Anse and Cash therefore declare Darl crazy for financial reasons; Jewel accepts it violently and anxiously out of the heightened enmity between them. And Dewey Dell, responsible for Gillespie's knowing that Darl burned the barn, is the one most pleased in disposing of Darl, thereby insuring the secrecy of her pregnancy.
Thus, Darl's supposed insanity is imposed upon him, and a close reading of the novel suggests that Darl did not go insane. A study of Faulkner's methods in his other novels indicates that if Darl had gone insane, the reader would have been made aware of his regression toward insanity. In the "Darl" passage immediately following the barn-burning, it is only Darl who is intelligent and sane enough to prevent Jewel from getting into a fight. As Jewel prepares to attack the town observer, Darl handles the situation with perfect sanity, composure, and equanimity.
Faulkner presents several objective views of Darl which create at least a doubt as to the validity of sending him to the insane asylum. Dr. Peabody looks upon the act of sending Darl to Jackson as a blundering episode typical of the acts of Anse. He compares the foolishness of this act with the foolishness of Anse's putting concrete on Cash's leg. Likewise, Gillespie, another objective commentator outside the Bundren world, looks to Darl as the only sensible Bundren capable of rational actions.
