These sections present one of the more crucial and significant episodes of the novel, that is, the arrival at the bridge and the loss of the coffin while attempting to ford the high waters. The introduction to the washed-out bridge is presented from Anse’s viewpoint and again presents Anse as a man who does nothing but who feels that he must endure untold burdens for the sake of others. Actually, however, as the end of the section indicates, Anse’s only concern now is with getting his new teeth.
We hear more of the Bundrens by the introduction of a new objective commentator. This is Samson, a neighboring farmer, and with him Faulkner takes us away from the Bundren world for a while. At this point in the novel, we need to see the normal, or average or typical, reactions so as to be able to evaluate the absurdity of the Bundrens’ actions.
When Samson first sees the Bundrens, we hear him assume that the Bundrens are taking a holiday, now that they have buried Mrs. Bundren. The irony here, of course, is that the average person would assume that a woman dead for four days would not be carted about the country in the back end of a wagon. Consequently by this one assumption, the absurdity of the Bundrens’ actions is further indicated.
Later, Samson expresses the idea that the best way to respect a dead woman is to get her into the ground as quickly as possible. Samson’s section, then, adds a note of objectivity by reminding the reader of the proper perspective and of the normal reactions of the average person toward the dead. And since the body is beginning to decay so rapidly, and since we see it from the outside narrator’s point of view, we are prepared later on for Darl’s drastic actions in trying to give his mother a decent and respectable funeral when he burns the barn.
What Samson does not understand is that Anse is using the promise to his wife as an excuse to get to Jefferson for his false teeth. But Dewey Dell is even more insistent than Anse about getting to Jefferson. It is she who reminds him of his promise. But then in actuality Dewey Dell is not interested in her mother or in fulfilling the promise, but only in getting to Jefferson so that she can have an abortion.
It is somewhat comic that Anse consistently asserts his independence and will not become indebted to anyone while at the same time he is constantly accepting help from someone.
In Section 30, Dewey Dell narrates a short scene; mainly her narration is one of impressions. Her scenes are essentially illogical because, as Dewey Dell herself says, she is incapable of thinking, of remembering, or tying things together. She responds only on an elemental level. In remembering the fish that Vardaman caught and stuck the knife into, she juxtaposes this previous scene with an imaginative scene of violence in which she stabs Darl. This image of violence foreshadows her later attack on Darl at the end of the novel and should be seen as her subconscious desire to punish Darl because he knows of her pregnancy. Dewey Dell herself seems to be unaware of the significance of the buzzards, and they seem to gain significance for her only in the fact that Darl constantly watches them.
Sections 31 and 33 are both narrated by Tull, but these sections are interrupted by the narration in which Darl recounts for us the story of Jewel’s obtaining the horse. In Tull’s narration, we note once again Anse’s complete helplessness when confronted with some obstacle, in this instance, the washed-out bridge. The irony here is, of course, that Anse cannot perform any action and he can only mouth generalizations, hoping that someone will soon come to his rescue.
Tull’s observation of Darl is interesting in view of our final analysis of Darl. Tull makes the remark that Darl has always been considered somewhat strange, and in Tull’s view what Darl says is not as strange as is the manner in which Darl looks at a person. This conforms with our general view of Darl. We have seen that Darl has the ability to penetrate into another person’s thoughts or subconscious, especially Dewey Dell’s and Jewel’s.
In Darl’s section, we see how dedicated Jewel can be when confronted with the task of earning money to purchase a horse. This dedication should be juxtaposed to his love for his mother. His desperate efforts to earn money for the horse are partly the reason why he loves it so dearly, which also accounts for part of the pathos when he has to sell it to help complete the journey to Jefferson.
In this section, it becomes almost certain that Jewel knows that Anse is not his father. Jewel has a pronounced antagonism toward Anse, as seen when Jewel promises that he will never allow his horse to eat any of Anse’s food.
The entire section concerning the purchase of the horse leads us deeper into the relationship existing among the various Bundrens. For once we see Darl and Cash both as having some type of almost brotherly affection for Jewel. But more important, Faulkner also gives us an inside view of Addie, who is somewhat partial toward Jewel. We see her doing things for Jewel in secret, even though she has always maintained that deceit was one of the worst sins.
