Rufus in Death in the Family understands that death is permanent, but has yet to recognize how to grieve or deal with his father's death. In a way, you can see how Rufus is only thinking about himself and not how his father's death might affect others around him, he saw it as showing the world “Being without them making fun of him; looking at me." (Jewkes 98) Rufus is using this as an advantage for himself by "showing off to people because he's dead" (Jewkes 98) so that they won't make fun of him, but can admire him for his courage. his ways of dealing with the situation were more like ways of finding out how this death could somehow make him a beneficiary. 6-year-olds don't have the knowledge of how death works, so he doesn't realize that his father at first Not will return. In the quotes above, the character Rufus is captured “Out on the street like that when he's dead / Out on the street like what? / Showing off to people because he's dead.”(Jewkes 99). he is trying to live in the light of his father. After his father was declared dead, “he thought of the ashtray on the strap hanging from his arm; he ran his finger through it; there was only a faint stain of ash. it was nothing like that to keep in your pocket or wrap in foil. He looked at his finger for a moment and licked it; his tongue tasted of darkness. ” (Jewkes 99) Rufus was trying to memorialize or live in the spirit of his father, or have a piece of his father within himself. Given these points, the excerpt from A Death in the Family by James Agee followed the alias of James himself, Rufus used his father's death to help him advance further the ideas they are sensitive