A death in the family Essay -- essays research papers

jam Agees A Death in the Family is a posthumous novel ground on the largely complete manuscript that the author left upon his finish in 1955. Agee had been working on the novel for many years, and portions of the work had already appeargond in The ruinisan Review, The Cambridge Review, The New Yorker, and Harpers Bazaar. Published in 1957, the novel was modify by David McDowell. Several lengthy passages, part of Agees manuscript whose position in the chronology was not identified by the author, were placed in italics by the editor, whose finality it was to place them at the conclusion of Parts I and II. These dream-like sequences suggest the enamour of James Joyce, especially of Ulysses, on Agees writing. It was also McDowells decision to add the brief prefatory section, Knoxville Summer, 1915, Agees poetic meditation on his southern childhood. As an procession to the novel, this evocative section, although not part of Agees original manuscript, is extremely effective, for it introduces the theme of doomed childhood happiness that is central in the novel as a whole. The novel will treat the same surround of middle-class domesticated life-a social milieu whose calm surface of normality is shattered by the tragic and possibly suicidal death of Jay Follet, the child protagonists father. In Part I of the novel, Agee quickly establishes the importance of the father-son relationship. Rufus Follet, Jays six-year-old son, accompanies his father to the silent film house against the objection of Rufuss mother, who finds Charlie Chaplin (one of James Agees heroes) nasty and vulgar. This disagreement underscores the marital conflict that underlies Rufuss unsure feelings toward both his parents. When Jay takes Rufus to a neighborhood tavern after the picture show, despite the fathers warmth and love for his son, it is clear that the fathers pride is constrained by the occurrence that the sons proclivities, even at this early age, follow the mothers interests in culture sooner than the fathers more democratic tastes for athletic ability and social pursuits. Tensions between Rufuss parents are apparent as Jays drinking and vulgar habits become a smirch of contention in the household, with the child Rufus caught between his sometimes bickering parents. For her part, bloody shame Follet is a character whose extreme subjection to moralistic attitudes suggests... ... a petitioner for the dead. Meanwhile Uncle Andrew takes Rufus for a walk and tells him about the magnificent butterfly that colonised on Jays coffin just as it was lowered into the grave forrader flying off high into the sky an episode that Andrew believes miraculous. Andrews then reviles stupefy Jackson, who has refused to read the full burial service, since Jay has never been baptized. Rufus struggles to understand the hostility that Andrew feels toward the church service even as he loves Christians such as Mary and Hannah. Rufus wants to get hold of for some clarifica tion, but instead he and Andrew walk silently home. consequently Agee ends the novel on a note of unresolved conflict. As he grows up, it is suggested, Rufus will continue to suffer from the same divisions of faith and social milieu that are involved in his parents relationship, and he will develop into the reflective artist who already, at the age of six, has shown such sensitivity to human motives and the voice communication in which they are conveyed. Written toward the end of his life, A Death in the Family may be considered Agees attempt to understand the origins of, and to come to terms with, the self-division that plagued his existence.