Aim: How does Faulkner begin to establish the idea that words are insufficient?

Do Now: All of the characters seem to want to express ideas for which they are missing words. Can you supply them?

When Vardaman calls the fish and then not fish – what is he trying to say?

When Dewey Dell says Darl told her things but without the words – what is she trying to say?

When Addie looks out the window and calls outs, “You, Cash,” – what is she trying to communicate?

Vardaman’s Confusion Bored Holes

Why does Vardaman bore holes into Addie’s coffin? What does Vardaman’s young mind not fully understand?

“My mother is a fish.” How does Vardaman connect his mother to the fish?

Vardaman sees the fish as a displacement of his mother. The fish’s transformative process links to the

transformation Addie goes through from being alive to not alive.

Although Vardaman can begin to understand that Addie is no longer “alive,” he still does not fully understand the essence of death.

He understands what something is not, but not what something is! This is the simplistic way we figure out the world at the beginning – through differentiation.

Faulkner’s Language

Words are nothing without meaning. What good are well crafted sentences if they are not expressing a truth?

What if words were filled with truth and structure became secondary? Faulkner’s words gain meaning only when the reader gains insight into

the truth the characters are delivering. Remember when we talked about madness? Madness can be arbitrary?

Well, what about words? Can words be arbitrary?