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Death In The Family By James Agee

1414 Words6 Pages

Losing a Loved One Losing a loved one proves as immensely painful. When an individual dies suddenly, shock likely occurs to the person’s loved ones; their family struggles to grapple onto the sudden news and at first, feel numb. As time progresses, however, family members begin to grieve and eventually accept the death. With young children however, they likely find difficulty in understanding the concept, or the tangibility of death. More so, they struggle to interpret how the death of their loved one changes their own life. Throughout the novel, A Death in the Family, by James Agee, Jay, the husband of Mary, and the father of Rufus and Little Catherine, decides to leave one day, early morning to visit his dad, and hours later begins to …show more content…

He died last night while I was asleep and now it was already morning. He has already been dead since way last night and I didn’t even know until I woke up. He has been dead all night...and now it is morning and I am awake but he is still dead...he will stay right on being dead...all afternoon...all night...all tomorrow” (239). Rufus begins to think of the his father’s death and how recently it occurred. He remains focused, and thinks in an ongoing loop of his own location in comparison to his father’s location at the time of his death. Rufus struggles to process his father’s death as he realizes the reality of death as the end of one’s life. As Rufus advances past the initial stages of shock, he progresses onto the idea of how his father’s death affects him as he more fully understands the tangibility of death. Rufus converses with his mom and questions his own changed identity: “Of course you’re not orphans, Rufus”...Maybe he ought not to have asked her at all...Well, so he was not an orphan. Yet his father was dead. Not his mother...One and one makes two. One-half of two equals a one. He was half an orphan, no matter what his mother said” (263). Rufus begins to process the death of his father and moves past the initial stage of shock. His father’s death becomes a reality for him, and he now focuses on his own changed identity as a fatherless son. At the funeral of Jay, Rufus sees his father for the first time since before the

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