I am currently reading this book and I finished the chapter where Tom commited suicide.
While I was reading Tom and Dessie chapters I had a sense that their relationship is perhaps incestious.
The things that made me think that:
-it is clear that the siblings are very fond of each other;
– Dessie was in love with someone and it was “a hopeless thing, grey and terrible”;
– shortly after that sentence Tom is mentioned raging like a lion, and as I understand he spent a night in jail. Sam picked him up and “stillness fell on the Hamilton place”, but he never discussed the incident again;
– Will was completely against Dessie’s return to the ranch;
– Tom and Dessie’s behaviour on the ranch is more similar to behaviour of a couple, if you disregard the fact that they are brother and sister.
I do not believe that anything happened but I have a sense that there were feelings involved.
I did not find anything on the internet to support this, so I wonder what this sub thinks. Maybe I am reading too much into this.
by YitMatters
5 Comments
I think the novel is about (among many other things) depravity, guilt, self-destructive impulses that we can’t control.
Detecting a whiff of incest would not be out of the question.
See also Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, where ideas of incest are layered carefully on some of the same themes.
I’ve read the book twice and have never thought the same. They were very fond of each other and were two similar people in their insecurities, etc. which created even more of a bond. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I’ve never thought it or heard that idea from anyone else either.
I think Tom was incredibly lonely and might have seen Dessie as a companion the same way most people would see a romantic partner. However I think Dessie just cared deeply about her brother and wanted to keep him company. I don’t think Tom felt sexual attraction to her, but his feelings for her did cross the line of normal family affection, mostly due to his solitude and need for affection.
The jealousy he felt toward her romantic partner was likely because he feared that she would no longer show him the same level of affection, not that he wanted that role.
In short she was “his person” because he had no one else, it blurred the lines with incestuous feelings, but that’s not really out of the blue for this book.
It’s been several years since I read it, but I always though Dessie’s love was either unrequited or otherwise impossible (a married man? Maybe even a woman?) I didn’t get incest vibes, but honestly that’s an interesting take and not altogether implausible for this book. I’ll have to read it again
I just finished the book about a month ago and I was waiting for that to be revealed as I got to that point in the story. As someone else said, it may not have been sexual, but their relationship was definitely outside the norm. But it was enough so that I didn’t feel an incest reveal would be outside the realm of possibilities.