Brianna Bryant

Professor Robinson

English 1102-23

17 February 2008

Signs for Analysis

 The underlying meanings in “Father on the Marsh” in relation to “Burial Detail”

Driving Theoretical Questions

What unspoken tensions are weighing on Lanier in “Father on the Marsh”? How can Lanier’s turtle slaughtering actions be tied in with his experiences in “Burial Detail”? What does the personification of nature contribute to this piece? What elements of this story are impending and affecting Lanier’s actions?

Multiple Analytical Responses

“Burial Detail” plays a very significant role in Lanier’s psychological transformation into “Father on the Marsh.” Allusions to food can be spotted consistently throughout “Burial Detail:” “broken flesh, we spread, like frosting, a layer of lime” (line 2), “building a giant torte” (4), “we stacked the flaccid meat all afternoon” (14) “thinks that they’ll stay whole and sweet” (64). The parallel of food with dead, decaying bodies throughout this piece is used to juxtapose life with death. Food is seen as life-bringing and nourishing. Comparing disgusting, brutal death with the necessary components of life does two very important things. One, it suggests the inevitability of death in the presence of life. Two, by comparing such a repulsive surrounding with a substance that must be digested is alluding to the need to process such an experience, but the inability to stomach the reality of it.

The impact made on Lanier in “Burial Detail” is expanded further in “Father on the Marsh.” After Lanier and his boys catch the cooter, Lanier says,

Although

I couldn’t eat the thick green soup,

they did. They slurped it down without,

I guess, a thought about the cooter.

But, I was that way too. (“Father on the Marsh” 31-35)

Lanier’s inability to eat the soup immediately follows his regret for slaughtering the turtle in front of his boys. The ability to brutally destroy a part of nature that he once held so dear reflects the emotional impact on him from the war. When Lanier thinks “I was that way too” (35), he is using past tense, describing not how he is now, but rather, how he was in the past; he expresses a change. In “Burial Detail,” Hudgins expresses the act of burying the dead bodies as if it is a mindless action of preparing or cooking. At the time, Lanier could just slurp past most of the horrific details, but now the details are too thick to digest.

Time can be seen throughout the “Father on the Marsh” as a reminder of Lanier’s past mistakes and impending death. In the beginning, Hudgins description of Lanier’s experience with his boys and the cooter plays a huge role with time. After Lanier slices the turtle’s shell off, Hudgins says, “opened to our view, / much like the workings of a watch” (23-24). This example exposes Lanier’s feeling of venerability and openness to failure as a father, psychological pain from the war, and the constant reminder of his impending death.