Grieving in Different Ways

     Leading up to and following the death of Addie Bundren, Anse and the children deal with death differently and all grieve in their own ways.  I noticed that William Faulkner portrayed real emotions that people feel after death and he described the different types of people during grief.  While all the characters are saddened by the death of their mother, wife, and friend, their actions and emotions differ greatly.  Three characters who grieved in ways that may not seem normal to people today include Anse, Cash, and Vardaman. 
     Anse continues on with his life after Addie's death, but the strange thing is that he is more happy to finally get new teeth than he is sad about her death.  He does not seem as upset as one would think a husband would be.  Anse represents people that look for the good in death, but sadly the good is usually selfish.     
     Cash deals with the death of his mother by meticulously working on her coffin.  He wants to make it perfect for his mother because he believes that she deserves the best, but at the same time he almost becomes obsessed with the perfection of the coffin.  He does not show much emotion, but rather works tirelessly on the coffin and runs through lists in his head about it as seen in one chapter.  Cash represents people that do different activities to avoid thinking about the loss of a loved one.  Cash did not just want to forget her death though, but rather he wanted to distract himself and make her final resting place perfect. 
     Vardaman is a special character in that he is the youngest and he has a mental illness as seen through his thoughts and comments in the book.  He grieves by openly being upset about his mother’s death, but the strange thing is that he associates his mother with the dead fish.  Vardaman also blames Peabody for her death because when he arrived, Addie died.  Vardaman is innocent and he represents all the people that associate death with something.  For example, a certain place, person, or even specific weather.  Death is a common thing for all of these characters because of the time and setting of the book.  They see death very often because they live on a farm and are fairly secluded.  In the case of Addie’s death though, they grieved in very different ways because of their varying relationships with with her.

Comments

  1. Camille WhiteOctober 7, 2017 at 9:39 AM

    Olivia, you bring up a very interesting point that Faulkner portrays different ways of grieving death through the characters. I think that Anse is a very special character, but I do not think that he really grieves Addie's death. I think that Addie and Anse did not have the perfect marriage that we see in movies. Instead, he seems very numb when she died. For Anse, her death was just an inconvenience, he had to pay a doctor and he had to bury her in Jefferson. I do not think he actively sought out the good in Addie's death, but instead he manipulated the situation to be in his favor, because we know that he has some incentive that is completely separate from the actual agenda planned. I do agree with you, though, that the good is selfish, but only in this situation. I feel in general, when someone loses a loved one and when they look for the good in the situation, it is not for selfish reasons as you mentioned instead, they think about how they will be free in Heaven and that their suffering has ended as a way to cope.

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