Affair?

Whitfield's chapter (p. 177) opened me up to a possibility. I believe that it is very likely that Addie had an affair with him. After all, Whitfield keeps on talking about how he sinned and that he needed to admit a great sin to Anse and ask for God's forgiveness. Now, only a mortal sin can cause such mental anguish. Guess what? Having an affair is a mortal sin. Furthermore, Addie, in her chapter, talked about how three of her kids were Anse's, not hers (p. 176. paraphrased). She treated her last three kids as things that she gave to Anse because she did not want them. Perhaps this impliesss that they were kids form her affair... 1203305494

Yes, Addie did have an affair with Whitfield. Jewel isn't Anse's biological son; he is the son of Addie and Whitfield. This explains why Addie shows a stronger connection with him than any of her other children. I am still confused by the quote on page 176. She says, "I gave Anse Dewey Sell to negative Jewel. Then I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of. And now he has three children that are his and not mine. And Then I could get ready to die." Which of the children does she consider not hers? We know that she was very fond of Jewel. When she says that Dewey Dell is the negative to Jewel it may mean that Dewey Dell neutralizes Jewel. They almost cancel each other out. Then are the three children she is referring to Cash, Darl, and Vardaman? I think that she calls them only his children because she didn't want to have more children after she had Cash, but Anse wasn't satisfied. This chapter really surprised me. Addie was not the character that I was expecting. Her beliefs about life and childbirth were very surprising. Her lack of love for her children as people explains why they have so little feelings for her after her death. They feel very little connection with her because she didn't even consider them "her children." 1203371177

I think after Cash, she lost all meaning in her life. She says that words have no more meaning to her and marriage means nothing. I think that is why she had the affair with Whitfield: she was trying to find some sort of meaning, something to live for. However, after she had the Jewel, I think she felt guilty and wanted some way to make it up to Anse so she gave him Dewey first to balance out Jewel and then Vardaman to give him net one child and then Darl to give him a total of three children. Now that she has paid her debt to Anse, she is ready to die. She realizes that there is no meaning to her life: she does not love her husband and only had the children because she felt bad about her affair. I think she considers her life a failure because during the time before death when one is supposed to reconcile with life, Addie had nothing to be proud of; she did not love her husband or most of her kids. 1203388131

Although, the affair is surprising, I always had a feeling that Jewel was "different" because of the special treatment he received from Addie. She treated him like a small child because she probably felt guilty that he was born into a family that was not his and one Addie despised. I agree that she probably had the affair because Anse is a poor and uneducated farmer. On the other hand Whitfield is probably somewhat educated and preachers were often fairly wealthy. I think she had the last three children to pay her debt to Anse and somewhat redeem herself of the sin she committed. Further, I think she died feeling good about her life because she felt as if she gave Anse what he deserved. Finally, it was mentioned in class today that Addie was taking revenge out on Anse by making him take her to Jefferson. I think that she probably also felt that the affair was partially Anse's fault because of his character. So this way she is able to take her revenge on him knowing that she is not the only one in their marriage who made mistakes. 1203454137

While I first read mha’s post, I thought about how terrible it was to think about the last sentence, “I think she considers her life a failure because during the time before death when one is supposed to reconcile with life, Addie had nothing to be proud of; she did not love her husband or most of her kids.” This can't really be argued because she really didn't have the significant relationships that we are used to reading about or having in our own lives. However, then I read Ksm’s post and found it very interesting. Even though I see where mha is coming from, I tend to relate more to the idea that she died feeling slightly better about her life than she did before. I guess Anse did get what he deserved, and Addie must have felt a little more relieved because of this. She got a little feeling of revenge in by the end and that probably helped her feel better about her own life. 1203564524

I am pretty sure that she explains why she had the affair. And I am very certain that money had nothing to do with it. To begin with, she is unhappy with humanity as a whole. "In the afternoon when school was out and the last one had left with his little dirty snuffling nose...I would go...where I could be quiet and hate them." Not exactly a people person. She was a masochist; she took pleasure in whipping the students because she could feel their pain.

Then she married Anse. She did so only because "In the early spring it was worst." I honestly don't know what that means, but it seems to be an affliction of sorts - physical or mental I am not sure - that made her reliant on others. But she did not love him, even though he used the word love towards her. He fathered two children with her, and that was why she hated him. "It was though he had tricked me, hidden within a word like within a paper screen and struck me in the back through it." She did not want the children intruding into her inner self as they were apt to do. He had died within her because she had killed him. In Whitflield, she "believed that [she] had found it." What had she found? Nearly as I can tell, she had found "God's love and His beauty and His sin," which is the focus of the last sentence of the previous paragraph. She found that in him because of the sin that he made by deliberately breaking the Lord's word. Bizarre, but true.

To sum it up, she hated Anse because he gave her children who intruded upon her private self. She loved Whitfield because she found God through him. And she loved Jewel because she loved Whitfield. That is why there was an affair. 1203692270

To further back up Tim's points, let's remember that she didn't really love Anse at all. Think back to the part where she discusses the meaning of love: she is describing how she and Cash don't need to say they love each other because they really do. Love is just a word for people who don't understand what it means. In other words, people like Anse. Whitfield, however, was different in her mind than Anse. She was with him because she wanted to be, not because they "weren't nigh done chappin' yet." This distinction made her love being with him more than she could ever love being with Anse. That's why the affair occurred, and why she loved Jewel more.1203912823

Yeah, I tend to agree with NVa. She did love Jewel a lot more because she loved Whitfied way more than Anse, and since Jewel obviously has some of his father's characteristic, looking at Jewel probably reminds Addie of that small love she once had in her life while loving at her other children who hold resemblences of Anse probably remind her of her unhappiness. Addie was not right in having her affair, but can you say what Addie did was any worse than Anse using his wife's burial to buy teeth and marry another woman days after his first wife died. This affair was central in the creation of the family dynamitics. If Jewel wasn't born, who would have saved her? 1203987769

The affair was not all that surprising, at least after Addie's chapter in which explained her miserable marriage to Anse. She made it very clear to us readers that he was, in every way, dead to her. Her attitude in which she approached her family actually appalled me; I thought that she was a loving mother and that's why everyone was working towards burying her where she wanted (although not everyone had honorable motives). //'So I took Anse. And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it.'// (171). She then says that Cash violated her aloneness!

On page 173, I could not help but notice a striking resemblance between this novel and "The Memory of Old Jack": //"Nonsense,// Anse said; //"you and me aint nigh done chapping yet, with just two."// [Addie]: //'He did not know that he was dead, then.'// This dialogue reminded me of what happened between Old Jack and his wife Ruth, at least in terms of an unhappy marriage and children. After Ruth gave birth, she told Jack that she was done. I remember Jack saying that he knew he would sleep alone for the rest of his life.

Of course, Anse and Addie differ because Anse chooses (or maybe not) to be ignorant; or maybe it is that Addie does not verbalize her emotions as Ruth did. Either way, the loveless marriages are similar in many ways.

Because Anse was "not there" for 12 years (42), Addie naturally looked elsewhere for love, and found that in Whitfield. 1204084314

I totally agree. After Addie's chapter when she is describing her marriage and her relationship with her husband and after we hear of her kneeling over Jewel, it didn't surprise me at all that that she was having an affair. Although I don't agree with infidelity, I was kind of happy that Addie was able to find that love with someone else. Whitfield was who Addie loved and even though she wasn't able to always be with him, I am glad that she was able to have that kind of love with her unhappy home life. 1204768871