Vardaman's+Style

One of the prominent aspects of Faulkner's writing style when writing the Vardaman chapters is the strong emphasis on stating facts. I think there are a few reasons for why Faulkner does this. I think one is to keep it realistic because little kids often speak in this way. They state the facts they know because they are learning so much, it's one of the ways they learn, and show that they are learning. The other and more important reason for this is to show that Vardaman is trying to find certainty in the facts he knows for sure: "Darl is my brother...Jewel is my brother.." etc. in his completely uncertain world. What other reasons are there for writing in this way, or for that matter, reasons for any other character's writing style? 1203910008

I wouldn't call the style of Vardaman a regurgiation of fact. Rather, I would call it "winding" or "contrived." He's a little kid who uses things he knows, true, but he connects them to random things in the typical backward style of a little kid. He's certainly not a rational being. One of the best lines of his is the one sentence chapter: "My mother is a fish." He spent so much time trying to connect the events of the day that he ended up thinking that the fish he caught was his own mother. Faulkner wrote it this way to portray the mind and the emotions of a little kid coping with this death situation, so I agree in that he was being realistic there. However, I think that his emphasis on the childishness is stronger than his emphasis on stating fact through Vardaman's character.1203913171

I agree with that the aspects of childhood are stronger than the emphasis on fact. Vardaman rambles on about his mother being a fish and the concept of reality which are both reflections of a young child dealing with the death of his mother. He is trying to convince himself that his mother no longer exists and because of this she can be anything he imagines. Instead of directly dealing with the death of his mother like most adults would, he tries to avoid the subject altogether which is something many children do because they simply do not understand death. Also, he continues in this manner when he talks about Darl going crazy at the end of the novel. First he talks about how his brother went crazy and then mentions bananas. Further, I find that he talks about Darl in a compassionate way. Does anyone else see this? He always says that Darl is his brother and constantly repeats the name as if he misses him or something along those lines. 1203972354

I was really surprised when you described Vardaman's chapters as factual. I actually thought that next to Darl, he was the most irrational character. Unlike Darl, however, he has somewhat of an excuse. He is a child and he thinks as most children do. He often goes off on tangents and sometimes the progression of his thoughts make no sense to us. Vardaman does often repeat minor facts that the is sure is true, such as Jewel is my brother, Darl is my brother, so I can see where you're coming in that respect. The conclusions he draws from these facts are typicaly illogical-- perhaps the best example is our favorite chapter: "My mother is a fish." Vardaman simply does not understand death and his mind seems to be growing more and more similar to Darl's as the novel goes on. It makes me wonder if something about their upbringings caused them to be this way. Any ideas? 1203977204

I actually thought that Vardaman was one of the most profound characters. Many of you mentioned that the whole "my mother is a fish" was the irrational thoughts of a child; NVa thought that he actually thought Addie was a fish; KSm said that Vardaman said this to avoid the subject of Addie's death. However, I disagree with both of those statements. I believe that Vardaman is stuggling with the concept of Being, just as Darl does on pg. 80-81 with the "is" and "was." A catostrophic event like the death of a parent has obivously caused Vardaman to question the nature of reality--how people can be //is// sometimes, but cannot be //is// at other times. When he talks about his mother being a fish, he is actually making a profound connection for such a young child about death; it's not like he literally thinks his mother is a fish, but he associates her with it because she is dead, just like the fish. He is not trying to avoid the subject; instead, he is facing it. 1203979743

I actually agree with Lauren--Vardaman seemed to me to focus very much of factual. Rarely, if ever, do we encounter Vardaman saying things about his emotions or his personal thoughts in the matter. Just because Vardaman was not correct (in our judgement) I think that what Vardaman was saying he believed to be fact. In this way, Faulkner was laying out the very basis of Vardaman's world. "My mother is a fish." Ok, we can say rationally that this is not a fact because it is not true. But to Vardaman, this is a fact of his life. He has taken the situation he was presented with, he considered it, and, being a child, he arrived at this conclusion, which he accepted as fact. Just because Vardaman is wrong doesn't mean that he isn't factual, and I think that this is Faulkner's way of helping us to understand Vardaman's chapters. If we can understand the facts on which Vardaman's world is based, we will be better able to understand what he relays in his chapters. Unlike kho, I found Vardaman and Darl's chapters to be the most rational in the book if you take the time to think them through, and therefore the most insightful. 1203983556

We don't know the exact age of Vardaman, but his chapters make him sound like hardly a kid at all. I definitely understand that he is not educated and doesn't really have anyone to learn from, but still Vardaman seems to be so behind. It seems to me that the poor boy can't make sense of anything. He can't understand what is happening to him, and he doesn't know how to respond because he has no one to set an example for him. He just states what he knows, which isn't much. This is significant because toward the end of the book, Darl begins to adopt Vardman's style of writing (or thinking). This shows how Darl has gone downhill and regressed--a reason he was sent to Jackson. I would describe Vardaman as naive. Everything that comes out of his mouth is honest. He doesn't know any better. Although his words may be difficult to put together sometimes, I think Vardaman's words are ones that we as readers can trust. 1203986232

I somewhat liked the way that Faulkner laid out Vardaman's chapters. They were a break from the older thinking of the rest of the children and the adults, and he did a good job of expressing things as a child would. I think that a lot of Vardaman's thinking was stated as facts for a reason. Of course, that's one of the only ways that children know how to communicate. They state things as they are. Another reason he might have set Vardaman's chapters up like this is because it's very easy to connect his thoughts on different topics together. The first instance of this was the relation between his dead mother and the dead fish. His statements were simple enough where we could tell the deeper meaning behind "my mother is a fish." Because we don't know just how old Vardaman is, it is extremely difficult to relate the thoughts to a visual picture for me. KGa, I agree that he is behind when it comes to an education, but then again, they didn't have such a great opportunity back then. 1203986597

Somebody mentioned Vardaman's chapters to be a lot of facts, while others said it was irrational thoughts, and others said he was a profound character. I think his chapters are all of these because since he is the youngest he is learning and struggling with so many different concepts at once. And this struggle perhaps represents his search for the truth, which is why it may contain bits of madness associated with Darl. While the facts seem to represent more of Cash's side. Vardaman seems to be an amalgamation of his brothers because since he is young, he is more easily influence, thus his chapters take on the characteristics of his brothers.

Many mentioned the statement "My mother is a fish", and I wonder if this is a cynical or joking statement. He not only says this before the flood, but he repeats if afterwards too. (Unless the first time was actually a reflection on what had already happened, the flow of time is uncertain.) Since Vardaman saw his mother's coffin get into the river, then it could be a joking statement. She was once just a dead person, but now she has been dropped into a river and is now flowing down the river like a fish. Any thoughts?1204154410

I don't think that Vardaman is old enough to tell a joke that dark. He is just a kid, and associations work like that for them. But getting back to the original intent of this forum, I think to know why Faulkner uses Vardaman the way he does we have to look at when Vardaman appears in our story. One of the features of his passages that I noticed first is that he delivers the initial reaction to the most important events. Darl describes the death of Addie, but Vardaman gives the first response to her death. "And now she is getting so far ahead that I cannot catch her." He also gets the first word as they leave on their journey. And when Addie falls into the river, he is the voice by whom we hear the turmoil of the group. "...you let her get away. You never got her." Even when Darl is taken away, he is the first character to respond. Peabody makes an offhand comment, but it is of no significance.

So why does Vardaman get to be our first look at each situation? I think the honesty and factual nature of his reactions that you others have mentioned plays a significant role. He does not have the baggage that clouds his responses like the other characters do. He will give us a straight account of the events. Even Darl, a character I have defended as the voice of reason and objective view, tried to destroy Addie; thus his view has slants as well. But I also think that it is a very algebraic look at the novel. First an event happens. Then we get a straightforward reaction. From there we can branch into the interwoven affairs of the other characters. Vardaman does not have anything but the experiences to react to (and that train), so his view is the most clean cut. Then we can cut to Dewey Dell and her pregnancy, or Cash and his meekness, or Anse and himself. But we have to start at the beginning 1204161026