A Character Analysis

A Character Analysis of пїЅA Death In The FamilyпїЅ James Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1909. Agee wrote the novel пїЅA Death In The FamilyпїЅ in New York City, in 1955. This novel is a remembrance of events within a family. It is about marital love and loss and the need for religious faith. This novel is an autobiography about the death of AgeeпїЅs father. This analysis deals with Jay, Mary and Rufus Follet and how Mary and Rufus deal with Jays death. Jay is a family man and he would do anything for his family. JayпїЅs son Rufus is six years old, they have a great father-son relationship. Jay is very proud of his son and brags about him all the time. Jays wife Mary, loves him very much and he is very tender caring, and loving towards her. He also knows how to treat women and has great respect for them. (Character Analysis, 1-2.) Jay goes to visit his father who has suffered from a heart attack and on the way back home he killed in a car wreak. The rest of the novel shows the reactions of his wife, his four year old daughter, and especially his son, Rufus. (Review, 1.) Rufus Follet is the protagonist of the novel. Throughout the Novel it is shown that Rufus is an intelligent and sensitive little boy. (Agee, 1967.) Rufus questions his mother and aunts faith in God. Whenever the women give him religious explanations, he questions them and wants an answer that makes logical sense. An example of this is after his father, Jay, is dead, his mother Mary calls him and little Catherine to her and tells them that God has taken their father. Rufus must then ask if his father is dead. The word пїЅDeadпїЅ has an absolute meaning for him and his mothers religious explanation does not. RufusпїЅs aunt tells him and little Catherine the facts about Jays death, that a concussion had killed their father. Rufus says that if the concussion killed his father, then it was not God that killed him. Rufus cannot understand how his mother and his aunt can believe that it was both God and the concussion that killed his father. (Agee, 1967.) Another aspect of RufusпїЅs character emphasized throughout the novel is his need to fit in with other children. Rufus really wants to make friends so he allows children to make fun of him because he believes that their may be a few of them who secretly like him. Rufus cannot understand the concept of teasing for fun. He thinks that the boys would not insist of teasing him over and over unless that they liked him. Since rufus has never teased anyone and has no desire to, he does not perceive it in others. (Agee, 1967.) In many way Rufus shows two views of childhood in the novel. He is as adult as any other character in the novel, in the ways that he sees and perceives other people. The language used to describe Rufus and his experiences is very poetic and abstract, more complex than the language used to describe the other characters in the novel. The other view is that Rufus is like a child. His inability to fully understand his fathers death is typical of small children. Rufus is not sure what death is supposed to mean for him. At the end of the novel the reader can not be sure of what rufus makes of his fathers death. Rufus does understand that death is a permanent condition, but the full weight of grief has not yet