Functional Dysfunction

As we have discussed in class, our idea of what family means is very different from the Bundren family. It is more like a set of individuals that have their own interests, goals, and lives, and see everyone else as means to their own end. This is one of the main ideas that keep the interest of a reader. The reader has intellectual interests about a family that seems to be unfamiliar to one’s own concept of family. The conflict of beliefs draws us in, and makes a person want to understand why they do these unusual things. Peabody states:

     “I can remember how when I was young I believed death

     to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely

     a function of the mind-and that of the minds of the ones 

     who suffer the bereavement. The nihilists say it is the end;

     the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality is no 

     more than a single family moving out of a tenement

     or a town"(43-44).

Addie's death is a symbol of the thing that pushes the family into a new period in their lives. It is her death that releases them of the labels and positions they were given during her life. Darl seems to be the only one that has all of the information about the families past, so I don't find it strange that Cash says: "This world is not his world; this life his life"(261). The family has transitioned to a new "tenement" and Darl's knowledge will not allow him to live in that place. The curiosity about how each character deals with her death drives the reader to want to know more about the facts of their actions.

The reader’s qualitative interest is fulfilled by all of the motives that each family member has in the beginning of the story: Anse wants to purchase new teeth; Vardamann wants to get his hands on bananas; Dewey Dell wants medicine to abort her baby; and Cash wants to buy a record player. Even though this sounds so dysfunctional when a mother and wife dies, the reader is interested in how this will all play out. Booth writes: “All good works surprise us, and they surprise us largely by bringing to our attention convincing cause-and-effect patterns which were earlier played down” (127). Throughout the book one sees how each situation and person effects another one, but many times the reader is left clueless of what direction one is being led, but soon finds that it all makes sense.

The practical interests of the reader are satisfied in this book depending on the perspective of each reader. Anse is one that seems to be a horrible person, in which one would like to see the consequences of his actions, but he never seems to have to answer for all of the people that he uses throughout his life. I suppose one could say that because he is the head of the household that would mean his lot would end up being his children’s lot. In this way, one can be satisfied that all did not suffer the consequences of his actions. “Booth states: “It is of course true that our desires concerning the fate of such imagined people differ markedly from our desires in real life” (130). A greater tolerance is found for Anse and Addies’ death, because of the readers curiosity about how everything will end.