, who tries to
cope with the complexities of what his mother’s death means to him.
Vardaman’s reactions are largely mental efforts, but his earlier
beating of Peabody’s horses, and the fact that he returns to the
bog to catch another fish, demonstrate that he too reacts to things
on a physical level. If the siblings’ reactions do find common ground,
it is because each singles out one object or issue through which
to filter Addie’s death: Darl with questions of existence, Jewel
with horses, Vardaman with fish, Cash with his carpentry, and Dewey
Dell with her sexuality.
