Pretty Things on purpose or Beauty by accident

I thought I detected a derisive attitude toward the Ricketts that was absent in the descriptions of the Gudger and Woods houses. Agee's comments in narration, "there is no soap because it is foolish to waste money that can be eaten with on soap when any fool knows there is nothing cleaner than water" and "beyond their faces and hands the people, and their clothing and bedding, and their pans and dishes, and their house, are generally by standards other than their own insanely or completely dirty, or almost beyond possibility of being dirtier, short of a deliberated or cult-like acquisition of dirtiness" - seem sarcastic and condescending, as does his emphasis on the misspelled crayon-on-cardboard sign that reads "Pleas! be quite" (172-3). While there are certainly pathetic moments in his portrayals of the other two houses, those are presented as outside the control of those families. But here, Agee seems to make a point of showing the failures of the Ricketts themselves.

So when I read the section about their fireplace, my first impression was that he was being patronizing by using the childish term "pretty things." Several other people have already pointed out that many of the "pretty things" above the fireplace are advertisements for items like whiskey or fancy clothing that the family would not be able to afford.

The next section in the book compares unintended "chance" beauty with intended beauty or art (178). Here and elsewhere, Agee comes down in favor of unintended beauty (like the way the light strikes the vase in the unused room at the Gudger house). If I am not projecting ideas onto the text and Agee really is critical of the Ricketts, then perhaps it is because he disagrees with their hopeless desires for manufactured, traditional ideas of "pretty things" when the other families have done better with their accidental beauty.