The South Central Modern Language Association

The Problem of Nancy in Faulkner's "That Evening Sun"Author(s): Jim LeeSource: The South Central Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 4, Studies by Members of S-CMLA (Winter,1961), pp. 49-50Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of The South Central Modern LanguageAssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3188573 .

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The Problem of Nancy in Faulkner's

"That Evening Sun" JIM LEE

Since William Faulkner's story "That Evening Sun" is told from the point of view of the nine-year-old Quentin Compson, the reader is forced to decide whether to accept Nancy's judgment of the events or Jason Compson Sr.'s. Nancy believes that Jesus, the husband to whom she has been unfaithful, has returned to Jefferson to kill her because of her in- fidelity. She has had sexual relations with Stovall, the Baptist deacon and cashier in the bank, and, presumably, with other white men. She finally per- suades herself that Jesus is hiding in a ditch near her house waiting to kill her some night when she returns from work at the Compsons'. Jason listens to her story, and for a time offers her protec- tion; but he finally concludes that Jesus has not returned. His last act (leaving her in her house to face Jesus alone) is not a result of cruelty but a realization that her problems are mental, not physi- cal.

Most readers, however, seem to ac- cept Nancy's point of view and assume that she will be killed. William Van O'Connor talks of Nancy's death as if it were an accomplished fact and refers to her appearance in Requiem for a Nun as a resurrection.' Another commentator speaks of her as waiting blindly "for her inevitable death.'" O'Connor refers to the bones found in the ditch in The Sound and the Fury as being those of Nancy and therefore posits her death, but Stephen E. Whicher has shown the bones in the ditch in The Sound and the Fury are those, not of a human being, but of an animal."

It seems reasonable to accept Jason's view that Jesus, who has been gone for

some time, is not coming back. Then we can read the story as one which deals with insanity caused by Nancy's guilt. Nancy knows that her prostitution is wrong, but she tries to excuse herself by saying, "I ain't nothing but a nigger. It ain't none of my fault." The irony here is that Nancy does not fit the pat- terns which the Southern whites expected of the Negro, because, according to the folklore of the Southern whites, she should have no pangs of conscience. Since her excuses do not satisfy her, she is finally driven insane, not by her fear of Jesus, but by her own sense of guilt.

Nancy's symptoms of insanity, which are present from the time she first ap- pears in the story, grow worse as the story progresses. She accosts Deacon Stovall in the streets of Jefferson and tells him it is three times since he has paid her a cent; this is something no Southern Negro would dare do in Mis- sissippi at the turn of the century. She even keeps taunting him after he has kicked her in the mouth. When she is put in jail, she attempts suicide, which, we are told in the story, is not only ir- rational but very un-Negro like. The jailer tries to explain her conduct by saying she has been taking cocaine; even if this is true (which I doubt), it does not explain her subsequent behavior.

Her attempted suicide cannot be ex- plained on the basis of her fears of Jesus, for after her stay in jail she is still on speaking terms with him. Jesus comes to the Compson kitchen and makes some threats, not against Nancy, but against the white man who is responsible for her pregnancy. It is only after Jesus' dis- appearance that Nancy begins to fear

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death. Jesus has probably gone to "dodge them city po-lice," Nancy says; but when Jason tells her that Jesus has probably found himself a new "wife," she exhibits her emotional turbulence by flying into a rage and threatening to kill him and the woman. Her real feelings are proper- ly understood when we realize that be- cause of her intense devotion to Jesus, she is even more repulsed by her own infidelity than Jesus is. Because her love for Jesus is apparently greater than his for her, she can no more pardon him than she can pardon herself. Since she assumes that Jesus' concern is as great as hers, she thinks he will return and give her the punishment that she de- serves. Of the awaited punishment she says, "I reckon it belong to me. I reckon what I going to get ain't no more than mine."

The reader, at this point in the story, has no basis for assuming that Jesus is back in town. No character in the story has seen him. We are told that some Negro sent Nancy word that he was back in town. This is only Nancy's story, and when Dilsey presses her on the mat- ter, she says, "I can feel him .... I can feel him laying yonder in the ditch." Also, no attempt has been made on Nancy's life in the time between the sup- posed return of Jesus and the final, ter- rifying scene in her cabin. Is this because Jesus has had no opportunity, or be- cause he has not, in fact, returned? If we assume that lack of opportunity pre- vents Jesus from killing her, then we must conclude either that Jason was mis- taken in believing that Jesus had not returned, or that he is a heartless man who, in the final scene, deliberately abandons Nancy to a murderer. This is not the picture presented of him through- out most of the story. For a considerable length of time he goes out of his way to protect her. He either lets her stay in his house, or he takes her home at night. Mrs. Compson is quite willing to abandon Nancy at a time when Jason thinks Jesus is still in the ditch, but Jason incurs her displeasure rather than let Nancy be exposed to danger. In the last scene when Jason goes to Nancy's cabin to get his children, he again ques-

tions Nancy about Jesus' return. Nancy tells him that Jesus has left a hog bone on the table as a sign to her, but neither the father nor the children, who give a minute description of the cabin and the events of the night, see any bone. The reader is not told that a bone exists, but rather that Nancy says it does. Did she manage to conceal the dreaded bone from the children and Jason, or is it simply another figment of her imagina- tion?

In this final scene the reader sees Nancy at her most irrational. She tells Jason that there is no defense for her; there is no point in her going to Aunt Rachel's or the Compsons', for Jesus will kill her wherever she is. Convinced that she is insane, Jason takes the chil- dren and leaves the house. There is nothing more that he can do; there is nothing that anyone can do for her. When Caddy asks her father if Jesus is hiding in the ditch, he tells her that Jesus has been gone for a long time. Nancy is last seen sitting in the lighted cabin still trying to excuse her conduct as she has throughout much of the story by saying, "I just a nigger. It ain't no fault of mine."

Read as the story of a woman dodg- ing a vengeful husband, "That Evening Sun" is a hide-and-seek thriller which cheats the reader by giving him no hint of the outcome. Read as the moral and mental disintegration of a woman who has sinned and is damned by her own guilt, it evokes the tragic emotions of pity and terror. Only when read this way does the name Jesus-a name com- mon among Latin Americans but never found among Protestants-take on its proper ambiguity, for in the end Nancy is left in the hands of Jesus, to receive on his return either the punishment she deserves or the salvation which only he can give.

North Texas State University

NOTES 'William Van O'Connor, The Tangled Fire

of William Faulkner (Minneapolis, 1954), p. 68.

2Evans B. Harrison, "Technical Aspects of William Faulkner's 'That Evening Sun,' " Faulkner Studies, I, 54 (Winter, 1952).

sStephen E. Whicher, "The Compsons' Nan- cies-A Note on The Sound and the Fury and 'That Evening Sun,' " American Lit., XXVI, 253-255 (May, 1954).

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