How can you get around without a horse? Well, with a wagon of course, but Jewel’s horse still makes a multitude of appearances throughout the book. The horse develops a very unique physical and literal meaning to every person. Ultimately the horse represents the independence exists between Jewel and the family because he doesn’t want to be a Bundren. The family sees the horse as unloving and separate from everyone else that is part of the family, which makes it appear like an extension of Jewel.
This perspective is brought to the forefront of the reader’s mind initially in the book by Darl, but Anse also has a dialogue with Peabody about it as well. At the beginning of the novel, when Anse asked Darl where Jewel was he described the relationship between Jewel and his horse. After an initial struggle, “they are rigid, motionless, [and] terrific”(12). The word they suggest that they are in unison and therefore doing the exact same thing, appearing as if they are an extension of each other. Soon later, when Jewel dismounts the horse they get into another struggle. The horse kicks at him… Jewel kicks him in the stomach; the horse arches his neck back, crop-toothed”(13).
The horse being crop-toothed- meaning showing his teeth- shows that he is shocked with the response despite being owned by Jewel for a long period of time and shows how they both have a relationship without love. Afterward, when Peabody is called to help Addie, Jewel is off with his horse rather than allowing Peabody to use it. “Where’s the horse? ‘ I [Peabody] say. Jewel’s taken and gone,’ he [Anse] says. ‘Can’t nobody else ketch hit. You’ll have to walk up, I reckon”(42).
Nobody else can catch the horse because it is separate from everybody else and therefore is only an xtension of Jewel. Jewel develops a connection with his horse that shows characteristics of Jewel by being individualistic and unloving from everyone else. Jewell’s horse embraces the disrespect that Jewel has for the rest of the family even his mother Addie because like Jewel the horse doesn’t want to be with the Bundrens.
When the family leaves with Addie to go bury her, Anse wants the entire family to go in the together; however, Jewel decides to bring his horse anyways. I told him not to bring the horse out of respect for his dead ma”(105). Anse tries to appeal to Jewel by saying it’s for his dead mother, but he doesn’t care and so he bring the horse anyways expressing the direct disrespect Jewel has for the family. Later as they continue their journey, Jewel decides that he wants to pass the rest of the family in the wagon. “A gout of mud, backflung, plops onto the box. Cash leans forward and takes a tool from his box and removes it carefully” (108-109).
The mud landing on the box shows the lack of respect Jewel has for his dead mother, but it also displays that Cash is used to dealing with Jewel’s disrespect. Even the way Jewel received the horse was disrespectful to everyone around him. In order to earn the money every other person in the family had to do “the other jobs around the house that Jewel had been doing before”(130), but Jewel “went behind my [Anse’s] back and bought a horse”(136). Jewel disrespect for the entire family is evident in the origin of the horse, who he bought separately of the family so it could be his own.
This disrespect and the separation from the remainder of the family that the horse encompasses as part of Jewel results in Anse going to extreme measure to try to bring he family closer. Anse sees the horse as the thing that separates Jewel from the rest of the family and is the main reason for him being disrespectful, therefore, he believes that getting rid of the horse would is the only logical solution. After the team is drowned, Anse goes looking for a new team, but he thinks Jewel’s horse is a good bargaining chip.
When he returns he starts to talk about what he traded for the new team mentioning the horse last. I thought that if I could do without eating, my sons could do without riding”(191). Anse explains that he suffered for the amily by not eating, and that Jewel could live without having his horse. Jewel storming off makes the situation appear dire and that trying to get rid of the horse wouldn’t work. “Anse’s boy taken that horse and cleared out last night”(193), but Jewel actually brought the “horse in the barn”(193). This change of heart from clearing out to actually sacrificing the horse for the remainder of the family proved that Anse’s idea is correct.
While the remainder of the family views the horse as an object because that is the only way they think about it, Darl uses the orse to symbolize how Jewel is different from everyone else. When Darl and Jewel are returning home from their job, they notice the family is waiting for them. “It’s not your horse that’s dead, Jewel.. Jewel’s mother is a horse”(94-95). Jewel’s mother is a horse because only he has a horse and Addie was only his mother because he didn’t have his actual father in his life so she favored him. Jewel’s mother is also a horse because Darl doesn’t have a horse and he “haven’t got ere one[mother]”(101).
This expands on the symbolism Darl uses because he manipulates he words to sound like he doesn’t have a mother, but also that he didn’t have one although he did, trying to separate himself from Jewel. Darl later antagonizes Jewel about his mother again while also using the horse to separate those two even more. “Jewel, whose son are you?.. Your mother was a horse, but who was your father Jewel? “(212) The use of the word horse here as described earlier separates Darl and Jewel from each other and in this case, Darl is antagonizing Jewel about his father as well basically stating that they are not anything alike.
Darl’s use of the word horse to separate himself from Jewel agrees with everyone else’s perception of the horse that separates Jewel from the rest of the family. This symbolism is then used to deepen the already physical divide. The horse, a mode of life possibly and transportation, drives a wall between the family that separates Jewel from the remainder of the family. This wall appears to be unbreakable and at its roots, you can’t change where he came from, but the family could make him more included. Today, the roots of teenagers aren’t going to change.
They are going to want to be separate from their parents and realize the mistakes they make on their own, but they appear more separate from the parents than what can be expected. The only way to bring them closer is to make them feel more included and getting rid of the item that separates us from the people near us. Like Jewel and the horse, people and their technology bring them farther away from the people around them. So get rid of the horse and put your phone away and get closer to the people around you, because those are the people that really care for you.
