As I lay dying
Faulkner :
Born in the south of America, Mississippi in 1897, often grouped with the lost generation because he belonged to it, burn at the turn of the 20th c. Just before 1900s.
Their first experience of life as adults were WWI. War= Major fact of life in America
he grew up and spent most of his life in Mississippi, unlike the author writers of the lost generation, he didn’t expatriate in Europe like Hemingway, Dos passos…he just visited Paris for a few months, to attend 2 cubistic exhibitions. He was influenced by French cubism.
As I lay dying is influenced by cubism.
He was an admirer of Paul Cézanne (started the process that led to cubism and picasso’s cubism)
New ways of representing reality, conception of reality as being multi faceted. Reality had to be approached from different angles in order to get a comprehensive picture of reality, need for diff points of view.
Prolific writer, published 19 novels and over 75 short stories.
He published all those works until he died in 1962.
1930: publish as I lay dying after his 1st modernist novel “the sound and the furry” with 3 diff. focalizers.
He elaborated with focalization in as I lay dying. Faulkner started writing it on the day following “black Thursday” = the day of the Wall Street crash: beginning of the economic depression.
Accounts for the bleak atmosphere of the novel.
As I lay dying was the last major American novel written in the euphoric era of the 1920s
1920s-1930s: the gay 20s, new economic era, liberation of manners.
1st major American novel published in the dark decade of the dark decade of the economic depression: 1930s
2 contrasted eras: 1 = prosperous, cheerful era/ 2=slump and bleak era
He won the Pulitzer prize and the Nobel prize in 1949
Novel after Novel, Faulkner endlessly described the same corner of America: state of Mississippi (familiar) but fictional re creation. In most of his novels he represented a little corner of America which he called “Yoknapatawpha county”(Indian words)= the split land: does not really exist. He portrays a fictional place in his novel.
Jefferson in his novels= Oxford (town he was born)
He should be remembered as the father of southern literature. He influenced Ellen Glasgow, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor.
He spent his life writing about the decline of the old south after the civil war.
He wrote about the social and economic decline, the colonization of the south by the north of America. The economy of the north of America was imposed on the south. The decline of the south was accelerated by the depression. He viewed this decline as the main fact of the history of the region, characteristic feature of the south. Epic dimension. His novels= epic novels with historical perspective.
The American south was deeply religious: most fundamentalists were to be found in the “cotton belt”, southerners explained the defeat after the civil war as God’s judgment: punishment to the south because they had drifted away from the ways of God. The south was crashed by a sense of guilt, the notion of sin. It is omnipresent in Faulkner’s fictions.
To convey the southerners feeling of alienation/displacement in the modern USA (decline of the region) and their dread of the future, he relied on a particular literary genre that had been imported from Europe earlier: The gothic.
He applied this genre to his portrayal of the American south.
He was also the founder of “the southern gothic”.
The gothic locations in his novels are decaying farms, plantations…the everyday world no longer looks familiar to the southerners because they are alienated. Looks distorted.
Gothic: reliance on grotesque characters: mixture of horror and comedy( laughter): characters are both frightening and ridiculous.
In as I lay dying: the father Anse is typically a grotesque character.
- Narrative technique
Representatives of modernist experimentation in form. Narrative techniques provide a key to the understanding of the novel.
Aware of Faulkner’s purpose: better understanding of the characters and what is going on in the novel.
The writer was influenced by Cubism; he experimented with point of view, in order to represent different ways of perceiving reality.
He experimented with the fragmentation of point of view: extreme in as I lay dying.
I. Fragmentation of point of view
A. A variety of narrators:
1. Multiplicity
15 different narrators. The novel is divided in 2 sections. The various parts of the book can’t be called “chapters”= too short. They’re called sections.
59 sections in the novel.
The heading/title of each section is the name of the particular focalizer/character speaking of the section.
Some focalizers return throughout the book.
Narrators= part of the action: Homodiegetic narrators
Type of focalization: internal one
Each focalizer presented a particular scene in the way he/she perceived it. We may get differing views of an event. It depends on the observer, the focalizer reporting the scene.
2. Various degrees of presence
The narrators aren’t present in the action to the same degree. Some are more frequent narrators than others. Various degrees of presence in the action, in the narration.
2 types of narrators.
a. Within the family
Narrators members of the Budren family, half of the total narrators. They each at least narrate one section.
Addie: dead mother (narrator of section 40) by the time she is a narrator, she’s been dead already. Highly unlikely. Can’t be the narrator if she’s dead. But it makes sense as far as the overall economy of the novel is concerned, her section is the corner stone of the whole structure of the novel, sheds light on the relationships of the family. Essential section, highly meaningful.
Jewel: section 4 : mostly seen from the outside by the other characters.
Darl: major narrator: 1st narrator. In charge of the opening section of the novel. Highly meaningful. A way of endowing Darl with a hug degree of reliability. It suggests he is the most reliable narrator in the beginning.
b. narrators outside the family
Vernon and Cora Tull: occur quite a number of time
Doctor Peabody
Most intimate with the family, they can shed light on the family’s relationships.
Beside them, there are a number of occasional narrators: famers met on the way.
-Gouran reccurs twice: opportunity for the writer to provide the perspective of a city dweller on the rural characters.
His point of view is meant to emphasize the gap btw the rural world (Budren family) and the modern urban world that they’re travelling to.
Purpose of the outside observers: mostly to shed light on the family, the outside characters aren’t portrayed for their own sake, only meant as witnesses.
There’s no character analysis, no part in the development of the plot.
They only serve to provide a different approach to the Budren family because they’re uninvolved emotionally in the family tensions as well as in the journey.
They can report what they see fairly objectively, they provide facts: presence/ absence of the members of the family, history of the village…
As they’re unaware of what the budren are about during this journey, they perceive the oddity of certain actions or reactions in the budren family. They point out, highlight what is taken for granted by the budren family.
Ex: carrying 10 day an old corpse in the wagon, seems natural to most of the members of the family. They’ve given their promise and mean to keep it. Outside observers have a diff view on the matter.
They provide a social and moral norm by which the budren are to be measured.
Because of their diff status in the actions, narrations, the narrators provide conflicting views of the actions.
3. Conflicting views
What we get on a particular section depends on the nature of the character’s relationship with the others. Depends on their own nature. The view also depends on the accuracy of their observations.
The views provided are contradictory, conflicting.
Ex: Cora and Vernon have conflicting views of Darl and Jewel.
Cora is prejudiced against Jewel, she distorts the facts that she reports.
Since the focalizers are 1st person narrators, the consequence is that they may not be truthful as to their own motives. May not say the truth: may distort the account they provide.
B. Overlapping accounts:
1. No strictly linear narrative
Consequence of fragmentation and multiplicity of focus= overlapping. The various accounts by the diff focalizers overlap (se superpose)
The narrative is not strictly linear. Only globally linear: starting point of the journey and arrival: end.
Succession of sections: not linear. One section doesn’t start exactly at the point where the previous one had ended. Gap btw 2 succeeding sections or overlapping.
Most of the time, one particular element or part of the action is to be found again in the following section or one section starts a little before the previous one ends.
Ex: section 6, Cora and section 7 Dewey dell: about Addie on her death bed: overlapping occurs.
Dewey Dell’s view of Darl coming to see his mother before leaving, contradicts what Cora had said in the previous section.
The overlapping is meant to show that the 2 focalizers have perceived the scene differently.
It introduces doubt in the reader’s mind. The reader suspects there’s more to Darl’s behavior than has been represented.
There’re a number of times when the same scene is repeated, we get 2 or 3 versions of the same scene (painters’ manner).
Ex: when Addie’s coffin is hoisted in the wagon: 2 diff views are provided: cash’s view section 22 and then Darl’s account in section 23. Same scene but the 2 accounts convey the preoccupations of each focalizers.
-Cash is obsessed with the balance of the coffin (capital notion in the novel, doesn’t only apply to the position of the coffin in the novel: regarding family relationships, balance is important too)
-Darl is obsessed with his brother jewel (Darl is jealous of his brother because their mother always favored him+ he is the son of the preacher, not Anse) there’s a deep hatred btw the 2 brothers. We come to understand that in section 40 only.
3 diff accounts of the river crossing episode:
-Vernon Tull: friend/ neighbor of the family but not emotionally involved, he doesn’t enter the water, watches the scene from a distance
-Darl: acutest observer, most frequent narrator
-Vardaman, 7 y. o child: fails to understand a thing of what is going on.
Use of fragmented point of view+ internal focalization, the perception of the scene we get is unmediated by an omniscient hetero diegetic narrator. 1st person focalizer: their view is never corrected by an overall narrator.
C. Unmediated perception
1.No central narrative authority: no norm, stable interpretation
The accounts are left to stand by themselves, there isn’t an omniscient narrator stepping in to correct the accounts.
The choice of internal focalization implies that the reader get no more knowledge than the fictional characters.
The point of view of the focalizer is limited, not omniscient.
Complete absence of an omniscient point of view= no reliable, stable interpretation is provided to the reader.
No model is provided for validating or contradicting, correcting the view provided by the focalizer.
It is necessary for readers to cross check what they read against the accounts of the other characters.
They can’t for granted what is told by an individual focalizer.
The reader has to piece together, the information that he acquires gradually from one section to the other in order to have a definite opinion, to come to an understanding of the various characters and the plot.
Nobody holds the truth. Each observer has his/her own truth.
2. indeterminacy
The narrative discourse is characterized by vagueness/ indeterminacy. For each account we’re supposed to be inside the mind of the narrator. He won’t specify who he’s talking about because he knows. We get an extremely vague narrative with personal pronouns instead of names.
As readers, we have to do some guess work and try and understand what they’re talking about.
Characters usually start their sections right in the middle of their thinking process: we don’t know what they’re talking about.
No explanation is ever supplied.
Ex: section 7: Dewey dell “the first time me and Lafe picked on down the road” : at this stage we don’t know who Lafe is, what is their relationship…we have to try and guess.
“ I cannot help it”: recurrence of “it”: indeterminate, neutral pronoun. What is “it”? it does not necessarily refer to the same thing
Each focalizer constantly suggests things, they don’t bother to explain.
Significant use of “it” : recurrent figure of American literature: Hemingway, minimalists in the 1970s
Characters use “it” because they are afraid of mentioning disturbing facts.
“It” for Dewey dell: refers to the baby she’s expecting or the abortion she has in mind. Throughout the novel she is obsessed but wants to forget about it too. She uses “it” to try to mask reality.
Addie’s death is not refered to explcititly, the characters never use the word “death”, when they have addie in mind they refer to it as “it”
Same for “coffin”, they use the general term “box” sometimes
Jewel uses suspension dots to avoid naming the disturbing facts.
3. Unreliable narrators
a. Misinterpretation
Consequence of internal focalization: the narrators are unreliable.
The sources of their narrative distortions.
Modernist credo: each character tries to find his own truth, not one single truth. Each focalizer tries to grope for (tatonner) knowledge with the means available to him/her. Number of errors of perceptions in their account.
One of the main source of misrepresentation: the characters’ misinterpretation of a fact.
Ex: Vernon Tull misinterpret a word said by Darl in the beginning when the boys discussed the possibility of delivering a load of wood (to earn 3 extra dollars)
Darl says “wait” and Tull misinterpret it, believes Darl doesn’ t want to go away to deliver the wood, means that Jewel initiate the trip. But this is wrong because the one who urges his brother to go away is Darl. When he says “wait” he doesn’t mean he wants to wait til their mother dies.
Then the scene is corrected by Darl himself
b. prejudice
Other source of distortion: characters are biased against each other.
The focalizer’s perception is distorted by their likes and dislikes of the character described.
Darl= Jealous of Jewel, will necessarily misrepresent Jewel. His view is influenced by his jealousy.
Cora is biased: she is biased in favor of Darl and against Jewel. It comes to a point when because of the focalizer’s distorted perception, a statement is in contradiction to the truth, we get the exact opposite of what actually goes on.
Ex: section 39: Cora says about Addie “when the only sin she committed was being partial to Jewel that never loved her”: Cora believes Jewel hates his mother. On the contrary he loves his mother but with an exclusive love, doesn’t want to share his mother with his siblings.
Cora sets the reader on the wrong track saying Jewel never loved his mother.
She gives a distorted account of the boys leave taking because she sees the scene through her bias. Section 6 “not him to come and tell her goodbye…at the price of his mother’s goodbye kiss”
She says that “Jewel is a Budren through and through”: but in fact he is not even a Budren since he is not Anse’s son.
c. defective judgment/ faulty judgment
judgment is impaired by ignorance, inexperience or intellectual inability.
The issue of the intellectual ability of the focalizer is capital regarding Vardaman. His mind= confused. He fails to understand what death is about, what it means. Vardaman embodies the height of unreliability because he is young: no experience of life, doesn’t understand the world of adults.
All is accounts provide us with an incoherent rendering of reality. He comes up with snatches of overheard conversations, segments of sentences he fails to piece information together in order to have a complete picture.
“my mother is a fish”: most extreme example. The reader can’t believe him.
The reader can’t believe what is said, he has to question what he reads.
What the narrators say shouldn’t be understood about what Faulkner/the author thinks.
15 different narrators, each has to have his specific voice. The author created distinct narrative voices in order t differentiate them. The voice of each is recognizable, identifiable because of 2 elements:
-the character’s level of understanding of reality: perceptiveness
-the style of the narrator: each use language, words in a different way
II. Creation of distinct voices
A. Various degrees of perceptiveness
Each monologue mirrors the intellectual abilities of the narrator.
In the book, throughout the novel, we get the whole range of degrees of perception, from the inarticulate child of seven y.o to the highly abstract nature of Darl’s mind.
Perceptiveness= ability to perceive, capacity for perception.
1. The articulate elder brothers : Darl and cash
a. Darl as central intelligence
Central intelligence of the novel, most reliable narrator, the one who comes closest to the implied author: what we suppose to be the authorial voice in the novel.
The quality of his perception is established from the very 1st section: significant that the 1st section is told by Darl: it establishes him as the most reliable narrator.
Quality of his perception: what is conveyed to the reader is the accuracy of Darl’s perception.
The rest of the novel will confirm the fact that he is gifted with uncommon acuity of vision to the point that his vision.
He is endowed with clairvoyance= he can see through appearances. He is so perceptive that he is gifted with intuition. He can decode, decipher signs.
Ex: Darl intuitively has access to Dewey Dell’s secret: she never tells him she’s pregnant.
Darl has guessed she is, he knows because he is clairvoyant. He has looked into D.D’s eyes, observed the way she behaves, he has deduced she is pregnant.
Because of his extraordinary/superior gift of perception, he comes closest to the author, he is the embodiment of one aspect of the artist: he embodies the imaginative power of the artist. He embodies imagination.
The figure of the artist is also embodied by the author articulate narrator: Cash (embodies the craftsman=artisan)
Cash is the one who does manual work.
b. cash as final narrator
he has his fit firmly on the ground, firm grasp on reality because he holds the boards, planks firmly= metaphor for his firm hold on reality. He is a practically minded character.
He uses his common sense.
He is the narrative substitute in Darl’s absence. The main crucial episodes are told by Darl, when he is away from the scene, Cash becomes the main narrator.
Ex: Darl away when his mother died, the one who announces her death is Cash. Section 12 “she’s gone”
He is the one who takes over when Darl is absent. When Darl is sent to the lunatic asylum at the end of the novel, Cash is the one who undertakes the narration section 53.
At the very end of the spectrum of narrators: Vardaman
2. the inarticulate younger children: dewey dell and vardaman
Vardaman = 7 years old
DD = 17 years old
a.literal approach to reality
They have a literal approach to reality: they mostly experience life through their bodies, not through their minds (not developed yet)
Whenever they undertake the narration, the ùain focus is on their sensations, bodily sensations.
“feel” recurrent in DD’s sections
They have no capacity for mental abstraction. They read appearances literally or they understand the words of adults literally.
Ex: vardaman has a literal view of death in section 15: “did all those rabbits and possums go further than town?” (they’re dead)
When cash announces that their mother is dead he says “she’s gone” : vardaman understands it literally: think his mother is gone (to down)
He draws from his personal experience: the death of rabbits
He understands the verb “to go” literally.
We can oppose the modes of perception of darl and vardaman: metaphorical/literal perception, understanding of reality
Darl “jewel’s mother is a horse”
Vardaman: “my mother is a fish”
However, they understand those similar statements in a highly different way.
-Darl is aware he is using a metaphor “horse”= displacement, object of comparison. Horse=metaphor for Addie. The relationship btw jewel and the horse is the same as the one btw jewel and his mother. Jewel feels an exclusive love for his mother, he desires fusion with his mother as the same way he desires fusion with his horse.
Section 4: ambivalent relationship with his horse. He is a man horse, wants to become one with his horse.
-When vardaman says his mother is a fish: during the river crossing episode, he actually believes his mother is a fish: when she is deep in the river, will escape from the coffin and go down the river. He truly thinks she is a fish.
That’s why he expects so much from darl, he thinks darl managed to catch his mother, the fish with his hands.
Vardaman and Dewey dell repeat the words of adults without understanding them: snatches of overheard words.
Section 15: “pa says sugar, coffee cost so much because I am a country boy…because boys in town” can’t finish the sentence because he hasn’t understood why coffee costs so much.
His speech is incoherent, he fails to understand the adult conversations he has overheard.
DD. too to a certain extent. Fails to make logical links btw facts.
They believe there’s a causal relationship btw events happening at the same time.
They confuse simultaneity with causality: in their eyes, what happens at the same time, means the 2 events are equivalent.
Ex: For Vardaman, Peabody is responsible for his mother’s death because he was here when she died. So he takes revenge and lashes his mules (they run away).
The next step of his quest for understanding is to say Addie died at the particular moment when I chopped the fish into pieces. (proud, feels manly, adult because he’s caught a big fish but when he chops the fish for the family to eat, his mother died) for him, there’s a connection btw the 2.
Tries to make connections but makes the wrong ones.
B. A style of their own
1. Idiosyncratic speech
A feature/ a trait that is specific to an individual being.
Faulkner tries to recreate an idiosyncratic speech. Great variety in style in the narrators.
The style reflect the complexity of the narrator’s vision.
The narrator who has the most complex view of reality has the most complex, elaborate speech.
Wide range of styles from Darl’s visionary flights of imagination/ abstract style
Cash: arithmetic style/ demonstrations and practical considerations
Vardaman: incoherent bits of sentences
Each style and each speaker is recognizable from its grammar, the vocab used, the level of rationalization.
2. The American oral tradition
Faulkner’s narrators are also typical of the American oral tradition. (Mark Twain, founder of the American oral tradition: his characters sound so lively)
The oral quality of each character in as I lay dying gives the impression that each makes his presence felt through point of view and style.
a. the use of the vernacular
The characteristic aspects of the oral tradition can be traced in as I lay dying through the use of vernacular language= daily language of ordinary people. Gives the reader the impression that the story is told rather than written.
The vernacular is present in the narrator’s style, can be traced through grammatical transgressions: ungrammatical spoken language.
The syntactic terms of the sentences are highly oral:
Phonetic transcriptions of words, colloquial vocabulary, word repetitions.
Highly unsophisticated language for all the characters apart from Darl.
Faulkner reproduces the specific dialect of the south. His characters are recognizable through the southern dialect they speak, the phonetic transcriptions, rural world: use of animal imagery, characteristic of country folks.
The non Bundren narrators, characters outside the family, contribute to creating the southern oral language. They create the voice of the community.
b. digressions in the twain tradition
Use of digressions= speeches of most narrator is rambling, tortuous.
The style is rambling.
Cora in section 2: her discourse is an instance of rambling speech relying on digressions.
Sampson’s account section 29: his main speech feature is digressions. When he speaks about women.
c. Jokes and traditional wisecracking (to crack jokes)
When Armstid section 43: comments the fact that the family called for a veterinarian to fix Cash’s leg. He says that a man often has no more sense than a horse. It isn’t surprising that Anse, who has no more sense than a horse, calls a vet: western joke typical of the oral tradition.
Faulkner’s original use of focalization in the novel reflects a new approach to external reality: typically modernist. A new approach to truth in fiction.
Modernism= truth is not transcendent: not one single truth.
Truth: not the privilege of superior being like God or an omniscient narrator in fiction.
The most that can be done is to convey what the world feels like to a specific human consciousness.
He comes closer to the truth by adding up different perspectives.
Yet, even so, dark areas remain, some mysteries remain unsolved. Literary representation is a highly difficult task, a doom attempt from the beginning because the writer tries to freeze an elusive reality.
Reality is perceived as being instable, elusive: how can a writer freeze in language, on the page this reality?
Section 34: river current= emblematic of what reality is. Reality is a flow like the current of the river, Darl fails to control it. In the same way he fails to control language/ reality.
Typical of the modernist writers who try to freeze smth that is in constant motion.
Human relationships:
As a southerner, Faulkner focused on social issues, social relationships in the south. Among the main issues in the south: racial relationships : the sensitive issue of miscegenation = intermarriages btw races.
Other main social issue for the south: the economic and social decline of the era.
The social community depicted in the novel is a homogeneous: there are no social, racial relationships. They all belong to the same social class: the class of poor white farmers= white trash.
The poorest classes of white laborers.
The stress in this novel isn’t on class differences but on person to person relationships+ on characters’ attitude towards the rest of the community.
He focuses especially on the smallest social unit of the community= the family cell.
Tension is at work exactly in the family, in the same way as in the rest of the society.
Faulkner traces the source of tension in the family, just as in society at large, to an eminently American characteristic= individualism.
What accounts for the conflicts and rivalry is individualism.
The family=Basic social microcosm which mirrors the rest of society
I. Individualism
A. apparent solidarity
At first sight the community is a closely knit one/ a united one.
But this is only a superficial impression, apparent unity conceals hidden tensions and rivalries.
1. Within the Bundren family
At first, what meets the eye is the superficial clan solidarity of the family, they behave as one entity. They’ve all given their promise to Addie. They’re connected together by it, they all mean to fulfill that promise.
There’s unity of purpose in the family= expressed by their travelling together in the wagon. (metaphor for their common purpose) they all look ahead, their eyes are set on the road in the same way as their heart is set on their purpose, the promise they made to Addie.
They all struggle together, against the river, the flood, the rain in order to keep the journey going. They stick together in times of hardship: illustrated by the river crossing episode.
Ex: when they all take part in the search for cash’s sunken tools in the river: emblematic image showing that the family seems to be a unit, they all stick together.
However, there are underlying tensions and rivalries within the family. They remain suppressed for a time in order to achieve the common purpose. But they come to the open, to the foreground at the end of the novel.
Ex: blatant rivalry btw Darl and Jewel
A tension btw Darl and Dew dell (exposed at the end when she helps the sheriff take Darl away)
Underlying tension between Jewel and Anse: Jewel seems to be at odds with all the characters of his family.
2. Between the Bundrens and their neighbours:
a. spontaneous assistance
On the face of if, solidarity prevails. The neighbours seem to readily assist the Bundrens because they feel sorry for them.
Vernon Tull is portrayed as a careful, considerate, watchful neighbor. He sends for the doctor. He spontaneously offers to lend his team of mules. Significance description of Tull by Peabody in section 11: “I thought it was Tull again sending for me…getting the most for Anse’s money as much as he does for his own”= characteristic of Tull’s spontaneous consideration for the Bundren family.
The whole community is gathered around the family for Addie’s funeral service
Solidarity is shown to be due to the persistence of rural traditions.
Unlike the cities (anonymous) in the country, everyone knows each other= solidarity prevails.
Because of the tough life in the country, famers have to stick together. Solidarity= economic necessity to survive.
This is only a partial impression though.
b. no reciprocity
Solidarity is one sided. It’s always the neighbours helping Anse, but it doesn’t work the other way around. Assistance isn’t provided according to the family’s desire but out of pity for Anse’s inefficiency. The neighbours feel sorry for the children who are the victims of Anse’s inefficiency.
Tull section 20: “he has taken care of Anse for a long time now…he can’t quit” (he talks about God) they’re quick to criticize even though they come to the rescue of Anse. Tull = critical of Anse, Cora of Addie.
They are not as closely knit as it appears.
In spite of apparent solidarity, what lays deep down is rugged individualism (exacerbé)
B. Rugged individualism
What Faulkner shows is that individualism is stronger than solidarity.
When we examine the Bundren family closely, we realize that in spite of the avowed common purpose, there are selfish personal interests at stake.
Each character has a different secret motive for taking the journey.
1.Selfish personal interests
Anse= wants new teeth, a new wife?
DD= wants an abortion
Vardaman=saw a shiny train in a shop window, wants to get it
Darl= wants to bury his mother as quickly as possible to part Jewel definitely from her. Wants to take his mother away from jewel as quickly as possible.
Cash=takes his tools because on the way back it will save him a walk to Tull’s barn: has work to do there.
Jewel= he is the only disinterested character: no secret motive. He is dedicated to the journey because what matters to him is to fulfill the given promise. The promise is central, of paramount importance for him. No other side reasons for undertaking the journey.
The fact they have hidden motives account for the fact that they ignore the growing stench of Addie’s rotting body. (takes them 10 days to go to Jefferson)
They absolutely want to reach Jefferson for their specific motives, they want their rewards.
This theme is suggested by the religious hymn sang by Cora at the very end of the novel. “god is my reward”.
Individual egoism comes out in the open by the end of the novel and it shatters the family.
Anse gets hold of Cash’s savings, on DD’s abortion money, sells Jewel’s horse. He is very greedy, it’s a blatant instance of individualism, egoism.
He does so in order is long hoped for teeth.
Jewel and DD openly show their hatred for Darl at the end of the novel. We come to be aware of it in DD’s monologues: she thinks it but doesn’t say so to Darl.
2. Individualism in cities
It prevails in cities
Moseley Mottson: druggist: sends her back to her family, doesn’t want to help DD
Mcgowan: he rapes DD, takes advantage of her ignorance and inexperience
DD is the unfortunate victim of egoist city dwellers: selfishness is even stronger in cities.
What Faulkner wanted to point out is that selfishness is an essential feature in human being, nature.
He makes his point by presenting selfishness as the distinctive feature of the 2 characters least expected to be selfish: the parents.
In a family, we’d expect parents to be the less selfish ones of the family.
What Faulkner shows is the opposite.
Addie and Anse are the most selfish.
What Faulkner portrays is unnatural figures of parents.
3. Man’s essential egoism
a. Unnatural figures of parenthood
Anse= the emblem of selfishness both as a father and a husband. He begrudges (reluctant to provide) money he spends on the doctor.
Doesn’t want to pay to what seems t him useless expenses: doesn’t pay for the Dr for Jewel (he is a sleepwalker : labors at night to pay his horse and during the day for Anse)
He won’t call the doctor when Addie is about to die: he constantly postpones the moment to clal for the doctor
He won’t pay for the Dr to fix Cash’s leg.
He is aware only of his own loss: not affected by the suffering of others. It is unbearable for him to not have teeth, it’s an offense to his dignity/ self respect as a human being. His loss of teeth= the bitterous loss of all to him.
Unwilling to make sacrifices for the rest of the family.
Addie 40: she turns out to be a selfish being as well. The light is let on her selfish planning of her family: planning of the birth of her children: cold arithmetic calculations. “I’ll give Anse a child and I’ll have this one for me”
She never shows any consideration for her husband or the child in question.
She focuses on what each member of the family should give her. What she resent is that they don’t give her enough.
She focuses on what others should give her and not on what she should give others.
The promise she exacts from them is significant because it is just another piece of evidence of her self-centeredness. When she exacts the promise, she doesn’t give a thought to the consequences of the promise, the trouble she’ll put the whole family in in order to fulfill it.
The author tries to find a reason for this egoism in man and especially in the southerners.
b. Self preservation
This gloomy perceptive of human nature should be nuanced. Faulkner means to say that this egoism is the consequence of the hostile environment they live in. they have to be selfish if they want to survive.
Their selfishness is due to their poverty and their harsh living conditions and their endless toil (labor).
They spend their days toiling away to scrap a living.
If the demands of others come on top of their necessity to survive, it’s too much, they can’t survive. Selfishness= a means of self preservation.
C. Self-reliance
Critique of the traditional American virtue of self reliance in the novel.
Self reliance in the novel= the various characters are unwilling to form any ties to other people. They’re as hostile to receiving as to giving. Being indebted creates a tie to others, it’s viewed to a threat to the self and personal freedom.
Freedom= one ideal in America. Nothing should endure it.
Self sufficiency is aimed at an ideal. The characters don’t want to be dependent on others.
1. No dependence on other members of the family
All the characters won’t be dependent on other members of the family
a. Jewel’s acquisition of his horse
He doesn’t want to owe a single cent to his father. That’s why he works at night.
If his father would help him (he wouldn’t) then Jewel would be dependent, indebted to his father. He would lose his precious freedom.
He even refuses feed for his horse.
b. cash and his broken leg
He doesn’t want to compel the family to pay for a doctor so he endures unbearable pain.
2. No dependence on neighbours
a. Rejection of food and lodging
They won’t want to depend on neighbours, particularly Anse “I won’t be beholden to none”= indebted.
He rejects food and lodging+ people’s help.
b. Rejection of people’s help
Tull and other neighbours offered to lend their mules and wagon and he constantly refuses their offers: don’t want to make any ties, to be indebted.
He wants to have all the family around Addie.
Faulkner exposes this behavior as inadequate.
3. A grotesque attitude
This endless quest for self reliance is depicted as grotesque by Faulkner.
Self reliance= grotesque attitude.
a. The failure of an American ideal
Faulkner tries to show, through those behaviors, the failure of the American ideal of self reliance in the 19th c.
1841: Emerson: wrote an essay entitled “self reliance”
The virtue of self reliance was put into practice by Thoreau: Walden experiment
During the 19th c: self reliance was praised as the characteristic virtue of the American pioneer: the pioneer had to rely on his own resourcefulness in order to survive in the wilderness.
Faulkner says self reliance no longer appropriate after the civil war: depression.
New values are needed to survive: unity and solidarity. (John Steinbeck: the grapes of wrath: necessity for people to stick together, to be united)
b. caricature
Faulkner exposes this inadequate ideal by relying on caricature: conducted through 2 characters: Cash and Anse
Cash: stand agonizing in pain in order not to be in the way of the family. Faulkner suggests that his attitude is a display of useless heroism. Bearing intense pain just to be a hero, just for the sake of it= useless.
The stance of self reliance becomes burlesque, grotesque when associated with Anse.
The portrayal of Anse borders on caricature: type of caricature: his physical portrait. He is repeatedly likened to animal imagery: a bird with feathers in disorder. Suggestion that he looks like one of the buzzards surrounding the coffin.
Caricature is also conducted through repetition regarding Anse: he keeps saying over and over the same phrase: “I don’t want to be beholden to none”= being indebted to anybody.
However, Anse’s rejection of help, his stubborn willingness to reamin self reliant is represented as a useless show of dignity/ self respect because he is defenately shown as having lost all dignity in the eyes of his wife, children, neighbours…he is unanimously seen as a character with lost self respect.
Ridiculous that he seeks dignity through rejecting
II.Essential loneliness
Isolation/ loneliness: predominant in the novel. Not only of a psychological nature, takes an essential dimension in the novel.
A. the failure of communication
What shows they are lonely is the failure of communication between human beings/ members of the family.
No verbal exchanges btw the characters: people don’t talk to each other in the family, they live their separate life. They only interfere cith each other through actions, not words. They don’t open their hearts to each other.
Addie, section 40: she “has long given up talking to her husband” she has come to mistrust words.
Vardaman: when he is under the chock of his mother’s death, he runs to the barn and remains alone, he doesn’t run to his family for comfort.
Characters never face each other: location in space: never stand face to face. Either sit next one to another or behind. 1st section of the novel: Darl and Jewel, should be walking in single file, not one next to the other: at the end of the section, jewel catches up darl and walked before him: significant of the disrupted order of the family.
Darl: leader of the family in the beginning
At the end: jewel is first, stronger at the end
1.No verbal exchanges
Lack of verbal exchanges: importance of secrets in the novel. Keeping a secret= clear illustration of lack of communication.
Jewel works late at night, keeps this a secret from everybody
The children, when they come to know, keep it a secret from the mother.
D.D’s pregnancy= secret. Even fails to open up to the Doctor.
Addie’s adultery: other major secret in the novel.
The characters are inwardly looking characters. They don’t open up to others. They fold back upon themselves instead of discussing with others. They keep brooding, thinking. Live in their own worlds with own thoughts. Illustrated through the fragmented sections.
The monologues of the diff characters are nearly juxtaposed, separate. Characters don’t talk to others but to themselves.
Lack of communication: blatant when we examine gazes: important role in the novel, they’re meaningful.
Significant role of gazes: the characters always look away, their eyes rarely meet: significant in the wagon : they all look in the same direction= common goal but looking ahead along parallel lines, their gazes never meet.
Anse never looks his children in the face, he is characterized by his evasive looks particularly when he has sold Jewel’s horse. (reported by Armstid section 43) “Anse looked at jewel, quick, kind of sliding his eyes that way, then he looked down again” : emblematic of his attitude.
DD dreads Darl’s gaze: afraid he might see through her, have access to her secret.
B. Lack of genuine relationships btw beings
Result= no genuine human relationships.
1. general indifference
Striking: the general indifference in family relationships. Jewel is the supreme example of the individual isolation and indifference towards the rest of the world.
He is indifferent to the rest of the world and his family: recurrent emphasis on his wooden face, steely eyes: hard look.
It reflects his uncaring, unfeeling attitude. He moves on an obit of his own. He is always a part of the rest of the family. Doesn’t ride on the wagon with the others. Rides his own horse.
Vardaman is portrayed as the victim of the general indifference. He needs affection, attention. Nobody cares about him; take the time to answer his questions. They remain unanswered. Darl is the only one who tries to answer his questions.
Darl is a real brother. But Anse, father, ignores Vardaman.
When he has caught a fish, he is proud but Anse ignores him. Section 8, Tull
2. Violence as the only form of human contact
Addie section 40: argues that the only way to make human contact is through violence. She craved for meaningful relationships. She is disillusioned by life. She views human beings as essentially selfish, separate individuals who never have any meaningful connections.
School children she teaches “each with his secret selfish thoughts”: human beings= secret and selfish
Strangeness, separation, lack of communication.
Addie feels invisible, as if she didn’t exist in the eyes of others, of the school children.
Her only way left to assert her being to the children’s eyes was to whip them/ physical contact.
Jewel has the same kind of relationship with his horse: ambivalent relationship. On the one hand, he’d like to experience fusion with his horse, to be one with the horse (unity= they make one entity: he is a man horse), on the other hand, in order to make his presence felt to the horse, he needs to whip him, beat him.
Jewel’s relationship to his horse mirrors his relationship to his mother.
3. Motherhood as connection.
Genuine connection with human beings. Motherhood is essentially a physical relationship btw mother and the baby/ infant.
The 2 of them are aware of each other through physical contact.
Section 40: “my loneliness had never been violated before Jewel’s birth”: no need for words, positive feelings associated with nursing. Human contact.
Hypocrisy, gap btw words and actions: failure of communication and relationship with Anse.
Jewel= fruit of genuine love relationship: in her eyes, it was a deliberate choice, relationship based on choice and action, not on words as with Anse.
Children, unwanted by Addie: no genuine relationship. Mother/child relationship have failed with the other children. Mirror image of their father Anse.
C. Terrible isolation.
1. Addie’s lifelong isolation
Result of the lack of communication= terrible feeling of isolation
Addie’s attitude, choices can only be understood if we bear in mind her isolation, she resents this isolation. She has suffered from a lifelong isolation, briefly interrupted by her 2 positive experiences of motherhood (Cash : 1st one and Jewel). Apart from those 2, she never managed to break her isolation.
She never was a Bundren, she feels she belongs to her own family: that’s why she wants to be buried separately, in Jefferson, away from the bundren family.
Isolated throughout her life and will remain isolated after life.
2. DD’s emblematic loneliness
DD is also an emblematic character: very lonely. Pathetic aspects of man’s existential loneliness is illustrated by DD. She can’t turn anywhere for help.
She feels helpless because of her pregnancy, she fails to speak to the doctor, won’t go to the men in her family. Afraid of them, won’t open up to them.
She opens up to strangers: city dwellers= ironical.
Her isolation is conveyed by her helpless repetition of her lover’s name “lafe”: helpless attempt.
Section 14:
Loneliness= cosmic dimension, connects it with the air, the earth. Existential issue, characteristic of man’s condition.
Loneliness: death of the individual.
3. Darl’s isolation
Final alienation due to his acute sense of existential solitude. Sense of alienation is given a literal expression through his insanity.
Literal form of alienation.
He is isolated 1st because he is the unwanted child of Addie. Isolated by his mother’s rejection.
His purpose in the 1st 12 chapters of the novel is to try to exist in his mother’s eyes. Since he is unwanted, he feels that he is invisible in her yes, doesn’t exist for her. He repeatedly tries to make himself visible.
He is also isolated bec he is the different one: different from the rest of the family and for the rest of the community: “strange one” by the neighbours. Looks strange.
Darl epitomizes the artist’s isolation.
Darl embodies the imagination of the artist, the creative power of the artist.
This is suggested by the fact that his eyes gaze beyond the family. DD says he sees further than the family.
“his eyes are full of the land”: abstract portrait of Darl who has established a connection with the cosmos in a way, the rest of the land.
His clairvoyant gaze allows him to be aware of truths that are inaccessible to the rest of the family: characteristic of the artist.
He is doomed to live apart: he is misunderstood by the rest of the community, he is unbalanced by his over sensitive vision(perceives too much): it drives him crazy. He can’t fit in with ordinary people, the rest of society, he has to be separated, put in a lunatic asylum.
In the novel, Faulkner explored human relationships for what they revealed of human conditions.
He is interested in what individual relationships reveal of human condition: growing sense of alienation of modern man: points out the essence of man’s condition= isolation.
Alienation from the rest of the family, the society= symbolic of man’s condition in the universe.
The Bundren’s journey
Travelling, motive of the journey= symbolic meaning in literature.
Homer : Odyssey : late 8th century before Christ. Founding text in western literature.
Journey= symbolic meaning, not only a picturesque way of telling a story. Journey= progress of the characters towards experience and knowledge.
18th c: the Grand tour in Europe for rich men: sentimental journey.
Huckleberry Finn: trip to Mississippi river: initiation for the character.
Journey motif: universal symbolic significance but also an eminent American significant.
American nation: founded as the result of an initial west hood journey from Europe to America. Pilgrim fathers.
Later: going from east America to west America.
In an American context, the journey suggests freedom, man’s control of space and wild nature.
As I lay dying: ironical handling of the theme of the journey.
1st the journey is a funeral procession: occasion for each character to think about human existence and his or her identity.
The Bundrens start with both common and personal expectations, fate causes the journey to go wrong from beginning to end.
The meaning of the journey goes beyond the fictional journey of the Bundren.
It has to be read in the wider context of the American south in the 1st half of the 20th c. journey: takes the characters from rural/poor/old world to the modern city.
The journey has to be read in a historical perceptive as well. The shift from the stable old world to the instability of the modern world.
The novel lends itself to a metaphysical reading (human relationship): level of understanding in the novel= man’s condition.
The family’s trip can be understood as a modernist view of man’s journey through existence.
I. A journey into disillusionment
The family’s journey is a source of bitter knowledge to the Bundrens. Experience in disillusionment with recognizable aspects of the initiation.
It turns out to be a downright ordeal in the traditional sense of initiation.
1. An ordeal set by the mother
This aspect of the journey: ordeal s to the whole family is made clear to section 39 (Cora) in her prophecy. Addie says “he (jewel) is my cross and he will be my salvation, he will save me from the water and from the fire”. Statement = suggestion that Addie wanted the journey to Jefferson to be an ordeal in order to test their love for her.
It’s also an ultimate way of making her existence felt to her family. (Lack of genuine relationships).
The journey consists in a number of symbolic ordeals.
2. Symbolic ordeals.
Characteristic of any initiation: the way to Jefferson is strewn (parsemé) of obstacles.
Ex: fallen bridges, washed away by the river. Detours that the family has to go through
the loss of the mules, the delay caused by the misfortune in the river.
2 major ordeals are to be emphasized:
They are in keeping with the medieval illustration of initiation (Tristan and iseuthe: trials by water and by fire).
a. The trial by water
the water crossing: the boys’ heroic struggle to save their mother’s coffin from the water.
Cash, Darl and Jewel act as if they were actually fighting for their mother’s life= heroic.
b. the trial by fire
Darl sets fire to the barn. The coffin is rescued from the flames by Jewel. Jewel stands out as the true hero, as predicted by his mother.
Distinct initiatory pattern to the journey. What the family learn at their expense is the knowledge of disillusion.
B. A journey into disillusionment
1. various personal disillusions
Personal interests but view are rewarded at the end. They barely manage to keep their promise: nearly fails in the water. Takes them 10 days to fulfill that promise.
They don’t get their expected reward individually, only Anse gets new teeth and a new wife.
All they get is bananas.
Darl suffers the bitterest disillusionment of all: on top of losing his mother, he loses his all family and his senses. He is rejected and turned to an asylum.
2. collective disillusionment
The journey : nothing turns out as planned. It’s an endless series of setbacks (revers), instead of taking 1 day and a half, it takes 10 days. The goal seems to be receding, the more they move on, the more Jefferson seems to recede into the distance. Once they reached the bridge, they have to turn back and start all over again.
Disillusionment is ironically conveyed by the village’s name “new hope”, they pass the sign twice: ironical: they are back to the starting point.
This useless trip to the fallen bridge enhances their disappointed hopes. “new hope” lies behind them= ironical. New hope is in the past, doesn’t lay in the future.
The road is seen as empty, stressed by DD in section 30: “and then the road will begin…empty with waiting”
They narrowly miss drown in the river: it lies btw their home and their goal.
Jefferson seems out of reach bec of the flood. The river crossing is a desperate under taking. It’s the only way they have to keep their promise to Addie.
They have to risk their lives if they want to be true to their promise.
Disillusionment expressed through decay process of Addie’s body. Still remind them that they still haven’t buried her.
They are representatives of the south. They epitomize the old rural south.
Writers of the lost generation: main theme= disillusionment. Faulkner’s handling of this theme is what connect him to the writers of the lost generation, what makes him a writer of the 20s.
Because of his social and historical concern: decline, depression, poverty, he is also a representatives of the dull 30s. (bleak vision)
II. Historical journey
A. symbolic journey
Journey= also an historical one through the south.
The Bundren’s journey can be seen as a symbolic journey into modernity.
It is also a journey from country to town. From the old fashioned rural life to technology and progress of the city.
1. the town-country polarity
2 poles: starting point/ city (goal)
The city is the emblem/epitomy of modern America to which the old south must inevitably surrender.
These town and country are represented by Faulkner as two wildly opposed worlds.
Stress on the diff economic systems.
Anse and Vardaman point out that the city = place where all the money is. Creates a feeling of injustice, social inequality.
For Anse, the city is the place where profit is made at the expense of the hard working farmers. The poor famers in the country try to scrape a living. In contrast, the city is viewed as being full of money.
Anse section 28: “it takes them that run the stores in the towns, doing no sweating…those who sweat”
Farmers= sweat: work hard
Those in the cities= live on the work of the farmers.
Even vardaman has a sense of unfair deal: he is deprived of sugar, coffee, flower because he was born a country boy.
The city= emblem of the capitalist system imposed by the north of America on the south after the civil war. North extended its economic system to the south.
In contrast, the country stands for traditional self sufficient farming. (agriculture de subsistance). Anse runs his farm the way his ancestors did. He uses archaic/ ancient methods: mules, tills the land by hand…
2 different poles country/city: different ways/customs/habits
The pace of living: the passing of time is different in the 2 diff spaces.
Opposition btw the quick pace of living in cities and the leisurely pace of living in the country.
This is the way the city dweller, Moseley, views the country.
Moseley section 45 “I’m pretty busy, a man just doesn’t have the time they have out there”. “Out there” is derogatory (pejorative). Country people are viewed as Martians, from a different planet.
They come from a totally diff world, viewed as inferior beings.
DD is aware of the fact, section 14 “we are country people, not as good as town people”. Country people are viewed as ignorant people who are under the sway of superstition. They’re viewed as pre historic Americans.
Civil war, industrialization= history.
McGowan, section 55
DD’s change of clothes shows she believes she is unfit to enter the city in country clothes.
Moseley section 45: emphasizes it.
Darl, earlier mentions that Tull never goes into the city in his country overalls.
II. A historic move from country to city
The family’s journey enacts the transformation of the south? The shift through space enacts the inevitable shift from traditional/rural economy to the urban, capitalist system.
Jefferson is not only the goal of the family, the actually goal of the family is the fact that they are going to the city.
Vardaman introduction to the journey: section 24: “we are going to town” (doesn’t matter if it’s Jefferson or another town)
The town, for all the Bundrens is the promise of modern comfort and consumer goods: shiny train, false teeth, the phonograph (for cash), abortion for DD.
The Bundren’ expectation mirrors the modernization/ evolution of the time: moralities, morals. (abortion)
The family’s trip /leave their farm behind signals they should the end of stability
Notion of change: prominent throughout the novel.
2 major metaphors:
- the road conveys the notion of change:
The road materializes the new connection btw country and city. Up to then, country folks had been isolated, cut off from the city. Little interactions btw the 2.
The road is highly symbolic. It’s viewed by Anse as the curse of modern civilization. It introduces a new form of dependence on country folks. Now they have to abide by (respecter) the laws of the city. Anse resents the fact that the city dictates what country folks should do.
He feels deprived of his freedom and of his free will as an individual because he has to conform to the rules of the city.
Section 9: “putting it (road) where every bad luck …can find it and come straight to my door”: he is connected to the city, no longer isolated.
The paragraph focuses on the main changes affecting the south:
-mobility: now people don’t remain isolated in the country
-centralized authority
-standardization: country folks have to do the same things as city dwellers
- Junctions:
The Bundrens symbolically stand at crossroads.
Darl 27 and DD 30: meeting point btw the rural lane going back to New hope and the road leading to the city of Jefferson.
They are at a turning point.
Bridges are another metaphor of the fact that the old world should disappear: all have been washed away by the flood= means that there’s an irremediable gulf/gap btw the old world and the modern city but somehow the family should cross the gap. Suggestion is that they can’t go back, they have to go to the city.
Newly established connection to the city: old rural world doomed to disappear.
The old world is threatened.
Money and capitalism : southerners are reluctantly drown into the capitalist system which was imported from the North of America.
Anse keeps complaining about the fact that towns’ people profit by the toil/work of country people.
One class of people exploiting the other.
Money seeking has began infected the country.
Cora is shown to be just as calculating as a city financer; she speaks just like a business man.
Section 2 : cakes she means to sell: her speech is full of economic terms. “afford, earn, increase, saving, costing…” recurrence of those terms: out of place in the country: shows that the economic mentality of the city has began to affect the country.
The other threat to the rural world is modern technology: progress has gained ground: 1st view of Jefferson the family has through Darl’s eyes: telephone lines
Section 52: “the telephone lines run”
By the end of the novel, the gramophone enters the Bundrens’ home/ the country.
C. Addie’s corpse as a metaphor for the old south
Addie embodies the dying south.
She is repeatedly related to the earth, mother earth. She identifies with the land, the dark blood of the land section 40
She is dying just as the old rural world of the south is drawing to extinction.
The decay of her body is significant: metaphor for decline. Economic decay of the south.
Putrefaction of the corpse= decay of the south.
Pointed out by the towns people: Moseley section 45 “it had been dead 8 days…some place out…ramshackle wagon (délabré)…would fall to pieces” the old world of the family is falling to pieces too. “home made box” = traditional ways of the family.
Old fashioned world= decay
The removal of Addie’s corpse to the city: the city gradually gains ground, edges the old rural south out of existence. Her body has been claimed by the city. There’s no going against her will.
Embodiment of the south has to lie in the city.
III. Man’s journey through life
The bundren’s journey is larger than life. It takes on an epic scope. It becomes an epic journey because it amends to far more than the adventures encountered by a specific family. It turns out to be a struggle against the elements and an adverse faith.
This wider scope of the journey, gives the reader an inkling(apercu) of Faulkner’s view of men’s condition in the universe and their helplessness in the face of a pitiless fate.
This man being helpless, being a toy, as opposed to a cruel fate is reminiscent of humanity as portrayed in the bible, in the old testament.
This epic journey and toy-like characters recalls the vision of humanity in the hands of a wrathful, vengeful God.
A. Biblical references
They point out the metaphysical meaning of the journey.
Faulkner was not a devout church goer. He was raised in the protestant religion but as an adult he wasn’t devout. Yet he was well read in King James’ version of bible: he knew the bible quite well.
All his novels team with biblical allusions.
He view the civil war as a divine punishment on the south
The biblical myth of the fall and of men’s expulsion from Eden prevails on his work
The journey undertaken by the Bundren can be read as a kind of a divine punishment for their excessive pride, their human conceit.
The Bundrens believe that there’re omnipotent, that they can triumph over the flooding river, against the natural elements.
It’s a conceited view of man being as powerful as God.
The Bundren family is punished for that.
1. Punished transgression
Their journey turns out to be a 3 fold transgressions (triple):
-a social transgression: they break social rules, introduce chaos into the city of Jefferson, and break the social rule of burial.
-transgression of the cosmic order: they challenge the raging nature and elements
-divine transgression: God demanded that each person get a decent burial. A corpse can’t be left without a burial.
Journey= instance of man’s absurd conceit (vanité).
This view of man is given by Darl in section 34.
a. the crossing of the river as the deluge.
The crossing of the river can be read as a medieval trial or as a biblical deluge.
Can be read as the repetition of the biblical deluge. The scale of the flood is unprecedented. This is emphasized by the neighbors who remind us that they’ve never seen “such a flood”.
Noah: the one sinless man who was not drowned by the deluge in the bible. He was saved on the Ark in order to perpetuate mankind (+2 representatives of each animal species)
Section 44: Darl has the impression of “a suspended floating world” p143.
“as if the road had been soaked free of earth and floated upward”
Section 28: Anse presents himself as Noah. “I am the chosen of the Lord”
He likens himself to Noah as the elect of God and indeed Anse survives the flood, manages to cross the river. But he is not the elected of God.
The near drowning is a kind of warning, they might have well died in the river.
b. the burning of Gillespie’s barn as the fire of the Apocalypse.
Apocalypse: (revelation of John in the Bible) the 1st meaning of apocalypse is revelation.
What is told during the revelation is a number of destructions ordered by God.
What is told during Doom’s day (le jour du jugement dernier): when the good are separated by the bad. Innocents/sinful beings. A fire rages on the earth.
Fire is central in revelation.
The fire that destroys the barn in the novel is connected with the notion of complete destruction.
Darl 50: he emphasizes the aspect of a complete destruction p220: “we watch the entire floor to the loft dissolve”
The fire is likened to thunder (also central to revelation)
God’s wrath is aimed at Anse to punish him from transgressing the sacred ritual of burial.