Ch 6: "The Sound of Truth" -As I Lay Dying

"The Sound of Truth" -As I Lay Dying

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.