Five Characters

Darl

In the first section of novel, we have Darl and Jewel walking through a field. They come to a cotton house. Jewel walks straight through it, where as Darl walks around it, “When we reach it I turn and follow the path which circles the house. Jewel, fifteen feet behind me, looking straight ahead, steps in a single stride through the window” (4). With Darl focusing so much on Jewel, we get the impression that Darl is the weaker of the two. He’s less daring and more passive. Darl also takes notice of everything else around him. He’s very descriptive in what he sees and appears to be very perceptive of others. He mentions how Addie Bundren would want a better coffin than the one currently being provided for her. He is quite, but able to observe all his surrounds.

In Darl’s initial interaction with Jewel, we can tell that Darl is the less dominant of the two. However, Darl shows no sign of jealousy; he’s simply observant, “He crosses the floor in four strides with the rigid gravity of a cigar store Indian dressed in patched overalls and endured with life from the hips down, and steps in a single stride through the opposite window and into the path again just I as come around the corner” (4). Darl is one of the few characters in the novel in which we can be dependent on to give us straight forward descriptions, free of opinion and bias. Later Faulkner reveals just how demeaning Jewel can be to Darl, and still he takes no negative opinion of him. Darl simply accepts his insults without anger or unhappiness and continues to make objective observations.

Darl, although the most frequent narrator, is not someone we learn much about. He hardly interacts with the other characters and only describes them. One of the few characters he describes admiringly is Dewey Dell. His relations to her exaggerate her more pleasing attributes. Often admiring her features and commenting on her personality, “Her voice is strong, young, tremulous, and clear, rapt with its own timbre...