Her anger at her students probably has a lot to do with the hollowness she feels as a single woman. Thus the novel shows the family perishing as a result of a negative philosophy that infects or destroys the whole family as either a meaningful unit or as individuals capable of arriving at some understanding of life.
And indeed, they are not, for they have two more children together after Darl is born. It would be quiet there then, with the water bubbling up and away and the sun slanting quiet in the trees and the quiet smelling of damp and rotting leaves. About the age of 13, he began to write poetry.
The basic plot of the Bundren family travelling from their home to Jefferson portrays as a pointless and destructive quest. And it is ironic that Darl is the one son who continually inquires into the intricacies and awareness of life.
Like the rest of his family, Vardaman is mentally unstable, but his condition is magnified due to this lack of understanding of life and death This becomes evident when a story has been recollected by numerous spectators.