In keeping with the air of Southern Gothic grotesquerie that pervades the book, Addie’s burial is a highly unusual affair, to say the least. As one would expect with the highly dysfunctional Bundren family, their idea of a dignified send-off for the family matriarch is completely different from most other people’s.

For one thing, Addie is buried in her wedding dress. As well as being frankly rather weird, this is ironic for two reasons. First of all, wedding dresses are traditionally associated with a new start in life rather than the ending of one. If Addie’s being married, it’s to the earth and the worms who inhabit it.

Burying Addie in her wedding dress is also ironic because she positively detested her husband. It doesn’t seem appropriate then to send her off clad in a garment that symbolizes a deeply unhappy marriage.

Further irony can be observed when the family put Addie in the coffin the wrong way round so as not to ruin the dress. This is a prime example of dramatic irony, as it defies our expectations of what we thought would happen. After all the trouble that Cash went to in order to build the coffin, it seems absurd that the Bundrens would put Addie's body in the wrong way around. And why on earth would they be concerned about damaging the dress anyway? It’s not as if she needs to impress anyone, is it?