What happens in Chapter 37 of As I Lay Dying?
The chapter begins with Cash lying on the ground, pale and thin in his wet clothes, a pool of vomit near his head; Dewey Dell wipes her mouth with the hem of her dress. Jewel shows up with a recovered carpenter's square and asks if Cash has said anything yet. The family hopes Cash will regain consciousness so he can list the tools still lost in the river.
They head back to the flood. The wagon has been pulled out of the water, and the mules float lifeless nearby. Vardaman stands knee-deep, holding a rope for Vernon, who is searching for tools while submerged up to his shoulders. Darl joins Jewel and Vernon in the river, and the three men feel along the cold bottom while Vardaman manages the rope attached to a tree. Vernon comes up with the rule; Jewel surfaces and swims to the bank, finding the chalk-line there.
Jewel ties the chalk-line around the hammer shaft to use as a weighted probe, but Vernon argues that the plane will float better. After a short discussion, Jewel concedes; they attach the plane to the chalk-line, return to the water, and Jewel dives again—emerging with the saw. Meanwhile, Pa wanders back and forth along the bank, using leaves to scrub mud from the wagon.
The group gathers around Cash and holds up the recovered tools—plane, saw, hammer, square, rule, chalk-line—so he can see them. Cash manages to speak just enough for Jewel to identify the one item still missing: the saw-set. Pa lamentingly notes their misfortune, pointing out that it’s the same leg Cash broke when he fell from a church. The chapter ends with Darl observing Jewel and Vernon in the river from a distance, reflecting on the serene, mechanical movements of their torsos on the surface.
Analysis
Darl narrates with his distinctive third-person perspective, describing Cash's body as if viewed from a painter's distance: "his hair plastered in a smooth smear across his forehead as though done with a paintbrush." This painterly detachment is present throughout the chapter, particularly in the closing image of Jewel and Vernon appearing "severed" at the torso by the water's surface, their movements "infinitesimal and ludicrous." The contrast between Darl's lyrical introspection and the mechanical urgency of the tool-recovery plot creates the chapter's central tension.
The tools serve as a motif of obsessive practicality—the family lists them by name (plane, saw, hammer, square, rule, chalk-line, saw-set) even while Cash lies barely conscious. This inventory of objects, set against the backdrop of near-drowning and dead mules, illustrates how the Bundrens prioritize task completion over human suffering, a dynamic that Pa unwittingly parodies by cleaning mud off the wagon instead of attending to his injured son.
Pa's repeated phrases, "If ever was such a misfortunate man" and "I don't begrudge her it," reveal his self-centeredness: the chapter frequently shifts focus from Cash's pain to Pa's self-pity. The terse, eye-to-eye debate between Vernon and Jewel about whether a hammer or a plane floats better—expressed in flat, spare dialogue—contrasts with Darl's expansive prose, rooting the chapter in physical reality.
The imagery of cold water prevails: "It is like hands moulding and prodding at the very bones," transforming the river into an active antagonist. The chapter concludes with Darl's most abstract passage, merging individual identity into "the myriad original motion," reflecting his tendency to philosophize during moments of communal crisis.
Key quotes from Chapter 37
“It is like hands moulding and prodding at the very bones.”
Darl describes the cold river water as he and the others search the bottom for Cash's tools.
“it is as though it had severed them both at a single blow, the two torsos moving with infinitesimal and ludicrous care upon the surface.”
Darl watches Jewel and Vernon from the bank as they wade in the river searching for the saw-set.
““A fellow might call it lucky it was the same leg he broke when he fell offen that church,” pa says. “But I don’t begrudge her it.””
Pa stands over the recovering Cash and delivers one of his self-pitying remarks about the journey's hardships.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter 37
- infinitesimal
- Immeasurably tiny and slow, so small as to be almost impossible to detect with the eye.
- ludicrosities
- Invented plural noun meaning things that are absurdly ridiculous; here used to describe the female body's curves as comically out of place in a serious context.