Analysis
In these sections, verb tenses fluctuate as each character
tells his or her version of the river-crossing in either the present
or the past tense. One of the functions of this technique is to
separate the immediacy of the Bundrens’ involvement with their plight
from the detachment that Cora and Tull experience as observers who
are not particularly invested in the Bundrens’ problems. While the
Bundrens generally narrate in the present tense, Cora and Vernon
Tull usually give their monologues in the past tense. The past tense
gives Cora and Tull an air of careful consideration, as if they
have had some time to consider and evaluate the entire story before
telling it with calmness, rationality, and balance. The Bundrens,
on the other hand, do not have the luxury of reflection, as they
are trapped in a frenzied and confusing world that allows time only
for frantic explanations.
After the bridges wash out and their crossing is foiled,
the Bundrens begin to seem more and more like the victims of some
cosmic hex. Cash suffers the most in the failed crossing, reinjuring
the leg that he first broke after falling off of a church. This
injury can be seen as the result of his heroic self-sacrifice in
telling Darl to leave the wagon for safety while refusing to do
so himself, or it can be read as darkly comic bad luck brought on
by forces outside of the Bundrens’ control.
Darl’s language, on the other hand, suggests something
less humorous and more apocalyptic. When Darl describes the desolate air
that surrounds the wagon as it enters the river, which he compares
to “the place where the motion of the wasted world accelerates just
before the final precipice,” he employs particularly fatalistic
language. Cast in this light, the river becomes a final frontier
separating the Bundrens from the next life, and given the circumstances
that lead up to this journey, it is hard to gauge whether Addie
is being sent off to heaven or to hell.
The crossing of the river is especially fraught with
religious references, and in some ways seems like the fulfillment
of a long-standing curse of biblical proportions. Cora has already
speculated that Vardaman’s strange behavior is a curse on Addie
and Anse, and she reiterates this point here, calling Addie overly
proud and an idolater, due to Addie’s worship of Jewel. Now the
absurd circumstances of the first few sections appear to add up
to a colossal punishment for these past sins. This river episode
also invokes classical mythology, most notably the legend of the
River Styx. According to the ancient Greeks, the River Styx flowed
nine times around the underworld, a spiral of poisonous waters that
were thought to dissolve any mortal vessel that attempted to make
a crossing—a consequence similar to the disastrous effect that crossing
the river has on the Bundrens’ mule team and wagon. In classical
mythology, however, the damned crossing the river were aided by
a boatman named Charon, while the Bundrens have no such assistance,
and are left to navigate the river alone.
