Cora's comments about Addie, then, introduce us to her as a person who is not religious, as a person who has not devoted her life to God or to the church. We are then prepared to meet a woman who has embraced a rather nihilistic philosophy.
Halfway through the novel and halfway through the long journey to bury Addie, Faulkner inserts the only section narrated by her. Since her section comes in the midst of the funeral procession, it serves to remind the reader that she was a real person and not just some dead, stinking object in the box.
Addie seemed to hate the children that she taught, and so she would beat them to make them aware of her. This seems to be one of the driving forces in her life, that is, to make people aware of her presence. Thus one may say that when she failed to make her family aware of her during her life, she extracted a promise from them so that they would be aware of her at least during the arduous funeral march.
We cannot maintain that Addie wanted to be buried close to her father or to her family in Jefferson because she reveals in this section that her father taught her a rather nihilistic philosophy. Her actions conform to her father's view that life is no more than a preparation for death. Furthermore, it is suggested many times that she hated her father for having sired her. Consequently there is no indication that Addie extracted the promise merely so that she could lie in death next to her family.
