"You all will have to look out for pa the best you can," she said. "I'm tired."
This quote from Tull's mother is possibly the best dying statement I have ever read. From Tull's description of her working almost every day of her life, rarely taking even a moment to rest, one could make the argument that she literally looked around one day and decided that she wanted to die because death seemed similar to sleep. The same suggestion of death as a choice that everyone makes is constantly brought up in reference to Addie's death, especially when Anse insists that "Her mind is set on it, I reckon she's bound to go." Jewel seems to also consider his mother's death a decision, however he sees it as a decision being forced upon her by Anse's indecision, Darl's appearance of indifference, Cash and his coffin and Dewey Dell and her fan. He believes that if it were not for the rest of his family interfering, Addie may have decided to live after all. Even Doctor Peabody mentions that "when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind." I have read this novel before but only noticed this time that, despite Anse's assurance that Addie wants die and be buried in Jefferson and Cora's conviction that she is holding on just to be able to give her eldest sons their goodbye kisses, Addie seemingly decides to die at the most inconvenient time for anyone. Her coffin is not finished, Darl and Jewel are far away, and there is a powerful storm brewing. While Tull's mother apparently chose to die to escape her life of toil and fatigue, and most characters outside of family seem to think Addie is doing the same, it seems to me that if Addie literally chose to die, she had a different motivation.
Discussion question: Why is the scene of Addie's death narrated from Darl's point of view? Darl is obviously absent from the actual house, however he knows every detail of her death and interjects his own narration of himself telling Jewel that Addie has died. Are we supposed to be led to believe that Darl has some kind of supernatural powers?
The children of the Bundren family each possess a uniqueness of character and voice to color the reader's experience of their dysfunctional family dynamic. One particularly odd chapter may seem out of place or irrelevant, but reconsider Cash's chapter (82-83) of a list of thirteen items.
ReplyDeleteThe chapter begins "I made it on the bevel" (82). Each successive point on the list serves as an argument to support Cash's action that he has already taken (noting the past tense of "made"), making the list more of a justification than a decision-making process. This aside, the passage leaves more questions than answers, specifically in regard to why Cash makes the cognitive leaps that he does from one element to the next. Perhaps the best light in which to view this passage is one illuminating the intent and thought-process behind an otherwise tedious, task-oriented set of explanations.
Discussion Questions - What is the effect of the rhetorical shift at item 6? What is the significance of the orientation of joints and seams and with what are these orientations associated? How does this passage relate to Cash's view of Addie's death? Considering the symbolic meaning of certain numbers, what place does numerology have in this number-laden passage?