Faulkner introduces us to the Bundren family who was headed up in theory by their Pa, Anse Bundren, however, in actuality it was headed by their Ma, Addie Bundren. In order to lead, a person must be strong but Anse was not a strong man; he was a weak man who lived off of what his family provided for him. Anse’s way of thinking followed a line that businessmen follow, “Nowhere in this sinful world can an honest, hardworking man profit. It takes them that runs the stores in the towns, doing no sweating, living off of them that sweats.” (735) So, it was Addie who was the strength, she did what she had to for her children, all of her children, even the one she had through deceit, Jewel. Well, sometimes more so for Jewel because Jewel was targeted by Anse. He was a reminder to Anse that at one time Addie was loved by another man. So when Addie wanted to take Jewel to the doctors “pa didn’t want to spend the money without it was needful, and Jewel did seem all right except for his thinness and except for his way of dropping off to sleep at ay moment.” (742) Therefore Addie knew she had to do what needed to be done behind Anse’s back. Darl said, “Addie Bundren should be hiding anything she did, who had tried to teach us that deceit was such that, in a world where it was, nothing else could be very bad or very important, not even poverty.” To Anse, life revolved around money but to Addie life simply revolved regardless of a person’s financial situation. So Anse treated his family like they were employees, giving the feeling of trapped slavery amongst his family. The only way one could escape it was through death, something that Anse repeatedly says throughout the whole story is that he “don’t begrudge her it”. Addie knew better though, she knew that Anse was just full of words, like many other people were. Words were not needed for true feelings, feelings she had with her children, feelings that didn’t need descriptive wording. Only those people, like Anse, like businessmen, like those people who didn’t know of pride and didn’t know of fear, had to make up a word to convey what they thought they felt. Addie knew words such as begrudge and love, that came from Anse were “just a shape to fill a lack” (759) because Anse didn’t know what love was and he did hold a grudge, he held a grudge for anyone who cost him money.
In Toomer’s “Cane”, contrary to Faulkner’s Bundren family, we have many people from several places all trickling through and around Jean Toomer’s life creating this cast of characters that breathe the desire to stay unequal. It is comfortable to want change but to be faced with it brings about an uncomfortable fear of the unknown. “Fellows about town were all right, but how about his friends up North? He could see them incredible, repulsed. … “… with their eyes still upon him, he began to feel embarrassed. He felt the need of explaining things to the.” (654) He was comfortable with Louisa where they were, sneaking around, but should people that don’t know become in the know, well then, that was a fear that Bob could not repress. It was a fear that made him question the whole pigmentation difference on his walk to see her, on his walk to ‘love her’. “Bob Stone, of the old Stone family, in a scrap with a nigger over a nigger girl.” (654) Bob Stone, like Anse Bundren, had words because he had ideas about what was right and what was wrong, neither of which he knew anything about. Much like Anse, Bob, didn’t know what love was. So when Bob said that “He was going to see Lousia to-night, and love her.” (654) he was merely creating a shape to fill a lack.
Also, much like Anse, Bob got other people to do his dirty work for him. Bob was a businessman, even if he wasn’t a businessman. He wasn’t a man willing to sweat for anything he wanted and when it came to fighting for Louisa he was incapable of standing up for himself adequately, however, that didn’t matter because “White men like ants upon a forage rushed about. … Shotguns, revolvers, rope, kerosene, torches. … They came together.” (656) In the end, the man Tom, who fought Bob for Louisa, was the one willing to do what he had to do for the person he loved, like Addie had for her children, and died.
So it would appear that both Faulkner and Toomer know how to write race-related segregation that goes beyond the color spectrum to the fear that lies at the heart of the segregation nightmare. They both seemed to grasp the importance men imagined having in the modernist era with regard to their significant other and when they are brought to the reality that they have less power then they think, they become territorial and dictatorial in their stance in life. Those around them can not become more superior to them. They will hold grudges and they will use words to fill what they are lacking.
Works Cited:
Works Cited:
- Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine.The Norton Anthology of American Literature. D, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. Page. 735,742,759,654,656.
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