This song represents the ending of this book so well. In the song the singer talks about how he cannot change his place in society; everyone has a "mold" and that will never change:
No change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
And I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no
I can't change
I can't change
At the end of the novel when they finally bury Addie it seems like Dewey Dell might be able to break from her mold and become something besides the roles that her family have placed upon her. She could change; there is that hope, but then Anse introduces his new wife and it seems like life has come full circle. I imagine this song playing in her mind as she is told that she will have to go back to being under someone else's orders and that she will never be free. Addie's death, to Dewey Dell, must seem "bittersweet" in that with it she got the chance to go to town and possibly get the abortion that she has been wanting, but it doesn't happen and the worst part is, again, the idea that Dewey Dell's life has just come full circle.
Along with "The Sound of Truth" representing Dewey Dell's anger about the rape scene the song "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables also can represent this scene in the book. In the musical this song is the dramatic moment where the character Fantine has suffered the most insulting degradation imaginable. She is a single mother who was abandoned by the father before the child's birth and so has to find work wherever she can. She starts out in a nice factory, but ends up prostituting for money. "I Dreamed a Dream" conveys all of the hardships that she has lived through in silence and with no one there to help her. Similarly, Dewey Dell trudges through life with only herself and a cow for support through her secret pain. If Dewey Dell were to have a break down scene in the book it would sound something like this song. It would be full of all of the pent up emotion that she has not ever reveled to anyone and it would be full of pain and sorrow.
So I know this music is very much an extreme from others on the playlist, but I wanted to have a band with the same name as the book because I figured it was an interesting coincidence. Even so once you get past all of the screaming the lyrics are actually quite beautiful:
We have all heard what we wanted to hear
"Truth" that sounds right to our ears
But what wisdom
is there within us
To live based on
the feeling of our hearts
How many times
has instinct let us down
Never to be thought through
Never to be questioned
The above lyrics seem to fit most with the fire scene in the novel. In this section of the book truth seems to be a key theme. In Vardaman's section he keeps repeatedly saying, "I saw something Dewey Dell told me not to tell nobody" which the identity of the arsonist, Darl (215). Throughout this section we see that Dewey Dell knows the true identity of who started the fire, but she does not tell anyone. It might be because, like Darl, she just wants the journey to end or she does not know who to be loyal to. Darl knows about her pregnancy, so in a way Dewey Dell might keep his secret as payment for him keeping hers. The song "The Sound of Truth" is very angry sounding and screams about truth and wisdom. The fire is the anger burning the truth and evidence of the situation. The lyrics show that what wisdom we have is our instincts, but even that might be flawed. Dewey Dell relies on her instinct to judge whether or not she should tell the truth about Darl. As the song says, instincts can let us down sometimes. Dewey Dell was led by instinct to the drug store and then the cellar in order to get rid of her pregnancy. In the end, her instincts lead her into a bad situation where we infer that she gets raped by the store clerk. The anger of the song can symbolize the anger that she never shows or possibly does not know how to show.
This is when Dewey Dell received the money from Lafe and thought that if she could just get rid of the child then she could live with him and be happy.
I never thought I could love anyone but myself
Now I know I can't love anyone but you
But you make me think that maybe I won't die alone
Maybe I won't die alone
She has to find love with him because she does not receive any within her family. The men take her for granted and abuse her while her mother does not even take notice of her. In fact Addie says that she "gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel. Then [she] gave him Vardaman to replace the child [she] had robbed him of," meaning that Dewey Dell means next to nothing to her as a daughter (176). To not have your mother's love is something unthinkable. The idea would in fact make one believe that they would die alone. With this knowledge it is quite understandable why Dewey Dell went seeking for love and affection somewhere else. Like the song suggests, she found her love in Lafe and even if it is only for a little while she will not be alone as long as she can be with him.
While this song does not necessarily connect with Dewey Dell's situation, it has been in my head throughout this entire project and it seems fitting enough to be added to this playlist. One interpretation about the song "She's Got a Ticket to Ride" by the Beatles is that it is about a girl who is pregnant and wants to keep the child even though she "has a ticket to ride" or she has the opportunity to get an abortion. The word "ride" refers the town of Ryde in London. According theorists, Ryde is where police would send prostitutes to "get clean" so it's easy to see how people might infer that the song is about abortion. Dewey Dell definitely does not have that option in her situation. She also does not have a loving boyfriend that sticks with her through it all either.
One song that I have already thought of is from the end scene of Les Miserables when the character Cosette is about to lose her father. She sings:
You will live,
Papa you're going to live!
It's too soon, too soon to say goodbye
These lyrics are almost identical to what Dewey Dell says when Addie just dies; "It is because in the wild and outraged earth too soon too soon too soon. It's not that I wouldn't and will not it's that it is too soon too soon too soon." (120). The beauty is that in both scenes from either book, or movie, depicts the daughter crying over the loss of a parent. This is Dewey Dell’s only moment of grieving that Faulkner gives us and at first it does not seem like she cares at all, but once looked at with Les Miserables as a backdrop one can argue that Dewey Dell cared a lot for her mother.
I love this song and I am so glad that I found a way to add it into this playlist. In one section Dewey Dell is describing how in a nightmare she had she could not feel anything:
I thought I was awake but I couldn't see and couldn't feel I couldn't feel the bed under me and I couldn't think what I was I couldn't think of my name I couldn't even think I am a girl I couldn't even think I nor even think I want to wake up nor remember what was opposite to awake so I could do that I knew that something was passing but I couldn't even think of time then all of a sudden I knew that something was it was wind blowing over me. . . (121).
At this point in the book Dewey Dell has just described her despair about not being able to grieve properly; now we see her reaction. She thinks back to this nightmare that she had when she used to sleep with Vardaman (whenever that was). In the dream she describes a life practically worse than death. The song "One" by Metallica illustrates her dream with the lyrics and the video itself. The song literally starts with the words: "Can't tell if this is true or dream." In the video there are scenes from Johnny Get Your Gun that depict a young soldier who had to get all of his limbs cut off. The boy is stuck inside his mind. There is no way for him to communicate with the world or kill himself as the song later portrays is his ultimate goal. The words the boy uses are extremely similar to Dewey Dell's "I'm either dead or remembering...How can you tell when you're awake and asleep" which is what Dewey Dell is feeling- lost and within herself. The lyrics of the song help in showing how deep within herself Dewey Dell is:
Now the world is gone, I'm just one
Oh God help me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, help me
Darkness imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell
Within this time period many women were under strict restrictions. Being out in the country and depending on your family for any sort of human relationships and then those relationships practically nonexistent can be seen as a type of darkness. Dewey Dell describes this darkness that envelopes her when she enters the barn right after her mother dies, "I begin to rush upon the darkness but the cow stops me and the darkness rushes on upon the sweet blast of her moaning breath, filled with wood and with silence" (62). I believe that even though the fact that Dewey Dell keeps being connected to a cow may seem degrading (and it is) it can also be seen as good. In this scene where Dewey Dell is walking through the barn the cow is symbolic of her because both have something inside them. Dewey Dell even calls attention to this fact when she says, "What you got in you aint nothing to what I got in me, even if you a woman too," but even though scholars have made this connection they are missing a vital one (63). The cow follows Dewey Dell all around the barn, supposedly in order to be milked, but it might also be because the cow is trying to comfort her because the cow does know what Dewey Dell is going through. It also seems like, from what the quote from page sixty-two illustrates that the cow might be seen as protecting Dewey Dell from the darkness of being alone. The cow is her hope or guardian angel protecting her since nobody else will. As the cow cries to Dewey Dell to relieve her of the milk so to does Dewey Dell cry to the world/reader to "tend her" or to help her.
