The idiot and the other three

On page 152, Booth puts in parenthesis "Faulkner can use the idiot for part of his novel only because the other three parts exist to set off and clarify the idiot's jumble." This bolsters his point that not all the characters are qualified (or just not smart enough) to narrate a story. I find this very amusing, yet sad. In particular, Vardaman and his confused mumblings through out As I Lay Dying. Is he really the idiot?

After observing his mother die, his reaction is stunted - because the whole family is stunted and he has no nurturing from this lovely family. He associates the death with the fish he found "down to the bridge", as he has no idea what is really happening. The fish was all cut up into not-fish, and now his mother is not-momma. One minute, momma's there, then the doctor arrives (against Anse's wishes - was this observed by the little one?) and she dies. Blaming Peabody would be a natural thought process.

Although mumbling through multiple thoughts per paragraph, one particular sentence caught my eye. It is profound in a way that is beyond the years of Vardaman, and I wonder how it had been slipped in for his thought process. On page 66 he rants:

              "It was not her. I was there looking. I saw. I though it was her, but it was not. It was not my                 mother. She went away when the other one laid down in her bed and drew the quilt up.
               She went away."

To make the rather adult observation that his mother left when she got into bed and the one there was no longer his mother is a concept many use to ease the pain of watching someone waste away into death. The person you loved died before all this pain, try to remember the happy times... She went to a better place, no more suffering...

Is Vardaman really the idiot here? While grown adults will cliche everyone to death in order to remove the pain of close people dying, Vardaman is dealing with the loss the same way. Awfully adult of him to deny the loss and pain and try to find some comfort in words (in Addie's definition).

Unfortunately, he returns to rabbits not in the box, bananas for everyone, and the shiny train in the window. The poor child.