Zach Stapleton Period 3

Mr. Newvine 1/28/2019

A boy was thrown into the mix today, another young man ruined by crime. He came in

laughing his ass off hinting that he may possibly suffer from a form of dementia, as there’s no

good reason a man should be laughing like that, especially after what he did. I was told that he

had tried to burn down a barn, who was owned by a man who helped his family through sheer

kindness. Not only that, he deliberately burned the barn in order to burn his mother’s coffin

inside of it, it seems he has no decency for the deceased. Although, I don't believe this young

man is truly a bad person. He is struggling with things that are not in his control, his own mind is

his enemy and betrays him. I intend to help him, and hopefully, he can be treated as it always

quite depressing when the youth go down a dark path.

I call for the gentleman to be brought into my office where I will begin an evaluation of

him and how to treat his conditions. A loud knock is heard at the door and two guards open the

door and introduce me to this fellow. His eyes stare straight into me and are devoid of any

emotion at this moment. He seems to be deeply lost in thought while he softly whispers words

such as “cinder”, “inferno” and even the word “Hell”. Chills are sent done my spine while he

rambles on, starting to talk about his family. Through his ramblings, I learn his name is Darl, as

he constantly refers to himself as Darl instead of just using “I’. I am memorized yet terrified by

this young man, so much as to where I lose track of my current goal.

I begin to question him of what his motive was to burn the barn down after being helped

by such kind people. He only responded with “I was trying to save her”, assumingly his mother,
but what kind of person would want to be laid to rest through fire? No one person would want to

be faced with such degradation after death, especially a God-fearing Christian liked his mother.

He started to weep, asking “How could they do this to him and her” blaming his family for their

fates. Interestingly, he blamed mainly his father the most, screaming that he had betrayed her and

made her burial hell. I realized enough was enough, and already had only caused harm to this

young man. His delusions were of wrong intent, although he mantained a fierce hatred for the

family that had wronged him and his mother. I don’t know how to percieve Darl’s situation as he

is a sick man, but I also half-heartedly have pity for him. Maybe his family of his did wrong him

and cause him to end up here. Anyways, that concludes Day One of Darl’s recovery.

I chose to write a narrative from Darl’s doctor from when he was locked up into the

institution. I believe it helps to show a more sophisticated dialect that existed around this time

that we don’t get to experience when you are reading under the scope of the Bundren family’s

views as they are all quite uneducated. I also believe this helps encompass what happens after the

end of the book. The book never really goes into detail about what happens to Darl after the end,

in fact, it ends more abruptly then it should have. Although, the abrupt ending assits with the

mystification that Faulkner had placed throughout the book. In conclusion, I firmly believe that

Darl’s mind should be more througholy inspected as he is the main narrator of this book, and it

helps familarize the reader more, and learn about Darl’s fate.