Vardaman Pages 249-252
“But she said he would not sell it to the town boys. “But it will be there Christmas,” Dewey Dell says. “You’ll have to wait till then, when he brings it back.”
Page 250
I chose this quote because it represents the different paths that the members of the Bundren family have taken since Addie’s death. The quick, ‘attention deficit disorder’ style that Faulkner has employed here firmly cements that, most notably, Vardaman, Dewey Dell and Pa have already begun a grief-free life after Addie. About Varadaman’s character this proves his simple-minded innocence, just as Dewey Dell plays that role of the negative role model. Vardaman’s fixation on the train, however, is also symbolic of the fact that he is lost and without direction- forced to change his emotional pain into a physical and physiological need for the truck, which on some subconscious level I believe he feels he needs in order to replace Addie.
I connected this “Vardaman segment” with the little boy Ralpie from “A Christmas Story.” All each little boy wants is a specific gift and neither feels complete without it. In the movie Ralphie is absentmindedly reassured that “[he‘ll] shoot [his] eye out” just as Vardaman is absentmindedly reassure by Dewey-Dell that “it will be there Christmas.” Neither boy is really heard out or understood- thus intensifying their longing and desire for something that is representative of a larger feeling that they are too juvenile to comprehend or explain.
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