A death in the family Essay -- essays research papers

James Agee's A Death in the Family is a posthumous novel based on the largely 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 New Yorker, and Harper's Bazaar. Published in 1957, the novel was edited by David McDowell. Several lengthy passages, part of Agee's manuscript whose position in the chronology was not identified by the author, were placed in italics by the editor, whose decision 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 Agee's writing. It was also McDowell's decision to add the brief prefatory section, â€Å"Knoxville: Summer, 1915,† Agee's poetic meditation on his southern childhood. As an overture to the novel, this evocative section, although not part of Agee's original manuscript, is extremely effective, for it introduces the theme of lost childhood happiness that is central in the novel as a whole. The novel will treat the same milieu of middle-class domestic life-a social milieu whose calm surface of â€Å"normality† is shattered by the tragic and possibly suicidal death of Jay Follet, the child protagonist's father. In Part I of the novel, Agee quickly establishes the importance of the father-son relationship. Rufus Follet, Jay's six-year-old son, accompanies his father to the silent film theatre against the objection of Rufus's mother, who finds Charlie Chaplin (one of James Agee's heroes) â€Å"nasty† and â€Å"vulgar.† This disagreement underscores the marital conflict that underlies Rufus's ambivalent feelings toward both his parents. When Jay takes Rufus to a neighborhood tavern after the picture show, despite the father's warmth and love for his son, it is clear that the father's pride is constrained by the fact that the son's proclivities, even at this early age, follow the mother's interests in â€Å"culture† rather than the father's more democratic tastes for athletic ability and social pursuits. Tensions between Rufus's parents are apparent as Jay's drinking and â€Å"vulgar† habits become a point of contention in the household, with the child Rufus caught b etween 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 â€Å"magnificent butterfly† that settled on Jay's coffin just as it was lowered into the grave before flying off high into the sky – an episode that Andrew believes â€Å"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 even as he loves Christians such as Mary and Hannah. Rufus wants to ask for some clarification, but instead he and Andrew 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 involved 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. Written toward the end of his life, A Death in the Family may be considered Agee's attempt to understand the origins of, and to come to terms with, the self-division that plagued his existence.