It is worth noting that Agee's A Death in the Family ends on the same note that Shakespeare's Hamlet begins with. The death is the death of a young man's father. The question of God's existence and his potential for judgment is also shared between the books. Also, the haunting use of imagery is shared; for instance, Rufus gets the wrong idea from his aunt's religious euphemisms. She even tells him that God wants his soul, but Rufus wonders whether he might ever be haunted by his father.
In Hamlet, we see that mystical reunion of the son with the ghost of his father, but in A Death in the Family, the reunion is only hinted at through foreshadowing. The foreshadowing element of the novel is actually worth noticing, because the whole thematic point of the novel seems to be that Rufus has seen something foreshadowed in the death of his father. He wonders whether the soul of his father survives death, or if perhaps he might rise from the dead.
This is foreshadowing Rufus's own death. He pays attention to death in a curious, cautious way. He wants to receive very clear insight from his family about the meaning of this all. What does it mean to die? What is being alive? Instead he gets the cloudy language of his aunt who does not believe he can handle it, or perhaps she herself cannot quite handle it, so she only communicates in euphemisms. To Rufus, this is not helpful, because whether or not she believes he can handle the truth, he must now deal with the truth of his father's death. At the end of the book, as a nod to Hamlet as the end process of this youthful mourning, Rufus feels that something is not quite right with his mother and uncle.
