Throughout the novel Vardaman presents himself as a curious and innocent character, with simplicity and complexity in equal measure. The reader is left none the wiser as to the true level of comprehension Vardaman possesses with regards to the tragic and morbid events affecting him and his family. Although his age remains unspecified by Faulkner, we can surmise that he is either a young child or a boy in his early teens. The tragedy befalling young Vardaman would prompt inquisition and a thirst for reason in even the most uninterested of beings. The loss of a crucial family member such as a parent is likely to have a devastating impact on a person of any age, particularly one as young and naïve as Vardaman. In typical childlike fashion, Vardaman
…show more content…
Frequent references are made about their attempts to ‘catch’ their mother as opposed to retrieving the coffin. ‘Catch her Darl catch her’ on line 6 mirrors the excitement of when you hook a fish and begin to reel it in and Vardaman’s languages suggests a playful game. The fishing related semantic field is extensive and significant within Vardaman’s narration, as is the figurative representation of a coffined Addie Bundren as a fish. ‘Cash tried but she fell off’ metaphorically implies that the fish had unhooked itself or flopped from their grasp and into the water. ‘She fell off’ is an unusual way to describe this action because it is almost placing the blame for this on the dead woman, whereas ‘it fell’ or the ‘coffin fell’ would be a more accurate description. But in the child’s mind Addie Bundren is not simply a corpse in a coffin, she is a fish and, upon her ‘re-entering’ the water, for a moment Vardaman sees his mother as reanimated and alive. On line 3 ‘she jumped into the water again’ which suggests the same reanimation through the child’s imagination. On lines 6 and 7, Vardaman breathes further life into his mother by saying ‘in the water she could go faster than a man’. He is oblivious to the severity of what is going on and believes his mother will remain alive if she is in the
Frequent references are made about their attempts to ‘catch’ their mother as opposed to retrieving the coffin. ‘Catch her Darl catch her’ on line 6 mirrors the excitement of when you hook a fish and begin to reel it in and Vardaman’s languages suggests a playful game. The fishing related semantic field is extensive and significant within Vardaman’s narration, as is the figurative representation of a coffined Addie Bundren as a fish. ‘Cash tried but she fell off’ metaphorically implies that the fish had unhooked itself or flopped from their grasp and into the water. ‘She fell off’ is an unusual way to describe this action because it is almost placing the blame for this on the dead woman, whereas ‘it fell’ or the ‘coffin fell’ would be a more accurate description. But in the child’s mind Addie Bundren is not simply a corpse in a coffin, she is a fish and, upon her ‘re-entering’ the water, for a moment Vardaman sees his mother as reanimated and alive. On line 3 ‘she jumped into the water again’ which suggests the same reanimation through the child’s imagination. On lines 6 and 7, Vardaman breathes further life into his mother by saying ‘in the water she could go faster than a man’. He is oblivious to the severity of what is going on and believes his mother will remain alive if she is in the