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The Dead Speak
***SPOILER WARNING***
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| Wow! Vardaman was right! |
Okay, now that we have that over with, comes the idea. As we know, Addie Bundren dies. I know, right?!? As a surprise to me and other readers, she has a chapter dedicated to herself, where she ensues an active role in displaying her..outgoing personality. Suppose that Faulkner never included this recount of her stream of consciousness. Would your opinion of Addie change if this was never included?
The chapter from Addie's point of view is literally the end all be all of her image in the book. From reading the previous chapters, there is no doubt that we get to know how the rest of the family feels about their matriarch, and we get a sense of their connections to her that are all quite unique, and in many ways dependent despite her state. However, through Addie's point of view we can sense that, although the family feels that she is the one that holds them together, the feeling is not mutual. It seems that Addie is the one who brings to light the reality of what it is like to be head of such a dysfunctional family. She doesn't feel the same way about the characters as they do of her because in the end, she is the one who has to deal with their cycle of mistakes, witnessing it over and over again. She also, unlike the family who wants to keep her around, despises the presence of them, saying they interrupted her aloneness, thinking of her children only as pieces of her own puzzle, pawns in her life. We can really understand just how emotionally and mentally wrecked this family is through the rift in thinking that we understand through Addie's own words
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. Without the Addie chapter, her entire character is completely changed in perspective. She continues to be a head of the family, mysterious and undying in her family's memories. We see how cruel she is, and this also puts the entire family dynamic in perspective. It brings tragedy to a group you can't really feel sorry for before this; it changes everything for the reader.
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