Tull’s continuation of his narration leads to one minor problem concerning time in the novel. That is, earlier the Bundrens had passed by the Tulls and gone and spent the night with the Samsons, and then in these sections we hear that Tull followed them immediately after they left the house. We can account for this only by saying that again Faulkner is not presenting the story in strict chronological order. That is, these sections by Tull can be considered a jump back in time. Yet Samson in his section has also suggested that the bridge is out. The important thing, though, is that Tull is totally unable to determine why the Bundrens must cross the water.
As noted previously, whenever a significant event occurs, the reader should be aware that it is Darl who narrates this event. Thus, he is also responsible for the main narration about the losing of the coffin. The narration itself is in language that is impressionistic, musical, and imagistic, rather than a straightforward narrative. However, we do gain a sense of the immediacy of the situation.
In the attempt to cross the river, we again have the basic attributes of Cash and Jewel demonstrated. Jewel is impetuous and has no logical plan for the crossing. Instead, he simply must be doing something, must be performing some action. He cannot tolerate the slow process of thinking or working out some plan, but his impatience is partly responsible for losing the coffin. In contrast to Jewel, Cash is slow, deliberate, and calculating. He likes to think over every possibility before he begins anything, and it is Cash who wishes to secure the coffin better and to have a rope on the other side as a brace against the current. Yet because Jewel cannot stand the delay, they begin the crossing before they are certain of its success.
In the next narration by Vardaman, we have another view of essentially the same event. And in the following section, Tull again gives us still another view of the same event. These three sections taken together are an excellent illustration of the narrative technique Faulkner uses. That is, he narrates the same event from several perspectives so that the reader can gain a fuller understanding of the event.
Earlier Vardaman had confused his mother with the fish he caught on the day she died. This scene, then, combines the height of comic irony with tragic pathos as the pathetic Vardaman associates his mother’s body, now apparently bobbing and floating in the river, with a fish. Faulkner does not narrate this directly; therefore, the reader must imaginatively reconstruct the scene in order to grasp the grotesque pathos of this entire section.
Tull’s narration is apparently some time later in time since he is telling his wife Cora what happened. Throughout the entire episode at the river, Faulkner never mentions what Anse is doing. Whenever there is some emergency or some action that must be performed, Anse is most often rendered totally incapable. For example, during the confusion caused by the overturned wagon in which each character is desperately involved in some type of furious activity, Anse is completely absent from the scene. Imaginatively, the reader can envision Anse as a mere bystander shaking his head and muttering one of his platitudes.
Faulkner again utilizes Darl to narrate another aspect of the ill-fated crossing. And again we should notice that Anse can merely stand ineffectually by and bemoan his predicament, but he does nothing to rectify it. And when he says that he does not begrudge Addie the effort, he is actually thinking only about his teeth.
It is typical of Anse that he thinks it is lucky Cash broke the same leg, when in reality this is the worst possible thing that could have happened. But Cash himself does not even think about his leg. Cash, even in the midst of the pain of his broken leg, is more concerned about the reason that the coffin was lost. Ironically, this concern again suggests that Cash cannot become involved in more than one thought at one time. Since the opening of the novel, his entire attention has been focused upon the mechanics of the coffin itself, and since he is so proud of his handicraft, it is ironically fitting that he will be compelled to ride on top of it.
