:fish: :fish: :fish: 🎣🎣📦🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟 :fish: 🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟. 🦈🦈🐟🐟 FAULKNER FISHERIES (is vardaman an aquatic species?!)

 

Vardaman's mother becomes a piece of delectable French cuisine  

    For much of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Vardaman has an obsession with fish. In his first appearance in the novel, he shows up with a big fish which he caught in the river. After Addie dies a few chapters later, Vardaman continues thinking in terms of fish and not-fish, eventually concluding on page 84 that his mother is a fish. He sticks with that conviction for the rest of the book, only slowly beginning to forget that concept during the barn-burning scene.

    What's going on with that (Vardaman and the fish)? Why does Vardaman so vehemently cling onto fish throughout the novel?

    Also, for the fun of it, how does Vardaman's fish develop over time through the book?

(it's mostly because of how the fish is an easy to grasp way for Vardaman to understand her mother's death. surprise, surprise.)

    Vardaman's first fish catching coincides well with the death of her mother. On page 30, Vardaman comes up the hill carrying a fish that he caught. The fish, "nigh as long as he is," struggles vigorously against him. At one point, when Vardaman tries to pick it off the ground, it "slides out of his hands, smearing wet dirt, and flops down" (31). On the same page, Vernon's narration likens it to being "ashamed of being dead, like it was in a hurry to get back hid again." 

    This is the first indication of the parallels between Addie and the fish. The fish, being as large as Vardaman, is of a similar size scale as Addie - which is a small detail, but interesting nevertheless. As Addie lays in bed, still alive enough for Vardaman to show her the fish, the fish itself is alive and flopping around. And Vernon, the adult narrator, notes that the fish is soon going to be killed, just as many other narrators have the premonition that Addie will die soon as well.

    Then, Addie dies on page 48 with Vardaman present in the home. 

    Right after Addie's death scene, Vardaman begins breaking down in grief, running and crying away. In this moment of intense grief, Vardaman focuses his attention on the fish he caught and butchered. But, rather than considering the fish to still exist, he says that the butchered fish is now "not-fish...not-blood on my hands and overalls" (53). He states: "If I jump off the porch I will be where the fish was, and it all cut up into not-fish." He believes that now that the fish is no longer alive and butchered, it is not the same as the alive and wriggling fish that Vardaman caught. Vardaman sees the stark difference between the alive and dead fish, and likens it to Addie, who was alive one moment, and a corpse the next.

    Soon after, in one of Tull's chapters, Vardaman again engages in fishy behavior, showing up at Vernon's house during a night rainstorm. Once again, he fixates on the fish as a symbol of grief of his mother's death. Vardaman speaks of "that ere fish" on page 70. When Cora tries to question 2 pages later, she eventually gives up, saying "I cant get nothing outen him except about a fish." Vardaman attempts to express his grief in this tangential manner, referring to the fish (or not-fish?) over and over again while at the same time thinking about Addie's death.

    And of course, there's Vardaman's legendary mantra: "My mother is a fish." He sees the similarities between the late Addie and a dead fish in their transition from life to death, and declares that in his mind, they are essentially the same. When Vardaman states "My mother is a fish," he thinks "My mother is dead," or "my mother no longer exists as she (or it?) did before." The fish, for Vardaman's juvenile brain, is an excellent way for him to rationalize Addie's death. When trying to wrap his head around the subject, the association helps Vardaman to understand his mother's state of not-being, despite the presence of Addie's corpse.

    

    Of course, when Cora goes on to cook the fish that Vardaman caught, his immediate reaction consists of "hollering, swarming and clawing" (86). I'd imagine that given this linkage in Vardaman's mind between the fish and Addie, he did not appreciate somebody cooking and eating what was essentially Addie's effigy. Not directly relevant to the narrative I'm trying to push, but still interesting nevertheless.

    Over the next 100-or-so pages, in each Vardaman chapter, Vardaman repeats the phrase "my mother is a fish" in his mind. 

    He mentions it once on page 101, when comparing his fish mantra to Darl's comment that "Jewel's mother is a horse," a comment probably made by Darl to equate Jewel's love and guilt for his dead mother to his care for his alive horse. Vardaman sees this comment using the same language as he does, and states: "mine will have to be a horse, too," even though the fish mantra works better for him as a way to comprehend Addie's dead-ness. Perhaps in this chapter, Vardaman is trying to empathize with Jewel by thinking of Jewel's thoughts in terms which he can understand. He does the same when he asks Darl what his ma is. Darl, of course, replies that he "haven't got ere one."

    And another time on page 151, in the middle of the river crossing scene. He berates Darl for losing the coffin, exclaiming "You knew she is a fish but you let her get away." A bit comedic, considering that Addie, the fish, was lost in the river. In other words, she swam away, like fish do. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Is that why you are laughing Darl?

    And the last appearance (which I could find) of the fish is on page 195. Vardaman narrates, "Cash is sick. He is sick on the box. But my mother is a fish," probably associating Addie's state of death to Cash's state of severe injury. 

    

    After that, despite Vardaman still having a narrative voice, the fish mantra disappears from the record, replaced instead by things such as commenting on Cash's leg, and then finally, musing about Darl's insanity. While initially, the death of his mother occupies most of Vardaman's mind, creating enough room for the fish analogy to flourish, the attention of the entire story shifts away from Addie, and toward these new calamities. As Vardaman begins to lose focus on Addie, the mantra fades away as well. Now, the events for Vardaman to explain to himself are instead Cash's leg and Darl's incarceration. Ultimately, the trauma of the Bundrens' odyssey overpowers Vardaman's feeble idiot child brain, and his original focus on Addie disappears. 

Vardaman's mother may be a fish, but who really cares at this point? Darl has gone off to Jackson.

and cash's leg is FUCKING ENCASED IN CONCRETE.

like, that's the most stupid thing conceivable. only anse could've come up with this shit instead of, like, SUMMONING A FUCKING DOCTOR

Who's Addie Bundren again? Is that some kind of seafood or something?