Faulkner exposes the potential for hypocrisy within Christianity. The obvious example is Reverend Whitfield. His hypocrisy lies not so much in the sin of having sex with Addie Bundren but in clinging to his image of himself as a holy man. Whitfield claims repentance: “all that night I wrestled with Satan, and I emerged victorious. I woke to the enormity of my sin” (177). Whitfield feels that God leads him to confess the adultery to Anse. Praying en route to the Bundren house, Whitfield divulges his true motive: “let me not be

Faulkner uses Reverend Whitfield to demonstrate simplistic Christianity’s inadequacy to cope with both physical death and spiritual sin. The above two river crossing scenes function to contrast two different methods of dealing with death. Whitfield is crossing the river because, yes, he does not want Addie to tell of their fornication, but he also desires to make things right with her family before she dies: “I would say to her husband: ‘Anse, I have sinned. Do with me as you will’” (178). The Bundren family is crossing the river because they want to bury Addie. In each case, the crossing presents a difficulty that the party must overcome in order to deal with death. Immediately after Whitfield crosses the river, Tull’s youngest daughter informs him that Addie is already dead. Whitfield no longer has a reason to fear a deathbed confession from Addie. In a characteristic move of spineless hypocrisy, he decides to turn around: “But He is merciful; He will accept the will for the deed, Who knew that when I framed the words of my confession it was to Anse I spoke them, even though he was not there” (179). The very Christian system that was impelling Whitfield to deal with death now fails him. He never completes his task of dealing with Addie’s death.

Reverend Whitfield demonstrates simple Christianity’s inadequacy to atone for sin. As I have already shown, Whitfield never comes to true repentance; he merely uses Christian language to slough off responsibility for his sin. Therefore, Christianity fails to atone for the sins of its most conspicuous symbol. Addie, if not exactly the antithesis of Christianity, certainly lives unrestricted by its moral order. Cora, another symbol of Christianity, picks up on this: “She had never been pure religious, not even after that summer at the camp meeting when brother Whitfield wrestled with her spirit,

Some topics in this essay:
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