The Optimist's Daughter

The next morning, Laurel heads downstairs to find the maid, Missouri, dressed in her coat and hat in the kitchen. Laurel and Missouri talk about Fay. Missouri tells Laurel that her father always wanted Missouri to take Fay’s breakfast upstairs. Laurel notices that the house is filled with flowers. Missouri tells Laurel that she can’t get Fay to open the door, and she asks Laurel to take the breakfast tray upstairs. Laurel does it, suggesting that Fay come downstairs. Fay shouts at her: “I’m the widow! They can all wait till I get there” (61).

After Laurel bathes and dresses, she hears Mrs. Tennyson, who takes over and ushers Laurel into the parlor. There are candles burning, and the furniture is displaced. Laurel sees her father’s coffin between the parlor and the library. The casket is open, and Mr. Pitts tells Laurel he hopes she likes it. She quietly tells him to close the lid of the casket. Mr. Pitts is confused, wondering if she doesn’t like his work. She tells him again she doesn’t want it open, attempting to explain: “But Father would never allow—when mother died he protected her from—” (63). Mrs. Tennyson interrupts and explains the open casket was Fay’s wish. Laurel must accept it and takes her place at the head of the casket to greet the mourners.

The mourners file through. They include people who worked with her father, neighbors, and Laurel’s bridesmaids. Major Bullock arrives smelling of whiskey. He has lit a fire and the room begins to feel hot. He openly displays empathy for Fay, asking, “How soon is that poor little woman going to bring herself downstairs?” (66).

As everyone mingles in the house, strangers come to the door. The guests stand up to see “two equally fat women and a man” walk up to the front steps (66). They insult Laurel before she even finds out who they are. Eventually the obvious matriarch of the clan, which consists of several people, including a wizened daughter, introduces herself as Mrs. Chisom. She is Fay’s mother. The rest of the clan are family members.

Major Bullock greets them warmly. Laurel is shocked. She remembers that Fay said they were all dead. Several young children play out front. Major Bullock explains that he invited them. When Mrs. Chisom speaks again, she further insults Laurel, noting that Laurel has had “bad luck” with her own husband. A neighbor explains that Laurel’s husband died in the war and that his body was never recovered. The family is large and loud, and they babble on endlessly. A little boy named Wendell appears, and Laurel feels sorry for him because he seems confused. Mrs. Chisom and the wizened daughter explain that this is Wendell’s first funeral, and Major Bullock reminds Bubba, one of Fay’s brothers, that he is a pallbearer. Everyone asks for Fay. Mrs. Chisom looks around the stately home and expresses her pride in Fay for marrying so well, then talks about how “wasted” (71) her husband was, implying how poor they were. Laurel has the feeling she has seen these people before, or that she knows them from somewhere.

More neighbors arrive. The mourners tell stories about Laurel’s father. One woman says, “He had a wonderful sense of humor, underneath it all” (72). Laurel contradicts the woman, saying, “Underneath it all, Father knew it wasn’t funny” (72). She maintains her polite, soft-spoken demeanor. Everyone begins to talk over everyone else after that, and Laurel pauses to try and understand the scene. She realizes that “in death her father had been asked to bear the weight of that raised lid itself, and hold it up by lying there” (73). The mourners continue to speak of her father in ways she doesn’t understand, as if they never knew him. One of the guests says that the Judge was delicate, and everyone laughs, but Laurel agrees aloud that he is right.

Major Bullock stands up and tells a story about the Judge defying the KKK. He calls them “white caps.” The story is one of bravery and courage, but Laurel knows her father well enough to know that it’s not true. She keeps saying that this man isn’t her father; he would never act that way. Growing increasingly upset, Laurel tells Tish, speaking about Tish’s father, Major Bullock, “He’s trying to make Father into something he wanted to be himself” (80). Tish tries to calm her friend. Laurel finally says to Major Bullock, “Father really was modest” (80), and she then tries to prove it by mentioning that her father would have thought about her mother and would never have put himself in danger the way Bullock tells the story. Bullock tells Laurel she wouldn’t know because she wasn’t there; she was “sitting up yonder drawing pictures” (80).

Others begin to tell ever taller tales about her father, and Laurel watches with increasing anxiety, thinking, “her father seemed […] to have reached at this moment the danger point of his life” (82). Adele tries to calm Laurel by reminding her that it isn’t easy for the mourners, “and they’re being egged on a little bit […] by the rivalry that’s going on here in the room” (82). The Chisoms continue to match family story with family story. Laurel draws back and looks at her father’s coffin, “the bank of greenery” behind it hiding the sight of her father’s desk (83). She notices the books in his bookshelves, especially the shelf-load of Gibbon, and realizes she read him the wrong book in the hospital. She should have read him the Gibbon.

At last, Fay comes downstairs. She appears not to see her family and dramatically goes straight to the coffin, where she makes a show of suffering. She then sees her mother and shouts, “Get back!—Who told them to come?” (84). Fay is beside herself at the site of her family. As Laurel witnesses the chaos around her, she finally realizes that the Chisoms seem so familiar because they are exactly like the family in the hospital that she saw as her father was dying. The room erupts with Fay’s dramatic behavior, her mother coming to her and shouting words of strange comfort while Fay weeps into the open coffin, “Judge, you cheated on me” (85). The more this goes on, the more Laurel cries out, “No,” until Fay is physically fighting against Major Bullock, screaming and crying; everyone is gesturing and talking, and finally Mrs. Tennyson slaps Fay to stop the hysteria. In the moment of silence that follows, Laurel looks down at her father and says quietly, “He loved my mother” (87).

Mr. Pitts comes skulking in. He must help Laurel close the casket because it is too heavy for her. He removes the coffin from the room, to be taken to the cemetery. Laurel, Miss Adele, and Missouri walk outside to watch the hearse as it drives away. Later, at Mount Salus Presbyterian Church, Dr. Bolt, the minister, gives his sermon. It appears as if the entire town, including the school band, has turned out. The town’s black population is there as well. All the mourners drive to the newer part of the cemetery, as far away from Laurel’s mother as possible. Fay says, “How could the biggest fool think I was going to bury my husband with his old wife?” (90). The mourners all walk a great distance to nearly the farthest end of the new part of the cemetery and take their seats on Mr. Pitt’s green “portable grass.” Laurel considers how the new part of the cemetery “was the very shore of the new interstate highway” (92).

After the funeral, the members of the high school band are the first to break free. The rest follow. Laurel lets them all go ahead and then falls into Missouri’s hug. Laurel watches as the birds settle after the crowd leaves, “all on the waddle, pushing with the yellow bills of spring” (93).

Back in the parlor, Missouri and Miss Tennyson prepare for the final meal. The fire has been extinguished, and Laurel is relieved. The ham and the chicken are placed on the table and everyone eats. Fay tells everyone she thinks the funeral went off “real well.” Major Bullock brings a tray of drinks and offers one to Fay, who declines, so he drinks it himself. Fay and her mother discuss how beautiful the coffin was, and Fay makes sure everyone knows that it was expensive. Fay’s mother tells Fay that she is proud of her, and as the conversation continues to grow louder, Fay’s family decides it’s time to leave.

On the way out, Mrs. Chisom hints that she would like the entire family to move into Fay’s beautiful, newly inherited home. She suggests that it might also make a good boarding house, eliciting surprise from Mrs. Tennyson. Fay asks about her favorite brother, DeWitt, who was so angry that Fay didn’t invite him to the wedding that he has been sulking ever since. Fay wants to see him. She says, “He speaks my language. I’ve got a heap to tell DeWitt” (98). After that, Fay decides she wants to go back to Texas with her family for a few days. Laurel stops her before she leaves. She tells Fay what day she is leaving to orchestrate their arrivals and departures so that they don’t see each other. Fay agrees to the timeline.

Before Fay leaves, Laurel wants to know why Fay lied about not having a family. Fay seems to have no recollection of lying about it, saying, “If I did, that’s what everybody else does” (99). Laurel is surprised, and Fay decides to ignore it when Laurel pushes for an answer. She leaves, shouting, “At least my family’s not hypocrites. If they didn’t want me, they’d tell me to my face” (96). As Fay leaves, the Judge’s clock on the mantle, which Laurel reset, chimes. Fay says the first thing she will do once she gets back is throw the clock out. She is wearing the new green shoes. As they leave, Wendell, the little boy, brings out his toy gun and pretends to shoot it at Laurel and her friends.

After the house grows quiet, Mrs. Tennyson makes herself a toddy. She tells Laurel that Laurel’s her mother’s name, Becky, has been going through her head. Adele agrees. Mrs. Tennyson says she is grateful that Laurel’s mother wasn’t there to see all that. Another neighbor expresses her anger that Laurel didn’t get the house. Mrs. Tennyson tells her husband, Major Bullock, how angry she is that he invited the Chisoms. Major Bullock mourns for the Judge out loud, and Mrs. Tennyson yells at him to accept the Judge’s death. They all leave the house, and Laurel watches them go.