Vernon+Tull

Vernon Tull is neighbor to the Bundren family within //As I Lay Dying//. He and his wife Cora Tull are the neighbors most involved with the events surrounding Addie Bundren's death. While Vernon Tull falls out of the narrative two thirds of the way through the novel he figures prominently throughout the beginning chapters and is the novel's third most frequent narrator behind Darl and Vardaman. Much of the plot in the novel is moved along through Tull, making him a narrator who uses what Stephen Ross calls mimetic voice, concerned with imitation and representation rather than textual voice which calls attention to the text itself, such as in Cash’s list (300). Tull is described as a successful farmer and has employed the Bundren children in various jobs. Because of his position within the community and his relationship to the Bundren's he vacillates between insider and outsider offering distant, though perceptive, observations as well as intimate knowledge of the Bundren family.

Tull's importance is established early in the novel, as he occupies the thoughts of other characters and participates in important decisions. Tull's wagon is one of the novels first images. Darl notices his wagon next to the spring with two empty seats. Later, Darl and Jewel will fill these seats on job causing them to miss their mother's death. Tull plays a large part in encouraging the family that Darl and Jewel can take the trip without worry, saying Addie "seems more like herself today than she has in a week" and "she'll hold on till it's finished" (17-8). Tull's importance is furthered in the second chapter, a comic account of Cora Tull trying to justify her purchase of expensive hens, many of whom quickly died. Cora states that, "Tull himself admits that a good breed of cows or hogs pays in the long run ... I could not have Mr Tull chide me when it was on my own say-so we took them" (7). Eventually, after learning the cakes she baked with their eggs were going to go to waste, she reasons "I can tell him that anybody is likely to make a miscue ... It's not everybody can eat their mistakes, I can tell him" (9).

Tull's role as insider/outsider is developed during the days leading up to Addie's death. Jewel complains about the lack of privacy around Addie's deathbed jabbing at Tull "you been here often enough looking at her. You or your folks" (17). When Vardaman asks to show Addie the fish he has caught Anse tells him, "There's company in there" but Tull insists that it's "Just my folks" and that "They'd enjoy to see it too" (31).

In Tull’s first narration he helps Anse make the decision to let Jewel and Darl take his wagon. This leads him into his own meditation on his mother’s death claiming, “it’s a hard life on women, for a fact. Some women” (30). Throughout the Bundren’s difficult situation Tull repeatedly thinks about practicalities. Triggered by the sound of Cash’s work on the coffin, Tull thinks, “If Cash just works that careful on my barn.” This is seen again in Tull’s contrast to Cora in their words to Anse as Cora’s “Let the Lord comfort you” is directly followed by Tull’s “About that corn.” This is the first instance Tull meditates on his involvement with Anse and the Bundren’s, “I done holp him so much already I cant quit now” (33). Vardaman also first appears with his fish in this chapter, an association which follows him through the end of the novel.

In Tull’s second chapter his relationships to Vardaman and Cora are developed. Cora and Tull disagree temporarily about whether to help at the Bundren’s now that Addie has died. Cora claims it’s her christian duty while Tull is hesitant to go before he is called for, but Vardaman’s arrival puts an end to the disagreement and they prepare to leave. Tull meditates on “all the sorrow and affliction in this world” and praises Cora for her “powerful trust in the lord” even if “Cora’s a mite over-cautious, like she was trying to crowd the other folks away and get in closer than anybody else.” Tull then explains his viewpoint on deep thought stating “the Lord aimed for him to do and not spend too much time thinking, because his brain is like machinery: it won’t stand a whole lot of racking.” This, Tull explains, is what he thinks is wrong with Darl, “he just thinks by himself too much.” (71). In the end of his chapter, Tull places nearly divine qualities in Cora,

//I reckon if there’s ere a man or woman anywhere the He could turn it all over to and go away with his mind at rest, it would be Cora. And I reckon she would make a few changes, no matter how He was running it. And I reckon they would be for man’s good. Leastways, we would have to like them. Leastways, we might as well go on and make like we did. (74)//

The end of this chapter develops Tull’s desire for a son and begins the theme of Tull’s paternal attitude towards Vardaman. He realizes that after they return home he “could still hear Cora singing and feel that boy leaning forward between us like he was ahead of the mules.” It is then revealed that Tull and Cora are unable have a son. In the following chapter, Tull helps Cash finish the coffin and Cash tells Anse to “go on in” and that “Me and Vernon can finish it” (78). Here Tull is filling in for Anse not just as a father figure to Vardaman but as kin to Addie.

Tull’s third chapter is the only account of Addie’s funeral. It also offers a bit of insight into Tull’s social life as he talks and jokes with the other neighbors. During Cash’s rage over the women putting Addie in the coffin backwards, Tull begins to daydream about the way the rain will hurt his crops repeating a line which seems addressed to both Cash and to himself, “you couldn’t have holp it” (90).

Tull’s last appearance and his final three chapters revolve around the Bundrens’ river crossing. In these chapters Tull is at times most intimate and most at odds with the Bundrens. On their inspection of the river Tull suggests that they wait another day and Jewel snaps at him “Get to hell on back to your damn plowing,” but then suggests that they use Tull’s horse to cross. To this Tull repeats three times, “My mule aint going into that water” (126-7). Once a plan to cross is made and Tull crosses with Anse, Vardaman, and Dewey Dell, Tull finds himself in a trance-like state “Like it couldn’t be me here, because I’d have had better sense than to done what I just done” and “I just couldn’t think of anything that could make me cross that bridge even once. Yet here I was, and the fellow that could make himself cross it twice, couldn’t be me, not even if Cora told him to.” Tull offers a simple explanation, “It was that boy.” The strongest case for Tull's desire to be a father figure to Vardaman follows. Tull says Vardaman took his hand as if he was saying "They wont nothing hurt you. Like he was saying about a fine place he knowed where Christmas come twice with Thanksgiving and lasts on through the winter and the spring and the summer, and if I just stayed with him I'd be alright too" (139). This then makes him think of Cora and their home together,

//the more the sweat, the tighter the house because it would take a tight house for Cora, to hold Cora like a jar of milk in the spring: you've got to have a tight jar or you'll need a powerful spring, so if you have a big spring, why then you have the incentive to have tight, wellmade jars, because it is your milk, sour or not, because you would rather have milk that will sour than have milk that won't, because you are a man. (139)//

Tull's meditation on Vardaman, Cora, holidays, sour and non-sour milk, and wellmade jars all indicate his fascination with the familial and domestic and Vardaman accentuates Cora and his inability to conceive a son.

In Tull's final chapter, as the river crossing fails, he yells at Anse for the first time, shouting "See what you done now? See what you done now?" Tull's friction with Jewel also comes to a head in the following chapter as they retrieve Cash's tools. Darl observes them,

//Jewel and Vernon are in the river again. From here they do not appear to violate the surface at all; it is as though it had severed them both at a single blow, the two torsos moving with infinitesimal and ludicrous care upon the surface. It looked peaceful, like machinery does after you have watched it and listened to it for a long time. As though the clotting which is you had dissolved into the myriad original motion, and seeing and hearing in themselves blind and deaf; fury in itself quiet with stagnation. (163-4)//

Once the Bundren's move on towards Jefferson//,// Tull falls out of the narrative. Darl offers one final glimpse of him as they drive away, "Vernon stood watching us for a while. Then he turned and went back toward the bridge. He walked gingerly, beginning to flap the wet sleeves of his shirt as through he had just got wet" (181).

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Faulkner, William. //As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text//. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print. Ross, Stephen M. ""Voice" in Narrative Texts: The Example of As I Lay Dying." //PMLA// 94.2 (1970): 300-10. Print.