Thursday in class we discussed whether we found the Bundrens to be heroic of clowns. That really got me thinking. Because on the one hand, working as hard as they do to fulfill the wish of their dead mother is an inherently heroic thing to do. And in most other stories that have a parallel to that, it is solely portrayed as a heroic thing. However, in this case, the heroic aspect is undercut by two things. First of all, Addie, who is essentially the one who sent them on this quest, did it simply to get back at Anse for Darl. The other thing that undercuts the heroic aspect of their journey is the way Addie's body is being treated in the progress. Even though it was her wish, ignoring the fact that it is her revenge, they try to complete her wish to a ridiculous degree. At some point, the way her body is being treated should outway her wish. But it never does. The drag her around for days, she floats down a river, is in a burning barn, and more. This failure of accomplishing a heroic goal through effective methods really undercuts their goal.
That's when I started to think about how often the Bundren's attempted heroics resulted in them becoming clowns because they tried to be too heroic. That isn't to say they don't have their moments in which they are solely portrayed as clowns. Those can be found throughout. One example is when Anse doesn't even remember to bring shovels to dig Addie's grave and they have to borrow some from a family that lives in the town. However, many other moments like that are driven by an urge towards heroism. Take for example the all the shenanigans with getting the new mules for the carriage. Anse is forced to give up his teeth money, Cash's money, and Jewel's horse just to get the mules. All the while he could have just borrowed them but because he thought Addie wouldn't want them to be beholden to anybody he refused to. So I think that the Bundrens are mostly clowns with a heroic goal that gets taken too far (mostly by Anse).
I also agree that the Bundrens make a lot of foolish mistakes. In my opinion many of their mistakes would've been good reasons to end the trip, yet the keep going forward. You make a good distinction between heroic goals and heroism. I agree that in theory some of Anse's thought process is to do the right thing, but even so, everyone in ends up worse than how they started. Everyone except Anse who gets "them teeth" as well as a new wife. So did he really do anything out of heroic motivation?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your comment. While at first the trip is heroic, over time its tone shifts. We realize that each character (except Darl?) has a rather selfish motive, which casts doubt upon everyone's participation, but particularly Anse's lofty-mindedness. Then the body gets more and more degraded, until the best thing to do would be to bury it where it lied, to respect the body and the people in the wagon who we don't want to get sick. The final nail in the metaphorical coffin is Addie's chapter, where we realize that she never really cared about a Jefferson burial except as a mechanism to screw Anse over. I think that the journey quickly becomes self-focused for each of the characters, and, while they care about Addie very much, she is not their primary motivation. The slow degradation of the body matches the slow degradation of the reader's belief that Anse is doing the right thing for Addie.
DeleteI think the Bundrens are pretty clown-like. There are definitely heroic moments, like when Jewel runs into the burning barn to save his mothers body, but largely they look like fools. Especially from the towns-people perspective we can see how they appear with the 8-day-old dead body that smells so badly people run away screaming. This perspective shows that maybe they aren't as heroic looking as we may have pictured.
ReplyDeleteI do think that several of the Bundrens are very clownlike. Although characters like Cash are more focused and serious, the wagon as a whole is foolish. As you said, they try too hard to fulfill Addie's last wish, which is admirable but foolish if you think about it long enough.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that the Bundrens are trying too hard is one which simultaneously does and does not resonate with me. I think for sure certain members of the family, specifically Anse, do seem to be trying too hard, particularly seeing as it is not necessarily clear that Addie and Anse were particularly close, but other members of the family seem to not be trying hard enough, at least according to Anse. However, I'm not sure they necessarily are trying too hard to be "heroic," so to say. I wouldn't say any of them necessarily imagine themselves to be heroes and this is one of the clownish aspects. They do these things that could be seen as heroic, like crossing the river even though it is not crossable, but for reasons that don't seem entirely explored.
ReplyDeleteI think they are sort of clownish (from the townspeople's perspective and maybe ours as well), but the fact that Faulkner spends so much of the early book inside their minds makes me identify with them. They don't see themselves as clownish (honestly, I don't know how they see themselves, because they don't seem all that heroic either), so when they end up making fools of themselves again and again, I don't find it funny in the way I would if the entire book was from other people's minds.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. Faulkner’s humor is so sneaky – you read a passage that you get totally invested in and take totally seriously, and then you step back and realize you were just stressing over a bunch of country bumpkins hauling a smelly body into town and the town being upset about it (big surprise!). I think the sincerity combined with the incompetence of the characters makes for a really unique story, and the fact that they themselves narrate the events, rather than an omniscient narrator, makes it more personal and compelling.
ReplyDeleteIn a way, I think that this clown like nature the Bundrens hold is a satirisation of the Heroes Journey narrative. Since we see this type of clown like nature in a lot of Heroes Journeys, just in a much duller sense, Faulkner most likely decided to take that and magnify it, in order to bring it to our attention and how ridiculous the Heroes Journey can be at times.
ReplyDeleteHeroic clowns... I had never actually thought of that title for the Bundrens before we had brought it up, but it actually fits surprisingly well.They're quite clownlike in nature and actions. You brought up the good point that a lot of the unfortunate situations they had to go through were set up and/or triggered by them almost overcompensating and trying too hard to be heroic. They got Addie to where they were trying to bury her eventually, but not before going through one hell of a journey.
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