I think considering what we've read so far the book takes on more religious symbolism and irony (considering that so many of the characters are horrible people... Actually no, just Anse and to a lesser degree Addie and Whitefield). Cash has always seemed vaguely like a Christ figure since the beginning. He's a carpenter and his name sounds similar, but in following his father's orders he is in this case nearly killed on the river (Hey! He falls in and gets symbolically baptized, because every time someone gets wet it's a baptism!). He almost dies for Anse's stupidity/recklessness/idiocy/selfishness/insert angry adjective et all, in the same way Jesus died for mortal sin; the irony comes from the fact that Anse remains an unrepentantly sinful individual he keeps, screwing everything up and proceeds to top of the sins with vanity (his new teeth) and lust (his new wife).
Another ironic religious metaphor I find interesting is that of Addie and Anse, who I've always likened a bit to Adam and Eve but now think the likeness is even more so knowing Addie's... personal indiscretions. She, as Eve, accepts the "forbidden fruit" (wink wink) from a servant of God who has now fallen into sin (fallen Angel). She suffers for this action (she has more children and ultimately dies) and her actions arguably spawn her husbands sinful actions as well (this hellish journey is inspired by the death). The irony comes from the fact that Addie and Anse could act as a stand in or representation for all families, rendering the familial unit, which is so often declared the basis of morality and Christian value etc... sinful and corrupted. Oh Faulkner, what sweet irony. Irony that is augmented and made even more obvious by the fact that the Addie-Whitefield affair is a modernist re-telling of the Scarlet Letter.
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