“ I know I am making the choice most dangerous to an artist in valuing life above art.” With these words James Agee, author of A Death In The Family, expresses his restless journey that would lead him to an early death.

James {Rufus} Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1909. His father was a postal worker who was killed in an automobile accident. Thirty years later, A Death In The Family, a novel of Agee’s childhood would be the cornerstone of his fame. In this novel, Rufus is the protagonist and he spends more time on his view than any other character in the novel. Rufus is an intelligent and sensitive boy at the age of six, but doesn’t get the fully understand the concept of his father’s death. Rufus has a need to fit in with the other children in his neighborhood. Rufus allows the children

Throughout the novel, Agee explores the memories of Rufus flashbacks. This enables the reader to stay with the characters views of his memory. In seeing this, we gain insight on the events that took place that helped shape the character’s point of view. At the end of the novel, Andrew, Rufus uncle, states a symbolic point of view over Jay’s death that he experienced at the burial. The butterfly that lands on Jay’s coffin is a symbol of hope that will help all the characters cope with the death. For Rufus’ mother and aunt hope takes the form of religion. With Andrew, the butterfly states that it is tempting him to believe in God. At this point, Rufus questions himself over why he thinks his uncle don’t like his mother. He struggles with the fact of how Andrew and the others cope with the lost of his father, while still struggling with his own feelin

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