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   jasminaenotes Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

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   Darl

   In many ways, Darl is different from the other Bundren family members. He is highly intelligent, sensitive, and intuitive. His language is perceptive, observant, poetic. 

   Consider all the family members' motives for going to bring their mother's and wife's remains to Jefferson.  Darl is the one who is truly troubled by the terrible disrespect to their mother's memory on their journey.  The coffin gets lost in the river, the wet body begins to decompose, vultures are following the family, and as they pass through town, people cover their noses in disgust and curse at the family's backwardness and insolence.

   Darl finally sets fire to the barn where Addie's coffin lies, to "free" her from the indignity she has been put through. He wants to lay her to rest.  However, he is the one who gets sent to an insane asylum so that Anse can avoid a law suit for destroying another man's property. 

   The most poignant chapter is the one where Darl speaks about himself in third person, "Darl has gone to Jackson. They put him on the train, laughing, down the long car laughing, the heads turning like the heads of owls when he passed. 'What are you laughing at' I said. Darl is our brother, our brother Darl."

   Emily Dickinson has written, "Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye."

   So with Darl. On the surface, his repeating "yes yes yes yes yes" nonsensically and laughing maniacally seems that he has gone mad. But in the context of his family's behavior, who are selfish, insensitive, callous--his actions are the only sane ones. 

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   Posted by jasminaenotes on Thursday August 20, 2009 at 6:08 PM