Comedy vs. Tragedy
...r 21). When someone loses a family member close to them, things don’t normally go as planned. The reader can see an example of this on the trip to Jefferson. Anything and everything that could possibly go wrong does. While some members of the family are mourning, few don’t understand and others just want to get it over with. “Then I begin to run. I run toward the back and come to the edge of the porch and stop. Then I begin to cry. I can feel where the fish was in the dust.” (Faulkner p. 53) In Faulkner’s writing, that which is not meant to be funny is to many living in the South. In this story most of the humor the reader finds is southern grotesque. Faulkner makes fun of southerners while showing them as they normally are; he finds certain points and runs with them. He accents their stupidity and selfish actions. “Now and then a fellow gets to thinking about it. Not often though. Which is a good thing. For the lord aimed for him to do and not to spend too much time thinking, because his brain, it’s like a piece of machinery: it won’t stand a whole lot of racking”(Faulkner 91). It is normally a challenge to read a novel whose characters are in such misery. The reader has to become one with each of the characters, which ironically reveals their humor. “It was Darl. He came to the door and stood there, looking at his dying mother. He just looked at her and I felt the bounteous love of the lord again and His mercy”(Faulkner 53). Faulkner writes on how the family is mourning the death, and yet they are full of joy form the Lord. Faulkner’s writing is very intense and personal, the reader can...