Submitted by dotty.dye@asu.edu on Fri, 2014-08-08 05:28
The children Addie taught before her marriage are described only from her point of view, which is an avowedly hateful one. To her, they are represented by their "little dirty snuffling nose[s]" (169). She takes pleasure in the thought that when she whips them for "faulting" in school, she becomes part of their "secret and selfish" lives (170).
Submitted by dotty.dye@asu.edu on Fri, 2014-08-08 05:23
We learn from several sources in the novel that Addie's "people" lived in Jefferson (171), though we are not given any idea where or what their family name was. We are also told that by the time she meets Anse Bundren, all her family are now buried "in the cemetery" in town (171). Her father is the one member of this family who is individuated, though only as a voice. Addie's one chapter in the novel begins and ends with the memory of what "my father used to say" (169): "that the reason for living is getting ready to stay dead" a long time (175).
