Vardaman – Developmentally Delayed or Just a Child?

In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the character Vardaman, the youngest member of the Bundren family, provides readers with a view of the world through a child’s eyes. His mental acuity and whether or not he is developmentally delayed is widely debated among those who study the novel. Personally, I believe he is just a young child who recently lost one of the most important people in his life, his mother, and is therefore traumatized. Some of the oddest chapters in the novel are written from Vardaman’s perspective. One of the chapters (and one of the well known lines from the novel) is a whole whopping five words long. Vardaman says, “My mother is a fish,” (84). While it may seem like an absurd statement, it is completely logical when you view it from the mind of a six year old. Addie Bundren dies the same day that Vardaman catches a fish and chops it up into little pieces. In his mind since the fish and his mother die on the same day, they must be connected. I can see where he is coming from. He also believes that Doctor Peabody kills his mother. Again, I can see it from his perspective. A man shows up and then suddenly his mother is dead. What I find interesting is how Vardaman’s response to his mother’s death isn’t very different from grown adults. We all grieve in our own ways, but there are clear patterns that emerge in individuals’ ways of mourning. Common responses include, trying to make logic out of the illogical and placing blame on someone who isn’t necessarily responsible. Vardaman does both. At six years old, children are just beginning to develop their reasoning skills. The “my mother is a fish” statement is his way of forming a logical reason for his mother’s death. For a child, a sickness that takes one of his or her parents at a young age does not seem logical (it doesn’t seem logical to even most adults).  Since he is just beginning to form logic, the fish being his mother does not seem very farfetched for him. Vardaman blaming Dr. Peabody for his mother’s death is his way of channeling his anger and confusion towards a tangible object. Again, his mother’s death doesn’t seem logical to him. This is his way of creating logic, something that most adults do as well. Vardaman has his issues, but he did just lose his mother. He is at an incredibly sensitive time in his development, and his responses are completely normal as odd as they are.