Timothy Harvey
In this essay I will be discussing the autonomy of the “corpse” and those who seek to control it. I will be utilizing the texts As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner and Santa Evita by Tomas Eloy Martinez. The story of As I Lay Dying is set in the late 1920’s of Mississippi and a family that travels to lay the matriarch to rest come to terms with her passing. William Faulkner was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life. In contrast, Santa Evita is set in Argentina the 1950’s after Eva Peron’s death and the fall of her husband's, Juan Domingo Peron, control on Argentina. The story follows the corpse of Eva Peron and the effects it has on the country, and the people that come into contact with it. Tomas Eloy Martinez is best known as the author of two classics of Argentine and Latin American literature: La novela de Perón (1985) and Santa Evita (1995).
Within the novel of As I Lay Dying I will hone in on the characters Darl, and Vardaman Bundren, looking at how each character interacts with, talks about, and navigates the reality of the corpse of their mother, Addie. While Darl has existential questions about life, and questions himself as a living person, Vardaman replaces and reframes his mothers death to that of a fish. In comparison, I will be looking at how the corpse of Evita is viewed by the Colonel, and Yolanda. The Colonel desires Evita, or Eva Peron, for the selfishness of the government and the control it will have over the people, whereas Yolanda has a childish desire to hold onto the corpse as a doll with the same fervor and passion. This essay will focus on the different characters' relationship with desire to hold onto the corpse of Addie within As I Lay Dying, namely Vardaman and Darl Bundren, and those who wish to covet the corpse of Eva Peron within Santa Evita, Colonel Carlos Eugenio de Moori Koenig and Yolanda.
I am interested in how the different characters all have similar levels of desire to control a corpse within their respective novels, and yet the reasons are different for each person. I aim to uncover what the causes are for the strength and determination for coveting a corpse when it is only that: a corpse. A corpse will not last forever, nor will it ever give back to the person who holds it, yet it is treated with such reverence. I understand the desire to want to protect that which cannot protect itself, especially when it is someone that you knew in life, but the lengths that these characters go is something that is fascinating, and perplexing.
Losing a mother is difficult at any age, but when a loss occurs before full understanding of life is reached, the process of grief to obtain acceptance of the loss must be much more difficult. When it comes to Vardaman Bundren, the youngest Bundren in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, he searches for a way to remember his mother, to hold on to her in a way that keeps her within reach. Vardaman finds this way by replacing her in his mind with a fish that he caught. After his mother dies and Vardaman sees her being put in the coffin, he reframes his thoughts of who is in the coffin to the fish that he killed: “... if Cash nails the box up, she is not a rabbit. And so if she is not a rabbit I couldn’t breathe in the crib and Cash is going to nail it up… It was not her because it was laying right yonder in the dirt… I chopped it up. It’s laying in the kitchen in the bleeding pan…” (Faulkner, 66). At the start of this passage, he puts up the impossibility of her being a rabbit, that is an animal that comes and goes, one he cannot hold on to, one he cannot see or touch. If she were to be a rabbit, then he wouldn’t be able to fully comprehend her death, and wouldn’t be able to breathe. While he is incapable of processing his emotions, he forces her corpse to switch to another body, or as academic Michel Delville writes in their essay “Vardaman’s Fish and Addie's Jar: Faulkner’s Tale of Mourning and Desire”, “Faced with the painful absence of his mother, Vardaman eventually overcomes his frustration by displacing his desire from its original focus (his mother’s body and, later, the corpse in a coffin, to which he is still emotionally attached) to another, “transitional” object (the fish)” (Delville, 87). This sense of “absence”, or a “lack” of having a mother, forces Vardaman to find a way to bring back what was lost to him. This forced understanding of someone, or something, not existing yet existing, being yet not being, causes a forced displacement of his need for a physical being of a mother to transfer to the fish. Furthermore, according to Delville, the fish is a signifier for the death of Addie when they write “... once [the fish] has been symbolized into a signifier, the “real” absence of the desired object-the departed mother-can be metonymically replaced by the presence of another signifier” (Delville, 87). In other words, once Vardaman is able to replace the body of his mother in his mind with the body of the fish, he is able to begin to accept the loss of his mother and slowly digest the idea that she is gone.
Throughout the travels of the Brunden’s, Vardaman holds onto his views of his mother as the fish. Even going so far as to completely ignore the smells and realities of what is going on. While on the trip, Vardaman recounts what he has been told by the others around him:
My mother is a fish. Darl says that when we come to the water again I might see her and Dewey Dell said, She’s in the box; how could she have got out? She got out through the holes I bord, into the water I said, and when we come to the water again I am going to see her. My mother is not in the box. My mother does not smell like that. My mother is a fish. (Faulkner, 196)
Although Vardaman doesn’t believe his mother to be gone, he still stays with her and the family to take her to rest. He must stay by his mother, by the box that he doesn’t believe her to be in, hoping that he will see her again as a fish in a stream. Continuing to refer to Delville, they maintain that “Even though Vardaman’s metonymic cognitive strategies sometimes have a disruptive effect on his attempts at self-stabilization, they generally prove redeeming in the context of the child’s emotional survival” (Delville, 88). That is to say, although this may disrupt the feelings and connections between Vardaman and the other members of the family, it is his way of dealing with the situation, and holding onto his mother in the best way that his mind can. His reframing, and displacing his mothers death to another creature keeps his sanity, and is a way for him to verbalize his loss.
In comparison to Vardaman, Darl Bundren seeks to hold onto his mother to keep himself from losing his consciousness to the blank feelings of either being or not being. Darl’s feelings, and thoughts, of this existential problem present themselves when he thinks about “In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am” (Faulkner, 80). The strange room represents the final room you will be in before death, where you prepare to die. Before your death, or the soul leaving the body and being emptied for sleep, what is a person if nothing more than a memory? As Darl answers this question, he gives the answer that once you are filled with sleep, and you cannot awaken, you become nothing. Yet with life, there is still nothing because there is only sleep waiting. These answers that Darl gives are represented by, again, Michel Delville’s article “Alienating Language and Darl’s Narrative Consciousness in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying” when they assert that “Darl, as a speaking and thinking subject, constitutes the Lacanian notion of lack. His mother’s death is an avatar of the irremediable loss of imaginary plenitude and unity, the primordial lack of origin and being which may only be represented through (Symbolic) language, in which the subject subsists as a construct of words” (Delville, 64). This language, the construct of words that Darl creates for himself, keeps him from having to come to terms with the reality of his mothers passing. The “primordial lack”, the loss of a parent, or more specifically a mother, a guide through life and the nurturer of a child's every need, is a moment in every life where the child will have to come to terms with that lack in one way or another, or risk madness or death. Darl chooses to stay by his mother’s side, by the side of the corpse, until the end, yet still these thoughts never leave him, and cause the madness that sends him to the psychiatric ward. His desire to find these answers, to create a reason for his mother being gone, force him to descend into a madness that he cannot come back from. The lack becomes too great for him, which the journey to put his mother to rest held off.
This madness doesn’t come from simply thinking about being or not being. Darl says “I dont know what I am”, which is the foreshadowing that he will not be able to comprehend the questions that he is asking (80). These questions are ones that philosophers throughout time have sought to answer, but come to Darl at the death of his mother. Robert Hemenway, in his article “Enigmas of Being in “As I Lay Dying””, furthers my point of the foreshadowing when he writes “When Darl admits “I don’t know what I am”... he is primarily struggling with the abstraction of existence and the epistemological dilemma inherent in the idea” (Hemenway, 136). The character of Darl wouldn’t be able to internalize these questions without having incredible strain on his mind, especially with the rest of the family relying on him. The theories of the knowledge of dilemma’s, or the lack of existence, would bring down any of the other family members if they had Darl’s train of thought. Without Addie, and Darl’s loss of her, Darl loses the concept of being. He searches for the answers, and finds no concrete answer to his problem, and so wishes to be with his mothers corpse, keeping it safe until he can find those answers. The corpse, his mother, is what keeps Darl grounded, keeps him sane. Without it, he is lost to the nothingness and inbetween of being and not being.
Although the character of Colonel Carlos Eugenio de Moori Koenig within Santa Evita wanted to stay with the corpse of Eva Peron like Vardaman and Darl did, his contrasting reasons were for control over others, not for his own safety and understanding. The colonel was under orders of the new President of Argentina to secure the body of Eva Peron, to lay it to rest, and to make sure it did not fall into the hands of the people of Argentina. The problem was that the body was just that, a body, and something that could easily be stolen. When the colonel thinks about his task, we see the dilemma’s that he will face, “It’s a warning; the battle is about to begin, the Colonel thought. The enemy could steal the corpse that very night, right from under his nose. If that happened, he was going to have to kill himself. The world would fall in on him” (Martinez, 190). The body of Eva Peron was the match that would start a battle that the government, the president, the Colonel, could not win. The Colonel couldn’t lose her, he had to keep her under his control, within his grasp, or the power would shift away from him and he would be consumed by the people. The reason for the people’s desire to get back the body of Eva Peron was, as Sara Misemer writes in her chapter of 3 Corpse and Corpus: The Incorruptible Santa Evita, because “... that Evita created through her roles provided the nation with an incorruptible “saint” that they could worship during moments of turmoil, and she, in turn, came to represent instability as well as its possible solution” (Misemer, 98). For the people of Argentina, Eva Peron was a person, an idea, a “saint” that could help with their problems, with their fears. Eva was, both as a living being and a corpse, a rallying point for change, for betterment for the people. She would be able to break up corruption, bring about instability, but then would be able to create the solutions to the instability. The new government that the Colonel worked for knew that she had this power in life and in death, and so tasked the Colonel with keeping that power under control. The Colonel saw the people's attempts to steal that power back, and thwarted it with his own body, as shown when “He decided he was going to guard the coffin himself that night. He would stretch out inside the back of the truck, on a field blanket… He felt afraid… It wasn’t fear of death, but fear of luck: fear of not knowing from what quarter of the darkness the lightning bolt of bad luck would descend on him” (Martinez, 190). The Colonel would put his own life, his own luck, on the line to hold onto the corpse, the power, of Eva Peron. The reason behind this relationship with desire by the Colonel is made more apparent by Helene Weldt-Basson, in her article “DOUBLE VISION: HISTORY AND POLITICS IN THE WORKS OF AUGUSTO ROA BASTOS AND TOMAS ELOY MARTINEZ”, when she remarks “... the focus on Evita’s cadaver as Argentina’s desire to recover its otherness-the barbarism and power of the masses which has been rejected and repressed throughout Argentine history…” (Weldt-Basson, 117). The people wish to find a way for themselves, to not be under an oppressive regime, and so they too have a relationship with desire to covet the corpse of Eva Peron, because with it, they have a sense of power within them.
The hiding of Eva Peron was further added to, as described by Misemer, by the functions of the new government: “Evita appeared in publicity shots, many of which were banned by the later military dictatorship for being too provocative, though in none of them does she appear nude” (Misemer, 100). Although Eva Peron was already gone, even the image struck fear into the government's hearts after she was gone. The desire to continue to control her, her likeness, body, face, image, everything, was a desire that was incredibly strong by the government, and the Colonel. When the Colonel and the Madman decided to check if the body was still within the coffin, that she hadn’t been magicked away, even then the Colonel wished to keep her for himself: “The Colonel thought that perhaps Arancibia was right, but he refused to admit it… In just one night, just tallying there, not lifting a finger, she’d unhinged heaven only knew how many lives… He couldn’t make another mistake. He must rule out every possible wrong step” (Martinez, 193). The Colonel wanted to see the corpse, but only with his eyes. He eventually gives in to let both of them look, but only did the Colonel look for the mark to make sure that it was the real Eva Peron. That little mark was for the Colonel, and only the Colonel, to give him the knowledge and control that no one else had, that no one could take away without his permission.
Whereas the Colonel contrasts with the Brundens, Yolanda has more of a comparing relationship with desire when it comes to Eva Peron’s corpse. Similar to Vardaman, Yolanda hadn’t been able to fully cope with the loss of her own mother, and when the corpse of Eva Peron came into her possession, she treated it like a substitute, such as when she works herself to exhaustion to not lose the corpse, “Don’t make me talk about that. The closer it got to Christmas the more on edge I was. I couldn't sleep at night. I think I even got sick… I pulled the lid of the box back and began to play with Sweetie. And what had to happen finally happened. One day my fever went up and I fell asleep in my doll’s lap” (Martinez, 219). With the same fervor that the Colonel presents, Yolanda too puts her very life at risk to be around the corpse of Eva Peron. She put herself in a position of loss, laying in the lap of “her doll”, knowing that it would be the end of her time with it should she be found out. She risked everything to be around the corpse, to find the motherly affection that she had lost and hadn’t been able to work through. She knew that the time was short with the doll, with the corpse, but she tried desperately to make that time last forever, to control the corpse for herself. This motherly connection was also felt by the people of Argentina, though unbeknownst to Yolanda, and is brought to light again by Weldt-Basson in “DOUBLE VISION: HISTORY AND POLITICS” when she writes about Eva Peron being “... saintly, nurturing mother who tends to the poor…” (Weldt-Basson, 118). In other words, the feelings that Yolanda felt towards the corpse, towards Eva Peron, may have been something that she felt when she was just a child, when Eva Peron was alive, and transferred her feelings of “lack” to a corpse that she would associate with a motherly figure.
While it may be true that there are the feelings of necrophelia towards the body of Eva Peron in a sexual way, I want to move away from that and focus on another way of expressing necrophelia that Weldt-Basson touches on, “... a nonsexual necrophilia, expressed through “the desire to handle, be near to, and to gaze at corpses”...” (Weldt-Basson, 118). Yolanda would have no feelings of sexual urges towards the corpse, but the relationship with desire to handle, be near to, and to look at the corpse is something that is incredibly strong within Yolanda. Yolanda tells the narrator that “It was an innocent game: a child’s game, though I felt guilty too. I handled Sweeti very carefully, as though she were made of glass. I tied ribbons in her hair and painted her lips with powder from a red crayon”, depicting her desire to be around the corpse of Eva Peron (Martinez, 219). She calls it a child's game, something that was innocent, but it was much deeper than that. She wanted to keep the corpse for herself, she wanted no one else to have it. The game was hers, and hers alone. She kept the secret and let none know. The ribbons and the lipstick were only from Yolanda, only she would know that it was there. A child’s desire to have something of their own, though through different reasons from an adult, is no weaker in the least. Yolanda’s relationship with desire was as strong as the Colonel’s, and she almost worked herself to death just to be around it.
Throughout this essay I have examined the different ways that a corpse can be held onto, digested, relied upon, used for political gain, and used for a personal relationship with desire. Looking at how different characters through different time periods view the corpse, and the necrophilic actions of one particular character, has been enlightening to understanding the ways different peoples and cultures view death, and the corpse itself.
Looking at William Faulkner's Vardaman Brunden in As I Lay Dying, we saw a small child who was incapable of understanding the loss, and lack, of his mother. He shifted his views of the corpse of his mother onto that of a fish, finding ways of keeping her memory alive through the fish, and being able to come to terms with the loss.
On the other hand, Faulkner’s character Darl contemplated the philosophical thoughts of being versus not being, what it is to be alive or to be dead. He used the corpse of his mother to ground himself, but once the corpse was gone, he was lost to the madness that comes with such existential questions that have no grounding.
Moving away from the American South, I followed the path of Colonel Carlos Eugenio de Moori Koenig and his contrasting relationship with the desire to keep the corpse of Eva Peron for his own power and gain. He found a different type of necrophilia with Eva Peron than is traditionally known, as he wanted the corpse for himself, marking her with something that only he would see, only he would know. He struggled with his desires, and put at risk his life to keep her away from any other who would try to take her away.
Similar to the Colonel, Yolanda too put her life and safety at risk to stay with the corpse of Eva Peron. Her desire, though that of a child, was no less dangerous or covetous: that of wanting a mother figure.
All of these characters work through their problems, one finding salvation and understanding, Vardaman, while the others are lost struggling to understand and comprehend what they cannot keep. When we lose a loved one, or a figure that we hold dear, are these the options available to us? Do we all have a sense of necrophilia to the corpses in our own lives?
Works Referenced
Delville, Michel. “Alienating Language and Darl’s Narrative Consciousness in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.” Southern Literary Journal, vol. 27, no. 1, 1994, pp. 61–72. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=199 4020562&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Delville, Michel. “VARDAMAN’S FISH AND ADDIE’S JAR: FAULKNER’S TALES OF MOURNING AND DESIRE.” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS), vol. 2, no. 1, Centre for Arts, Humanities and Sciences (CAHS), acting on behalf of the University of Debrecen CAHS, 1996, pp. 85–91, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41273916.
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage International, 1990.
Hemenway, Robert. “ENIGMAS OF BEING IN ‘AS I LAY DYING.’” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970, pp. 133–46, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26279063.
MISEMER, SARAH M. “CORPSE AND CORPUS: THE INCORRUPTIBLE SANTA EVITA.” Secular Saints: Performing Frida Kahlo, Carlos Gardel, Eva Perón, and Selena, NED-New edition, Boydell & Brewer, 2008, pp. 97–124, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt9qdmrn.7.
Martinez, Tomas Eloy. Santa Evita. Translated by Helen Lane, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1996. Weldt-Basson, Helene C. “DOUBLE VISION: HISTORY AND POLITICS IN THE WORKS OF AUGUSTO ROA BASTOS AND TOMÁS ELOY MARTÍNEZ.” Chasqui, vol. 41, no. 2, Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana, 2012, pp. 107–23, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43589461.
Biography
Timothy Harvey is a graduate student at Cal State Fullerton. He is an accomplished Neurodiagnostic Technician who has returned to school to become a teacher abroad.
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