Thoughts on Grant

While reading the novel, Grant has always seemed interesting me. I mean he is the narrator of this novel, but as we get later into the book, his insights were just so profound and well thought out that I almost couldn’t compare him to the beginning of the novel when he was like a teenager. In the last few chapters that we’ve read, Grant describes the cycle that they are all stuck in with such powerful words, that I was blown away.

“So each time a male child is born, they hope he will be the one to change this vicious circle—which he never does. Because even though he wants to change it, and maybe even tries to change it, it is too heavy a burden because of all the others who have run away and left their burdens behind. So he, too, must run away if he is to hold on to his sanity and have a life of his own” (167).

Grant shows the endless struggle that he and many others are stuck in, and this idea is what sticks with and inspires Jefferson to “become a man”, and Jefferson begins to consciously stand up against white supremacy in his final days. This revelation is a huge contrast to before Grant starts to visit Jefferson.

Before Grant goes to meet with Jefferson in jail, he basically doesn’t care about anything. I think that he does know about the cycle in a sense, but instead of trying to fix it or push against it, he just tries to run. “‘You want to leave from here tonight?’ I asked her. ‘You want to go home and pack your clothes and get the children and leave from here tonight?’” (28-29). And it just shows a very teenager-like mentality of not facing your problems head on. So when Grant goes to see Jefferson, there are a lot of similarities between them in that they are both embodying some sort of teenager mentality. (I don’t want to take away from Jefferson’s reason for his actions or anything, because being put on death row is something that we can never really understand how it feels, but just from a standpoint of Miss Emma wanting him to be a man…) Jefferson’s reaction is very cold and he cuts off from the rest of the community. This could be seen as Jefferson not being able to handle the emotional aspect of those meetings, or wanting to make it easier when he is finally killed, but overall, he seems to be only considering his own feelings and not Miss Emma’s or the greater good that his actions could impact the community. And Grant doesn’t come to the conclusion of the role that Jefferson can have on the cycle, until after he meets with Jefferson.

Both Grant and Jefferson have made huge changes in their character from when Jefferson was first convicted to now, and I’m really interested in seeing how Jefferson handles his last day.

Thought's on Anse

Throughout most of the novel I was pretty sympathetic to Anse. Even though he seemed to have brought most of his sufferings and inadequacies on himself, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. It seemed like at the beginning that he really was doing this huge journey for Addie. And the main reason he was pretty much useless by the time Addie died and they had to journey to Jefferson was because of Anse’s illness (whether it was real or not). “He tells people that if he ever sweats, he will die. I suppose he believes it” (17). And this is what limits Anse from being any physical help to his family. So I thought, that at least he was trying to do one last thing for Addie, even if he wasn’t physically capable of doing it himself.

I couldn’t help but feel sort of sorry for this guy. He’s pretty pathetic, and his kids even dismiss him. Even Vardaman refers to Anse as a shadow, “Pa walks around. His shadow walks around, over Cash going up and down above the saw, at the bleeding plank” (65). And it’s really enforced throughout the novel that Anse is really no help to his kids in helping with Addie’s death other than reminding them that they have to get to Jefferson.

But then we get to the end of the novel where Anse reveals that he’s got a new wife, then my reaction to this whole journey becomes pretty similar to the moment when Anse is smoothing out Addie’s quilt. Like the tender moment when Anse awkwardly tries to smooth out Addie’s quilt, the whole journey in this novel is pushed forward by Anse saying that it was Addie’s wish. He’s doing it for his love for Addie. So I thought of him as the loving husband (though pretty bad at displaying those emotions). But when Anse brings out the new Mrs. Bundren, it felt like the similar disappointment that I felt when Anse suddenly brings up his plan to get new teeth after Addie’s death. He ruined such a tender moment and the basically the whole journey.

After this, I lost a lot of the sympathy I originally had for Anse. All of his family members got pretty messed up after their journey, and Anse’s intentions didn’t really seem like they were trying to honor Addie in any way. And it’s not like I’m outraged that Addie’s memory was so dismissed, because she probably wouldn’t care that much about it, but I lost any of the respect I had left for Anse at that moment.