Wait...what?

Overall, I fared fairly well while reading the first assignment (as far as understanding and preliminary interpretation goes). Except for one spot. It was in Darl's last chapter of the assignment; I had commented in another post how clear and coherent I thought Darl's chapters to be, but towards the end I got lost: "In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep...I am //is//." (80-81) I lost track of how many times I read this passage trying to understand. But it kept switching tenses and adding negations and throwing in pronouns and antecedents and there were periods where question marks should have been and I couldn't follow. It seemed like Darl was falling asleep while he was writing it. He knows what he is talking about, of course, but we have no clue. The answer is just beyond our reach, I feel like, and we are only missing a small piece of information: what incident prompted Darl to say all of this.

The only worth-while comment I can make is about the very basic theme of the passage: emptying oneself. The theme of emptiness is common: the air must be empty for rain, we must be empty for sleep, Addie's coffin is empty. Nobody is really asleep, so they are not empty. Addie is dead, so she must be empty. I don't want to apply this emptiness to too much of the passage because I want to see how the rest of you took it. No matter how many close readings I did of this, no matter whether I took each sentence by itself, or the passage as a whole, I could not decipher it. Am I the only one that is missing something? 1202686932

I also had a difficult time with this passage because it does not seem very coherent; it seems more like a jumble of quickly changing thoughts. All I have been able to get out of it is that Darl is questioning his existance and what existance means. I think that seeing that his mother is dead has put life into perspective for him and he is worried about making the most out of his existance. I think that Darl is somewhat jealous of Jewel because he says that Jewel knows his own existance. Jewel knows what is going on with his life but Darl does not. I think Darl feels some kind of emptiness in his life, perhaps the emptiness necessary for death but harmful in life.1202764191

ok, I don't want to be a complete cynic on this topic, but I was thinking of what we discussed in class today about this passage. And I don't agree with what Darl is saying. Here is my interpretation:

Basically, he is questioning who he is/his existence/life's meaning etc. This makes sense; he ends with a period because he accepts the fact that he is something, whether that is discernible or not. Then, sleep is symbolic for death, which I have read before in other novels. Although this is generally a commonly accepted idea, I do not find it completely plausible. After all, does not sleep provide you needed rest, give you energy, and prepare you for the day ahead? I suppose sleep is the closest one can get to death, but it does always serve as a good metaphor. Moreover, [and maybe this is just confusion on my part but] I do not agree that sleeping erases one's former existence. What lived is done and forever will be -- in history, at least. I am sure Darl is confused and upset, and this makes sense, but how can Jewel be what he is not? Just because neither know //who// they are does not mean that they //are not//. and how does the rain affect sleep? I understand that the passage could be stream-of-consciousness-like and that it is meant to be somewhat confusing, but when any string of connection //is-not,// the relevance and meaning of it //is not,// as well.

Finally, if anyone bothered to listen to me thus far, I think I DO understand the final section: When the wagon and active life //was// / a.k.a. existed, Addie Burden was dying. Now that Addie Burden has completed her "will not be" (because she is dead), the wagon still exists / a.k.a. //is. To be// and //is/was// are slightly different because Addie can be both; she will no longer //be// alive, but her memory/soul does not die (apparently because of Jewel..?) so she remains //is.// ok, i'm done1202868346

This is definitely a passage that requires more than one read-through. I think that I understand it best when I look at its context and also determine what the definition of is is (no connection to a certain former president intended). I think that Darl means what he said; that he is not. What he means by this is that at this point in his life he does not know who he is; and thus he is not. I disagree with Sharon when she says "Just because neither know //who// they are does not mean that they //are not//." Essentially THEY are not, their bodies are physically present but because they are out of tune with their lives and do not have a connection to life's meaning, they are essentially a collection of body parts, or nothing. Our bodies physically began as nothing and will return to nothing one day (in all but a handful of cases). What is important in our lives, what truly makes us live, is fulfilling whatever meaning we find in life, for if you live for nothing, are you truly living? That is what I believe Darl is saying.

And I do not believe that Darl meant that sleeping erases one's former existance. I actually think that sleeping is a metaphor for his life: he is out of tune with the world around him and his life's meaning.1202871947

KLe's idea that he was falling asleep had some favor with me, for what it's worth. Anyways, now I look at this event influenced by a later one. In tonights reading assignment, Darl gets into this argument about if he has a mother or not. He says he doesn't, because Addie is dead, and in the process tells about why he uses "was," not "is," and "had," not "have." I think that its sort of the same case in the event you guys are talking about. Darl says "I am is" because he is still alive. He exists. Furthermore, I think that it is prudent to add that Darl, like Cash, is one of the more practical members of the family. That's why he uses the words he does in his later argument, and therefore why he says what he did earlier.1203038639

SFa, I can definitely see where you're coming from. When you go to sleep, you do go into a kind of death. You go into a state of unconsciousness. We said in class that you let go of your waking identity. So perhaps, PSp, you don't "ERASE your former existence," you just let go of it for a while. That is why when we are //too// conscious of ourselves, we can't get to sleep! There are things running through our heads, and we can't seem to be able to fade away. That does make me wonder, however, if it is possible to actually be thinking of nothing. Anyways, I also think that Darl is falling asleep. He's rambling and his ideas are obviously hazy. But it is also at this moment that Darl reveals that he knows something about Jewel. "He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not" (80). Why can't Jewel let go of his waking identity? Darl seems to be falling asleep as he writes or thinks this--so he must be able to empty himself for sleep, but not Jewel. 1203565192

Darl always seemed more of a dreamer to me while still maintaining his depth/complexity. I notice this right away, such as on p.11 in which he used to sneak out in the middle of the night to the water bucket, see stars in the water's reflection, then drink. //"I was bigger, older."// This is just one scenario of his profound sense of character.

Naturally, Dark came to question his existence, as exemplified on p.80-81. I agree that it is mind-boggling while at the same time fascinating to read his theory about existence. Darl doesn't know if he "is or not" because he doesn't know what he is. His younger brother Jewel doesn't have that worry or question of existence because he never realized that there is a question to be asked on the subject. The //was// and //is// syntax was quite over my head, but I realized if I tried not to focus too much on each sentence, the paragraph actually made more sense as a skimming and general sense of questioning life and existence.

Darl also showed this manner of thinking on p. 101: Vardaman: "Then what is your ma, Darl?" Darl: "I haven't got ere one. Because if I had one, it is //was.// And if it is was, it can't be //is//. Can it?"

Darl proves to me one of the most intruiging characters just based on his way of thinking alone! 1204087781

I was right there with you Kirsten. Although it was awhile ago, I still remember trying to decipher that passage at the end. It just seems like he strung together a bunch of to be verbs in different tenses and made it sound deep. But really, I know that he was actually making sense if you could follow, but even when Br Tom slowed it down I still felt like we were going at breakneck speed. The main points I took away from the passage are that Darl is deep, capable of more than just the average thinking levels. Also I found out that the themes of existence and reality are also strong themes in this book too. These two I think were sufficient for me to get along well throughout the rest of the book.1204165380

Darl is a character that I struggled with all throughout the novel. However, on page 80-81, after rereading it many times, I believe I have some thoughts on his frame of mind that might actually be valid. The line that offered me the most clues was the very last line of that chapter on page 81. "How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home." To be honest, I think there is much symbolism in this whole passage about sleep, but I think we're overanalyzing this one at the same time. When you lay in bed at night, right before you drift off to sleep, do you ever find that your mind is going at about one million miles per hour, and all you want to do it relax. That happens to me sometimes, and I can't make any rhyme or reason to some of the randomness of my thoughts of the day or what I have planned for tomorrow. I think that is what is happening to Darl here. He is getting ready to drift off to sleep, which prompts him to say that first line on the third paragraph on page 80, "In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep." I think the problem is that Darl wants to empty himelf, so that he can relax and go to bed, but his head is full of all these jumbled thoughts that he proceeds to tell us. Anyone else agree? 1204259438