From Darl’s departure to Anse’s marriage
[A]int none of us pure crazy and aint
none of us pure sane. . . . [I]t aint so much what a fellow does,
but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he
does it.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Cash
Cash explains why the family has decided to send Darl
to a mental institution in Jackson. He says that because Gillespie
was prepared to sue the Bundrens over the fire, they had no other
choice. The family drives into Jefferson. Darl proposes that they
treat Cash’s leg before burying Addie. Cash says that he can wait.
Anse stops the wagon in front of a house and enters to ask for a
shovel. A gramophone is playing inside, which interests Cash. Anse
stays longer than expected and eventually emerges with two shovels.
After the Bundrens finish burying Addie, the men from the institution
show up to take Darl away. Darl struggles violently, but his family,
with Dewey Dell in the lead, helps to subdue him. Darl sits on the
ground, stunned, laughing uncontrollably.
Peabody
Peabody treats Cash’s broken leg. He says that Cash will
hobble on a shortened leg for the rest of his life—if he walks again.
Peabody berates Cash for allowing Anse to set his leg in cement
and loudly deplores Anse’s treatment of his children.
MacGowan
MacGowan, a clerk at the Jefferson drugstore, is at work
when a young girl enters. MacGowan finds the young woman, Dewey
Dell, attractive, and he takes advantage of the the absence of his
boss by pretending to be a doctor. Dewey Dell explains her situation
to MacGowan, who understands that she wants an abortion. She offers
him ten dollars to perform the operation. MacGowan’s cover is almost
blown when a coworker interrupts them, but he lies his way out of
it. He tells Dewey Dell that ten dollars is not enough, and asks
her how far she is willing to go for this operation. Desperate, the
young woman agrees. MacGowan picks a bottle at random for her to
drink and tells her to meet him back at the store that night for the
rest of the procedure. She drinks from the bottle and leaves. That night,
MacGowan closes the store down and waits there. Dewey Dell arrives
promptly with a young boy, Vardaman, who waits on the curb outside
the store. MacGowan hands Dewey Dell a box of talcum capsules and
tells her to come to the cellar with him.
Vardaman
Vardaman accompanies Dewey Dell on an evening walk through Jefferson.
They pass through the dark streets and the closed stores. Vardaman
wants to stop to look at a toy train, but Dewey Dell takes them
in the other direction, where she enters a drugstore, leaving Vardaman
on the curb. Vardaman sits alone in the town square, thinking about
how Darl went crazy, and stares at a lone cow. Dewey Dell emerges,
and as they walk back to their hotel, she repeatedly makes the cryptic
comment that “it” will not work.
Darl
Darl rants to himself as he is brought to the mental institution
by armed guards. He switches madly between the first and third person perspective
as he wonders why Darl cannot stop laughing, even as he lies in
a dirty, grimy cell in Jackson.
Dewey Dell
Anse asks Dewey Dell about her ten dollars. She claims
that she made it by selling Cora’s cakes. Anse wants to borrow the
money, but Dewey Dell explains that it is not hers to loan. She
says that if he takes the money from her, he will be a thief. Anse
takes the money anyway and leaves the hotel.
