Throughout William Faulkner’s ​As I Lay Dying​, the author utilizes both symbolism and

repetition in order to depict the character Vardaman as a symbol of trauma through the viewpoint

of a child.

Within the passage, the author first is seen to make usage of symbolism in attempts to

reflect the mindset of Vardaman. When describing Vardaman’s internal thoughts while seeing

his deceased mother, the author repeats the words “rabbits” and “possums”. In this context,

Vardaman is seen to equate the life of his mother to being similar to an animal while coming to

the realization that all living beings will pass away eventually​. The author uses

rabbits---commonly associated with peace and childhood---to showcase the childish approach the

character must take to understand death due to his young age. In doing so, Vardaman attempts to

make sense of his mother's death by acknowledging that everything ‘comes and goes’ similar to

how rabbits and other animals pass. However, he has difficulty comprehending that his mother's

existence is equal in significance as a simple animal. By including this symbolic aspect, Faulkner

characterizes Vardaman as someone who is a traumatized child that is desperate to make sense of

death in any way possible. This depiction is valuable because it demonstrates how a child’s first

exposure to a traumatic event will lead them to question many aspects of existence, similar to the

way in which Vardaman is doing so. This also works to showcase the importance of the deceased

mother to Vardaman, in that they were likely very close due to his extreme emotional reaction to

her death. Furthermore, the symbolism used by the author is essential to portray Vardaman as a

child who is solely traumatized and questioning existence. This is further argued when the author

notes how the child begins to question God’s intent for death, as he asks why his mother is given

a “different place” to go after dying if she is just a simple animal. Vardaman’s paralleling of his

mother to an animal works to exemplify his inability to comprehend the significance of death
and his religious beliefs. Faulkner includes this passage to showcase Vardaman’s sense of

identity loss because he no longer has the certainty of God’s plan or his mother’s comfort to

assure him of his reality. His mother’s passing was the catalyst for a mental spiral, in that it

triggered an intense need to make sense of death and understand life’s purpose in any way

possible. This works to further characterize Vardaman as a child who is in the traumatic process

of grievance and acceptance.

Similarly, the author uses repetition to emphasize the emotional response of the character

from a traumatized child’s point of view. While vaguely describing the character’s thoughts,

Vardaman is seen to repeat the phrase “I chopped it up”. This phrase is repeated in a ranting

format, in that Vardaman is mindlessly carrying out several actions while distracting himself

from his mother’s death as a coping mechanism. The author includes this to show the

desensitization developing within the character because he is being forced to mature quickly

without being given proper time to process death and understand the purpose of existence. The

repetition of ‘chopping’ creates a grim tone to the passage and alludes to the idea that Vardaman

is beginning to understand the lack of significance in human death. Similar to how one can

simply kill an animal and eat it, his traumatic response is to believe human life also lacks

sacredness and can be disposed of just as easily. Because he is simply a child, he struggles to

understand how one can be alive in one moment, yet cease to exist in the next. Faulkner includes

this passage in the story to convey how a child’s strong emotional response to traumatizing

events can negatively shift their perception on life. The character is seen to end his train of

thought by concluding that both him and his family “will be” and then “will not be”. This final

conclusion made by the character is symbolic in that it is representative of Vardaman’s ultimate

acceptance of life and death. The rapid continuation of thoughts in unorganized sentence
structures followed by a finalizing statement in the passage is also representative of how

Vardaman is forced to mature quickly within his environment. This rapid maturing ultimately led

to his understanding that everything must come to an end. Yet, all thoughts portrayed by the

author are made in order to further characterize Vardaman as an emotional child responding to a

traumatic event. This characterization indicates that Vardaman’s role in the novel is solely to

give a child’s perspective on death and to showcase the extent of trauma’s influence on both the

character and his family through observing his emotional responses.

To conclude, William Faulkner depicts Vardaman as a traumatized child making sense of

death in the novel through the usage of symbolism and repetition.