Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 145

Humor in William Faulkner

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anything that might possibly be idyllic concerning Lena's situation.
Armstid's question again emphasizes Lena's physical condition and,
by implication, the irrationality of her journey.
Later, Armstid's wife, Martha, repeats his earlier joke,
"She's going to quit being alone a good while before she sees Alabama
again," and then says to Lena, "You keep off your feet now, and you'll
keep off your back a while longer may be" (LIA, 14, 15). Martha's
statements, like those of her husband, emphasize the physical fact
of Lena's pregnancy and they conflict with Lena's optimistic
expectation of finding Lucas Burch in Jefferson.
Lena's conversation with the driver who takes her to
Jefferson demonstrates a similar conflict. The driver is pessimistic
and concerned solely with Lena's physical condition; Lena is
optimistic about finding Lucas and unconcerned with her physical
condition.
The tale told by the Tennessee furniture dealer at the end of
the novel also concentrates on the physical condition of Lena, now a
nursing mother. The story emphasizes the frustration of Byron Bunch
and de-emphasises Lena's serenity. Certainly, the final episode of
the novel is not considered idyllic by anyone but Lena, if even she
considers it so. Perhaps the furniture dealer does attempt to go beyond
the merely physical in his telling of the story, but he is always
recalled to the physical by the questions of his wife, "Then what?
What did she do then?" (LIA, 433), "What was it he aimed to do?"
(LIA, 436) "Found out what? What it was he wanted to do?" (LIA,
438) All of her questions emphasize physical action rather than the
quiescent serenity that the Lena sections are said to represent.
As in Light in August and As I Lay Dying, much of the hum or.
of Sanctuary derives from the contrast between the observer and the
observed and leads to the avoidance or delay of resolution. Most of
the comic episodes of Sanctuary show Miss Reba or some member of
her world observing Temple Drake. The observer never understands
Temple or her dilemma.
For instance, when Temple says of the dress which she wore
at the Old Frenchman's place, "I can't wear it again." Miss Reba sees
her statement as an economic one and answers "No more you'll have
to, if you don't want. . . . And tomorrow the stores'll be open and me
and you'll go shopping like he said for us to.^^ Temple certainly had
not thought of the economics of replacing the dress. Similarly Reba