A death in the family Essay -- essays research papers

James Agees A Death in the Family is a posthumous bracing based on the generally complete manuscript that the author left upon his death in 1955. Agee had been working on the novel for many years, and portions of the work had already appeared in The Partisan Review, The Cambridge Review, The raw Yorker, and Harpers Bazaar. Published in 1957, the novel was edited by David McDowell. Several lengthy passages, part of Agees manuscript whose position in the chronology was not identified by the author, were displace in italics by the editor, whose finish it was to place them at the conclusion of Parts I and II. These dream-like sequences suggest the influence 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 overture to the novel, this evocative section, although not part of Agees original manuscript, is extremely effective, for it introduces the rootage of lost childhood happiness that is central in the novel as a whole. The novel will treat the same milieu of middle-class house servant 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 theatre against the objection of Rufuss mother, who finds Charlie Chaplin (one of James Agees heroes) nasty and stark(a). This disagreement underscores the marital conflict that underlies Rufuss ambivalent 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 fact that the sons proclivities, even at this too soon age, follow the mothers interests in culture rather 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 point of contention in the household, with the child Rufus caught between his sometimes bickering parents. For her part, Mary Follet is a character whose extreme subjection to moralistic attitudes suggests... ... a prayer for the dead. Meanwhile Uncle Andrew takes Rufus for a walk and tells him about the magnificent butterfly that settled on Jays coffin just as it was lowered into the cogent before flying off high into the sky an episode that Andrew believes miraculous. Andrews then reviles Father 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 building even as he loves Christians such as Mary and Hannah. Rufus wants to ask for some clarification, but instead he and Andre w walk silently home. Thus 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 manifold in his parents relationship, and he will develop into the contemplative artist who already, at the age of six, has shown such sensitivity to human motives and the language in which they are conveyed. scripted 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.