1. Which are the most intelligent and sympathetic voices in the novel? With whom do you most and least identify? Why?
2. Why is Addie’s narrative placed where it is, and what is the effect of hearing Addie’s voice at this point in the book? How do the issues raised by Addie here relate to the book as a whole?
3. We've talked a lot about Darl in class, but what exactly makes Darl different from the other characters? Why is he able to describe Addie’s death when he is not present? How is he able to know intuitively the fact of Dewey Dell’s pregnancy?
5. How does Anse manage to command the obedience and cooperation of his children? (Does he?) What do you make of him?
7. Jewel is the result of Addie’s affair with the evangelical preacher Whitfield. When we read Whitfield’s section, we realize that Addie has again allied herself with a man who is not her equal. How would you characterize the preacher? What is the meaning of this passionate alliance, now repudiated by Whitfield? Does Jewel know who his father is?
8. In what ways does the novel show characters wrestling with ideas of identity and embodiment?
And please note that there are two GREAT posts in the comments section of the previous post. Sorry for posting this set of questions a bit late....it's been a busy weekend! :)
ReplyDeleteWe've been talking in class about how Faulkner experiments with language in As I Lay Dying, and I think this section of the novel has some great examples of that. I think Whitfield's section on pp 177 - 179 is particularly interesting. This section is filled with lofty religious language, with words like "surmount," "transgressions," "cleanse," "destruction," and "sustained." This language is completely different from the language of the Bundrens, and this causes Whitfield's sections to contrast starkly with the surrounding sections. In his section, it feels like the reader is being pushed into a world of language that is unfamiliar and almost hollow. I think Faulkner here is challenging the reader to question the usefulness of language to express one's feelings, as the reader questions whether Whitfield's religious language is adequate to express his feelings and emotions.
ReplyDelete- Tyler McBride
This novel has many different narrators, but I think one difference between Darl and the others is he's the omniscient narrator, though I believe one of Faulkner's intentions with Darl was to rewrite that type of narrator. That's why Darl knows about Addie's death without having witnessed it and Dewey Dell's pregnancy without being told about it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, his language is more narrative than the other voices. Darl's language is more descriptive and thoughtful than the others. It seems incorporating many different narrators with different voices was Faulkner's way of experimenting even more with narrative and what it means to tell a story and how the process could unfold.
I believe Darl is a new way of thinking of the traditional omniscient narrator. He never tells us what omniscient narrators traditionally tell us (intimate details of all the action). That's why it is unclear what Jewel is up to during pages 128-136 (it is to me, anyway). At the end of the chapter Darl says, "And then I knew that I knew. I knew that as plain on that day as I knew about Dewey Dell on that day." Darl realizes that he already knew what Jewel had been up to as he watches his mother beside Jewel's bed that night. He always already knows, but he has to make that discovery instead of always being aware that he always already knows.
-Rachel Hancock
I hadn't spent any significant time analyzing the theme of religion until I finished Whitfield's chapter. It seems Faulker is offering commentary on organized religion.
ReplyDeleteWhitfield speaks in a fluent and educated voice, while most of the Bundren's thoughts are expressed through a limited vocabulary peppered with colloquialism. Through the language choices in Whitfield's section, Faulkner paints his reverend as an educated man. In fact, Whitfield's grasp of the language creates quite a powerful persona, leading the reader to question the equality in the relationship between Addie and the reverend.
Whitfield further uses his grasp of language to justify his own transgressions. He crafts a tale of his own courage and piety, in which God carries him safely across the river. By his narration, he boldly marches into the Bundren house to make amends, only to have his mission abandoned by God. In fact, Whitfield is clearly cowardly. The reverend's rhetorical skill allow him to present himself in a positive light, where the less educated Bundrens more often come across as foolish and weak willed.
Though the passage is quite short, Whitfield's narrative illustrates the class differences created by education and religion. While every character struggles with moral transgressions, it is the educated and ordained man who is able to justify and defend his actions.
--Amanda Edgar
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ReplyDeleteI agree Amanda, in that Whitfield is a highly intelligent man and that he is also a coward. I believe Whitfield feels real remorse for what happened between he and Addie, yet when he travels to their house to announce the wrong he did, he seems to talk himself out of it when he actually gets there. He convinces himself that it is God's will and that Addie must not have wanted Anse to know. For being such a Godly man, he doesn't seem to back up his 'goodness.' If he truly wanted to confess his sins he would have made it a point to talk to Anse like a man and ask for forgiveness.
ReplyDeleteI find Jewel to be an incredibly interesting character. I don't believe Jewel knows for certain who his real father is, but I do think that he doesn't believe he belongs with the Bundrens. Constantly distancing himself from the others and running off with his horse, it's as if he tries to make himself an outsider. He must not feel comfortable with the others, like he doesn't belong with this family. Knowing that he was Addie's favorite child (probably because he was given to her by her true love), he still make no effort to be by her side when her time came to die.
Brittany Evans
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ReplyDeleteWe talked about in class a few days ago about how Faulkner's style has a very modernistic style to it, so I thought I'd comment on how I think his style effects the reader in As I Lay Dying.
ReplyDeleteWhat I began to notice in the story is how much this story imitates real life; not necessarily how life may have been for those characters at that time period, but how the story imitates how modern life is run.
The imitation is not in the character situations or the story at all, but in the style in which Faulkner wrote his story, particularly in how the reader has to experience and interpret many situations through the individual eyes of many different narrators.
Why I feel this is modernistic is that by making all Faulkner's character's narrators, the job of the reader is to study the different narrators and try to understand their motivations, shortcomings, flaws, strengths, prejudices, etc, and compare their opinions with one another to divulge some sort of common TRUTH.
How this imitates our real life is that real life is often purely based on hearsay and opinion; there is no omnipotent narrator explaining what's REALLY going on in our ear, we only have our own opinions and beliefs about our experiences, and other people's opinions and beliefs to go with ours. In real life, what we may consider truth is really only speculation based on flawed and biased information, which Faulkner is imitating by having the reader be told a story through the eyes of many narrators.
So Faulkner, in a way, by making the text similar to the real life experience, is giving the reader the would-be job of an omniscient narrator; the job of interpreting information given by the text and forcing the reader to come to his own conclusions, whether they be right or wrong (but who's to say who's right or wrong anyways?).
I hope this makes some sort of sense and isn't too long, boring or abstract.
Greg Goddard
As we discussed Addie's chapter in class yesterday I realized more and more the effect that her lifestyle and philosophies has had on the Bundren Family. Up until her chapter, we are really sort of left in the dark as to the way the family got to the point it is when we find them just before Addie's death.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, I feel like Addie's philosophy on language and words has transformed the dynamics of the Bundren family. Addie basically believes that words are just terms that someone made up because they couldn't define an experience by that experience alone. Thus, words such as motherhood, sin, fear, pride and love all are arbitrary to Addie. Verbal communication comes second for her and we can see that passed along through her children.
First we have Darl, who we know has mastered the art of nonverbal communication. He is able to speak to his siblings, particularly Dewey Dell, without even opening his mouth. He is also able to discover things about people, some sort super-perception, without ever speaking to them about it. Jewel is also a man of few words, and most of the ones he speaks are simply vulgarities. Dewey Dell has internalized all of her fears regarding her pregnancy, never speaking aloud of it to anyone. Even when she is trying to get her point across to the store clerk, she is unable to use the word "pregnant". Cash seems to be a man that lets his carpentry and hard work do the talking for him.
The only character, really, who has inherited none of this is Anse, who is quite vocal about his feelings. He is constantly mulling over his good deeds out loud, wishing for new teeth and we don't sense as a reader that he can perceive the feelings and emotions of those around him with any accuracy. Perhaps this difference between Anse and his children shows the trapped life that Addie was forced to live.
Alright, that's long enough, sorry guys.
-Daniel Ford
The discussion on Monday led be to evaluate the way in which Faulkner plays with shapes and geometry, particularly with respect to characterization. For instance, I believe it would be fair to call Addie a circle; during her section, she refers to a circle when discussing the violation of her aloneness, and she claims that she didn't believe that things had beginnings or ends, that all things were circlular in a way.
ReplyDeleteAnse, on the other hand, resembles a square. In his section near the beginning of the book, he devotes an entire paragraph to remarking on the differences between a person and a road, coming to the conclusion that, because they stand perpindicular to one another, they are not meant to interact.
An interesting thing happens when these two "shapes" come together. When we are given the description of the farmland surrounding the family's central barn, it is described not as either a square or a circle, but a rounded square, suggesting the unlikely coupling of Addie and Anse, and leading to thoughts about their offspring. Just as the farmland is a fruit of their labors, theor children must be, too.
Darl and Jewel's characters are so interesting to me. By the end of the book, my opinion of them both changed drastically after I saw the overall picture and the story all made sense. (as much sense as I can get out of it anyway haha)
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started the book, I loved Darl and really embraced his character. Through reading the book and talking about Darl in class, my view of him was that he was an artist in which he could describe things in such a beautiful way and also be very intuitive about things, like Dewey Dell's pregnancy and that fact that Jewel had a different father. After finishing the book, I am still startled and confused as to why Darl ended up in an insane asylum. I don't know if he deserved to go to an asylum, but he for sure was acting crazy. By his last narrative, Darl, talking in the 3rd person, ends up looking out the window, repeated the word "YES" as he "foams" (254). I think that Jewel lead Darl to go crazy, maybe out of jealousy or maybe because Darl knew the truth behind Addie's special connection with Jewel and Darl was not going to support a sinful affair.
Looking back through his narratives, I began to see the anger and bitterness he had towards Jewel. I feel like that bitterness drove him to go insane. Throughout the book, Darl hints at his bitterness towards his mother and Jewel. On page 95, Darl states to use a phrase which he will repeat through out, Darl says that he can't love his mother because "he has no mother, and that Jewel's mother is a horse." After saying these things, Jewel would always cuss back at Darl, which made me think of Darl as the "bad guy". But now I feel like Darl was holding a grudge towards Jewel, who had no choice in the affair. Darl continues this pattern until he reaches a low point and makes the barn go up in flames with the intention of burning the coffin.
On the other hand, I have grown respect for Jewel. Jewel, who idolized his horse, gave it up in order to get his dad a new set of mules, even though he did it begrudgingly. Also, Jewel was the one that went into the river to get the coffin. At the end of the novel, Jewel was the one who saved Addie's coffin from the burning barn in order to give his mom a proper burial.
All and all, I believe Jewel showed his mother respect and Darl did not. However, Darl had a reason to be bitter towards his mother and this bitterness made Darl go insane. These characters are very interesting and hopefully we can talk about them in depth in class!!
Rachel Hawryluk
****meant to say Jewel as the bad guy! Whoops!
ReplyDeleteThere is really only one character that I sympathize with. Although I find Darl compelling, and do feel somewhat sorry for him, the only character I find interesting is Cash. He seems to be the most selfless, possibly even jesus like character. Jewel, Darl, Anse, Dewey Dell, and even Addie are far too caught up in their own business to be concerned with anyone else. where as Cash seems to either fixate on his job to avoid grieving, or thinking about the well being of his family and neighbors.
ReplyDeleteThe character I least relate to, or sympathize with is Addie. No one forced her into her marriage, her prior job at the school, or her coffin, yet she acts like she carries a burden. It is almost alarming how much she seems to hate her family and her life, which is shown in the quote she says of her fathers about death. She truly does live her life to die. While I feel sorry for her and the disdain she has towards her family, both old and new, I feel that she chose that life, and does nothing to better her situation or make herself happy. Even her affair seems to leave her bitter.
Throughout the story, Faulkner continues to remind me of the intuitive nature of Darl. His insight throughout the novel is astonishing. On page 207, he says "How do our lives ravel out into the no-wind, no-sound, the weary gestures wearily recapitulant: echoes of old compulsions with no-hand on no-strings: in sunset we fall into furious attitudes, dead gestures of dolls."
ReplyDeleteDarl has his mind continually set on time. Earlier in the novel, at the bottom of p. 146, he describes time as "a looping string." His family, and the people who encounter him in the novel, clearly believe him to be insane. And he very well may be. But his insight suggests to me a great understanding of the world around him. Unlike other members of his family he is not set single-mindedly on one objective, like Anse with his teeth and Dewey Dell with her unwanted pregnancy, but rather is concerned with greater scheme of things.
I'm still trying to figure out whether Darl is an idiot or whether he really may be the story's prophet, but Faulkner makes clear with his passages of Darl speaking on the nature of time that Darl speaks truths outside the realm of his narrow-minded kin.
I do apologize for posting late; it completely slipped my mind.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rachel that when Darl goes completely off the deep end after setting to the barn is quite unsettling. It is creepy as the most omniscent narrator of the book slips into third-person and disassociates with his own identity and converses with the apparently crazed "Darl." The "I" mentioned in that section is never explained, but it is some other piece of Darl's consciousness.
I think the absolute absurdity of carting his mother's rotting corpse across the countryside was what pushed already "queer" Darl over the edge. On pages 214-215, he is talking to Vardaman and no wonder poor Vardaman is confused! Darl tells his younger bother to press his ear against the coffin and listen to their dead mother who is apparently talking. "She's talking to God, Darl says. She is calling on Him to help her." A little further... "She wants Him to hide her away from the sight of man." Then the conversation goes on to talk about Addie turning over in her grave and her looking through the coffin. Creepy.
Clearly, Darl is already on his descent into madness as he genuinely feels he can hear his mother's wishes. She whispers out of the coffin at him to end the farce; she wants to be laid to rest. Darl once again knows without being directly told as corpse can't really talk (or maybe he is hallucinating or convincing himself that she has spoken to him from beyond).
Anyway, Darl becomes bent on letting Addie go and he sets the barn on fire. But Jewel manages to get the coffin out. I agree with Rachel that Jewel has been a thron in Darl's side. Now Darl's otherwordly knowledge and his scheme have been thwarted and they have to continue the journey. And he just can't do it anymore. All he can do is laugh at the absurdity.
I agree with Megan that it is disconcerting to watch Darl, our seemingly most trustworthy narrator, mix first and third person narration in his final section. The separation between the Darl on the train and the Darl who is narrating seems to suggest a split between the mental and physical. While Darl is capable of describing what happened, he does not identify with the person it happened to, thereby distancing himself from his physical form. This psychological response serves as a defense mechanism protecting Darl from fully experiencing reality. In addition, Darl chooses to tell the experience in past tense. Rather than dealing fully with reality, Darl distorts reality into a less threatening form by distancing himself from the experience through perspective and time.
ReplyDeleteWe see similar psychological responses in other characters as well. As we’ve talked about in class, Vardaman distorts reality into language he can understand by comparing his mother to a fish; Cash focuses his thoughts and energy on the coffin as a way of coping with his grief. So, I don’t think we can be certain that Darl is crazy.
While his actions make him appear crazy (the split self, the irrational laughter, the repetition of the word yes, the foaming), I think Faulkner leaves his true mental state ambiguous. Without any inner dialogue in Darl’s final narrative concerning his own thoughts and rationalizations, not only regarding his current experience but also his decision to burn down the barn, the only evidence in judging Darl’s mental condition is Darl’s actions and the thoughts of others, both of which are subjective to perspective.
Cash puts it nicely when he says, “Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It’s like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.” If Cash is right, then the opinions of others are not a reliable indicator of Darl’s sanity as they are subjective and biased. So, we are left with an ambiguous portrayal of Darl’s mental state, which mirrors the ambiguous characterization of each of the characters throughout the novel.
First of all, I'd like to point out that everyone's posts so far have been really insightful, and have helped me a lot in my understanding of this often really confusing novel.
ReplyDeleteI think I'd like to further explore one of the things Laura was talking about, how each individual member of the family is coping with their mother's death. That's the part of Faulkner's work I found the most interesting.
I've decided that Cash is my favorite character (come on, he's the only really NICE person in the whole thing), so I'll talk about him first. What I thought was interesting about Cash was that he didn't appear to be grieving throughout the entire novel, at least on the surface. Faulkner puts Cash's grief in the form of his care for the coffin in the beginning of the novel, with Jewel saying "It's because he stays out there, right under thr window, hammering and sawing on that goddamn box". After she dies, he seems to have the singular goal of keeping the box safe and getting it put in the ground. This speaks volumes without Cash actually having to say "Dammit, I loved Mom".
On the other side of the spectrum is Darl. I thought it was funny how in Cora's second passage, she makes the claim that Darl and his mom share a special relationship, saying "He just stood and looked at his dying mother, his heart too full for words". However, through the duration of the novel, Faulkner uses language technique in Darl's section to convey an entirely different idea. In all of Darl's sections, he calls his mother Addie or "her". He never calls her mom, momma, ma, mommy, or mother. I think that says everything about Darl's lack of love for his mother.
Laura and Megan have already touched on what I was going to post about today, but I'll throw my two cents in, anyway, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that the most creative narrator, and the one who, up till this point, seems the most well-reasoned and sane, is arrested for insanity. I think it's interesting that Cash looks at this mental break down as Darl just not really fitting in with the Bundren family, completely overlooking his earlier statement that "...ain't none of us pure crazy and ain't none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way." In light of this, it also begs the question of if it was Darl, who tried to cremate Addie's body and end the family's nightmare journey, who was insane, or the other Bundrens, who are so intensly focused on getting to Jefferson. Sure, burning down the barn was extreme, but is it more extreme than hauling a rapidly decaying body through a flooded river, cementing a man's unprotected, broken leg, and continuing on undeterred for days on end?
I also didn't feel like Darl really went completely over the edge until he was arrested, which, I think was that "balance of us" that tipped him over. Granted, he was in a fragile state when he burned the barn down, but wouldn't anyone have been after enduring what they had over the course of the previous week?
-Josh K.
The most confusing section thus far has been the section in which Darl is sent away to a mental institution on page 232. It was only after reading this section that I was able to really understand what Vardaman had been talking about previously. Darl had set fire to the barn. He didn't seem to be the most caring individual in this family, so it makes me wonder what his motive was for setting this fire. I think he was trying to cremate his mother and put an end to this journey, but it isn’t clear. Either Darl really loved his family and wanted to stop the madness (no pun intended) or he really was becoming mentally unstable.
ReplyDeletePerhaps he was ready to take one for the team and dispose of her remains knowing that his father would be extremely upset. Darl seemed to be one of the smartest members of the family throughout the text; he could easily have devised this plan after seeing the trials they kept facing day after day. I could be completely wrong though, maybe he did let his circumstances overwhelm him and cause his crazy tendencies. However, if he was crazy, his family sure wasn’t too concerned about sending him away. Do any of them really understand love? Either way, I’m really glad they aren’t my family.
Oh, I'm also really excited to discuss the end of the book!
I agree with the post above. In the beginning Darl seems to be the most caring or at least the most intuitive individual in the book. But when Vardaman references Darl setting the barn on fire, we see Darl's true character. I feel like Darl didn't want the drama of the family or he was just completely conceited.
ReplyDeleteI do feel like throughout the book Darl wa one of the more consistant characters in the story. He tried to rationalize every situation which in turn could have potentially driven him to become insane. The family all seemed to be mre concerned with themselves than with Darl and his actions.
I feel like Darl was asking for the help he had shown his family, and they could not do the same.
After finishing the book I find myself sympathizing with Darl and Dewey Dell.
ReplyDeleteDarl, to me, has seemed to be the most level headed throughout this work. His sections have been filled with intuitive insight into what has happened, whether he was there or not. He is the one who tells us what happens at Addie death, even though he wasn’t actually present for it. Darl appears to have Addie’s innate ability to step over words and connect with natural vibes, qualifying him in his role of “tell all.” Ironically, out of all the narrators I liked Darl and found myself trusting him over everyone else. As discussed earlier in class, Faulkner privileged Darl in many ways, one being the fact that his passages were longer and more frequent than any other character. Darl then goes crazy, after trying to burn his mother coffin. The attempt to incinerate the coffin didn’t seem crazy to me, but instead as a genuine attempt to end their troubles and stop the lugging of his mother’s body miles and miles on end. Perhaps the reason why Darl goes crazy is the fact that he has that insightful nature like Addie. Because they were so in tuned to natural undertones that people around them gave out, maybe it was too overwhelming for both of them. His mother in a way gave up towards the end of her life, just crawling into bed and not budging. Likewise, Darl obviously has all he can stand when he sit upon the ground, laughing hysterically.
I feel deep remorse for Dewey Dell because of her innocence and ignorance that lead to being tricked. The desperation that Dewey Dell shows in trying to get the medicine blinds her to the cruel intentions of the store clerk. This passage highlights the nastier side of human nature as these these two men team up in order to fool her. In the end, Dewey Dell doesn’t even get the medicine she needs and everything she did was in vain.
I'm not sure if we are to continue commenting on the Faulkner text this week, but I'll add a comment just to be safe! :)
ReplyDeleteI'd like to respond to Helen's comments on Addie. I have to say Addie is one of my favorite characters, and I am only disappointed that we don't get more direct insight into her perspective. To begin, I believe we as a culture throw around the word "choice" much too freely. We can say women choose to get married or choose to have children, but in reality, this is not a choice for everyone. Our society (and particularly America in the 1930's) has some very rigid guidelines about what is "normal" and "acceptable" and what is not. Refusal to adhere to social standards can result ostracization and poverty, as the social structures we rely on to survive often reject those who do not conform to social standards (think: gays and lesbians, immigrants, those who refuse to dress or look in ways acceptable to the work force).
I believe Addie marries Anse because she hates the life she has so much. She believes that a "normal" life includes marriage and children -- this is not so different from our present culture, sadly. She marries Anse because society tells her that's what comes next for women. She bears children because society tells her she should, and while the children do bring her some comfort, Anse is clearly not willing to discuss the number of children they will produce ("You and me aint nigh done chapping yet, with just two"). Finally, she has an affair. This reads to me as an attempt at escapism from a life that has given her no breaks. Even in this attempt to break the social structures that restrain her life, she plays into the patriarchal sexual pattern, as she is asked to keep the entire affair a secret to protect HIM. Then she ends up having another child, and two more because she believes she must do so as an act of repentance.
The icing on the cake, of course, is that Cora judges Addie to her face, even calling her a bad mother. This is still absolutely true. Millions of poor women do the best they can to raise children in a social structure that gives them nothing. All the while, they are judged because what they do to survive is not socially acceptable by the privileged elite.
I don't believe Faulkner intended Addie this way. I do believe we can learn quite a bit about the plight of underprivileged women from the truth in her character's existence.
Sorry so long. I got fired up. ;)
The end of As I Lay Dying was very strange to me. As I was reading it, I was almost screaming at the pages, yelling at the characters to stop! (My Biology-major roommate probably thought that, like Darl, I had finally gone certifiably insane.) But, after a few days of leaving the text alone and then going back and skimming through the last few sections, I'm beginning to get a clearer understanding - and I'm not quite as frustrated.
ReplyDeleteI think Faulkner intended the end of the novel to have strong sense of repetition and fate; these characters are stuck in their lives, and they can't seem to escape their cycles of behavior. Anse goes to bury his wife, but he gets a new one. Cash breaks his leg - for the second time. Dewey Dell tries to abort her baby, but is taken advantage of a second time. Even Darl, though he is escaping the cycle of his normal life somewhat, is stuck in the repetition of the word "yes."
Darl's section confused me most of all, though. I kept saying to myself, "No, Darl is the one who is the most sane! He can't be going crazy!" I knew (and I think this is what Faulkner intended me to know) that Darl must have set fire to the barn because he was tired of the endless parade of his mother's body - he wanted to give her a decent end, to break her free of the cycle that everyone else was bound to. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that Darl didn't really go crazy. I'm not sure if this is what Faulkner intended, but here is my theory - Darl decided (either by himself or with the help of Cash) to pretend to "go crazy" as a way to avoid having Gillespie sue the Bundrens for the barn burning down (Cash references this on p 232). Did anyone else notice this, or am I reading things into the text that aren't there?
I'm not quite sure what to make of any of this yet, or what Faulkner is trying to say. But those are my observations on the end of the text so far.
Tyler McBride
Rats. I just typed out my whole thing, and then accidentally deleted it.
ReplyDeleteOkay, where was I?
What's interesting to me about Darl's last chapter is that not only does he refer to himself in the third person, but he also narrates in the first person, just not as Darl. Who is the "I", then? It seems to me that Darl's "to be" crisis has finally culminated in him separating from himself, and narrating himself the way that he narrated Jewel and Addie. It's like Darl the man has become separated from Darl the Narrator. Darl was wondering earlier what he is and who he is and whether he is, but now Darl is split in two-- one half is mad, and we don't know who or what the other half is.
I also noticed in this section that Darl is a WWI veteran. Did we know this before? I didn't notice until this chapter. He comes back from the war with a spy-glass through which he can see "a woman and a pig with two backs and no face." This could be seen as a metaphor for how Darl sees the world-- the war gives him a new lens through which he sees a bizarro reality. Now I don't want to take one facet of Darl's life and try to use it to re-read his entire story, but it seems to me like Darl's questions about identity and being and death take on a new shape when we consider that he was in a war. If anything will make you wonder about what it means to be, I guess war will.
Also, Tyler, I love your point about everyone being stuck in a cycle! I felt the same thing at the end, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
ReplyDelete