The Southern Gothic

Southern Gothic is a sub-genre of the Gothic writing style, unique to American literature. Like its parent genre, it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot. Unlike its predecessor, it uses these tools not for the sake of suspense, but to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South.

The Southern Gothic author usually avoids perpetuating antebellum stereotypes like the contented slave, the demure Southern belle, the chivalrous gentleman, or the righteous Christian preacher. Instead, the writer takes classic Gothic archetypes, such as the damsel in distress or the heroic knight, and portrays them in a more modern and realistic manner —transforming them into, for example, spiteful or reclusive spinster, or a white-suited and fan-brandishing lawyer with ulterior motives.

One of the most notable features of the Southern Gothic is the grotesque — a stock character who possesses some cringe-inducing qualities typically racial bigotry and egotistical self-righteousness — but enough good traits that the reader finds himself empathizing nevertheless. While often disturbing, Southern Gothic authors use deeply flawed characters for greater narrative range and more opportunities to highlight unpleasant aspects in Southern culture, without being too literal or appearing to be overly moralizing.

This genre of writing is seen in the work of such famous Southern writers as William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Harry Crews, Jill McCorkle, Lee Smith, Lewis Nordan, Barry Hannah, Carson McCullers, Erskine Caldwell, Eudora Welty, Harper Lee, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and John Kennedy Toole. Tennessee Williams described Southern Gothic as a style that captured "an intuition, of an underlying dreadfulness in modern experience.”  Through Southern Gothic literature, the Old South’s reputation for sultry decadence lives on.  The Southern Gothic is a genre of literature that meshes the moody romanticism of Gothic novels with the American South’s sensibility of tragedy and doom. The South’s mystique of decay and danger became a preoccupation for some mid-twentieth-century novelists, who were drawn to its cultural richness (influences include Creole, Cajun, African American, and Caribbean) and to its exotic history of slavery, pirating, and voodoo.

William Faulkner's and Carson McCullers's classic works unravelled multigenerational tragedies shaped by insanity, alcoholism, and ignorance; these texts exposed the insidious rot of unchanging beliefs at the core of a dismantled Southern aristocracy. In contemporary literature, the Southern Gothic moniker usually implies horror -- sometimes overt, sometimes covert, in either a historical or a modern setting. Novelists Anne Rice and Donna Tartt craft their tales of darkness by the haunting light of a moon-drenched, moss-draped Southern night.

The Gothic in “Southern Gothic”

Gothic literature—so called because many examples of the genre were set during the late-medieval, or Gothic, period—proliferated in England, Germany, and the United States during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Critics date its inception to 1764, when English statesman and writer Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story. Set against the majestic backgrounds of mysterious castles and aging palaces, many nineteenth-century English gothic novels used such bleak landscapes to create an atmosphere of horror and suspense. In particular, gothic literature found a home with writers of the American South, who used the crumbling landscape of the antebellum era as the backdrop for their tales of fantasy and the grotesque. Major twentieth-century American authors often identified with this genre include Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, Truman Capote, and to a lesser extent, Eudora Welty.

Defined by Francis Russell Hart as “fiction evocative of a sublime and picturesque landscape … depict(ing) a world in ruins,” the gothic novel presents readers with an opportunity to vicariously experience horrifying realities. By creating worlds where tragedy and repressed behaviors come to the forefront, gothic writers explore the psychology of human existence on several unique levels, notes critic Elizabeth M. Kerr. Common elements of the gothic novel include explorations of the subconscious through dreams, a good versus evil polarity in the characters, and the use of setting and atmosphere to evoke a vivid emotional response in the reader. While English Gothicism closely paralleled the Romantic movement in literature, frequently focusing on issues of love, sexuality, and the place of reason in human existence, Southern Gothic fiction focuses largely on themes of terror, death, and social interaction.

Some commentators have argued that the adaptation of the gothic format was particularly suited to the American South because the plantation world of the antebellum period provided writers with an analogy to the medieval settings available to English gothic writers. The images of the plantation houses—representative of a quasi-feudal order in times of prosperity—contrasted with their eventual decay were evocative of the ruined castles of nineteenth-century Gothic romances, with both symbolically signalling the end of an era. However, Southern Gothic fiction also embodies an immediacy and poignancy that derives from the personal and community experiences of its authors. Kerr explains this intensity as, “the cult of the past in the South, as symbolized in its ruins, its preserved glories displayed in spring pilgrimages, its monuments and graveyards, owes less to cultural climate and imagination than to remembered history.” This emphasis on history is vital to Southern Gothic fiction, which not only draws on the stylistic characteristics of nineteenth-century gothic fiction, but also finds inspiration from novels of the American past. Certain scholars—such as Leslie Fiedler in Love and Death in the American Novel (1960)—have identified specifically national concerns apparent in Southern Gothic fiction, particularly the relationships between races and genders. Other academics have been dismissive towards twentieth-century Southern Gothic novels, referring to the movement as a sub-genre of serious fiction and criticizing the works for their sometimes formulaic and sentimental storylines.

Representative Works

Truman Capote
Other Voices, Other Rooms (novel) 1948
A Tree of Night, and Other Stories (short stories) 1949
The Glass Harp (novel) 1951

William Faulkner
A Rose for Emily (novel) 1924
The Sound and the Fury (novel) 1929
As I Lay Dying (novel) 1930
Light in August (novel) 1932
Absalom, Absalom! (novel) 1936

Leslie Fiedler
Love and Death in the American Novel (criticism) 1960

Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God (novel) 1937

Cormac McCarthy
The Orchard Keeper (novel) 1965
Outer Dark (novel) 1968
Child of God (novel) 1974
Suttree (novel) 1979

Flannery O'Connor
Wise Blood (novel) 1952
A Good Man Is Hard to Find (short stories) 1955; also published as The Artificial Nigger and Other Tales, 1957
The Violent Bear It Away (novel) 1960
Everything that Rises Must Converge (short stories) 1965
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (prose) 1969
The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor (short stories) 1974

William Styron
Set This House on Fire (novel) 1963

Eudora Welty
A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (short stories) 1941
The Wide Net and Other Stories (short stories) 1943
The Golden Apples (short stories) 1949
The Optimist's Daughter (novel) 1972

IN SUMMARY:

MODERNITY

1. Modernity is the world of optimism toward human capabilities, toward the ability of the knower and the integrity of the known. This is manifest in an overall narrative that makes sense of everything -- the "metanarrative".

2. The metanarrative is not regarded as just a story, but as really true. The result is that it legitimates some knowledge, beliefs, and practices, and marginalizes others.

3. The use of this metanarrative is to master or control the world, which amounts to the progressive lessening of lack of knowledge, of physical discomfort, as defined by the metanarrative.

4. This is seen as a positive break with the past. Reason regards itself as superior, either because it has overcome the past (Enlightenment science), or because it has perfected the past (Hegel).

5. One feature of this break is a reconfiguration of the nature of values. Before the modern age, there were two kinds of values -- instrumental values (those which were values only because they led to something else more valuable -- money, for example), and terminal values (the values at the end of the chain of inference -- happiness for Aristotle, ataraxia for the Skeptics). Instrumental values were artificial (creations of instrumental reason); terminal values were natural. The first could be discussed, the second not.

In the modern age, both are amenable to discussion. There is no "natural" way to live, except as defined by the metanarrative.

6. Classically, there was a close relationship between theory and practice. There were, of course, moral norms, but these grew out of lived experience. There were abstract aspects to systems, but they were rooted in a concrete history of dialogue. [I know, Plato is a problem here. All I can say right now is that I think there is more than one Plato, and we can take this up some other time]

In the modern world, the gap between the universal nature of theory and practice becomes much wider. Modernity attempts to "rationalize" everything. One other poster pointed to the critiques of modernity that you find everywhere from the existentialists to Charlie Chaplin (Modern Times), that the rationalization of human life leads to alienation.

7. Finally, the metanarrative brings forth the promise of universal emancipation. If we only work the metanarrative out properly, and if only everyone follows it, all will be well.

These are condensed to the following:

1. The metanarrative totalizes reality (explains everything)

2. It is based on the rational self (instead of tradition)

3. It is the principle of legitimation.

4. It is abstract

5. It is emancipatory.

Given this summary, I try to show how some versions of science, marxism, liberal society, and religion have modernist manifestations.

Much more comes after this, but it starts the process of thinking about being modern, while we ourselves are modern.

An Introduction to As I Lay Dying

Although it achieved little commercial success at the time of its publication, As I Lay Dying has become one of William Faulkner's most popular novels. At first put off by its controversial subject matter and confusing style, commentators and readers have come to appreciate the novel's vivid characters, elusive tone, and complex narrative techniques.

As I Lay Dying chronicles the death of Addie Bundren and the subsequent journey to bury her corpse in her family's cemetery several miles away. This disastrous and darkly comic tale is enriched by Faulkner's innovative narrative technique, which features narration by fifteen characters, including a confused child and the dead woman, Addie. In addition, Faulkner mixes vernacular speech with "stream-of-consciousness" passages to enhance this unique narrative style.

Through his characters, Faulkner addresses subjects that challenge stereotypical perceptions of poor Southerners. For instance, characters contemplate issues of love, death, identity, and the limitations of language. Their actions and adventures draw attention to rural life, class conflicts, and the repercussions of desire and selfishness. Significantly, Faulkner explores the potent, complex workings of the human mind. Difficult to categorize, As I Lay Dying has provided a rewarding, illuminating, and, at times, unsettling experience for generations of readers.

Overview

The Life and Work of William Faulkner
William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25, 1897. Most of his life was spent in Oxford, Mississippi, where his family moved when Faulkner was five years old. After dropping out of high school, he held a number of jobs, from bank clerk, painter, book salesman, and postmaster, all of which he performed poorly. He was chided by his father to find a job or to go to school. In 1919, preferring reading to working, he enrolled at the University of Mississippi to study literature. He remained at school for only a year. However, he continued to write. Encouraged by a friend, he eventually devoted all of his energies to writing and produced over nineteen novels, numerous short stories, poetry, and Hollywood screenplays during his lifetime. Faulkner’s stories, dealing with the impact of Southern history on the present, race issues, and hope for humanity earned him the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature.

Many important writers of Faulkner’s generation joined to fight World War I in Europe, even before the United States officially joined the war effort. Faulkner enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He claimed to have been wounded while on a mission. However, in later years he would admit only to having enlisted in 1918.

In the mid-1920s, he lived in New York City and New Orleans before traveling to Europe. After World War I, many of the great writers of the 1920s and 1930s visited or moved to Europe for artistic inspiration. It was in Paris, in 1926, that Faulkner learned that a New York publisher had accepted his first novel, Soldiers’ Pay, for publication. His career as a full-time writer began.

Nearly all of Faulkner’s novels and short stories are set in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional Mississippi county created by the writer. The impact of the Civil War on the South was a major influence on Faulkner’s writing. His mother introduced him to literature, and he had grown up hearing Civil War stories from his grandfather, veterans and widows, and from his family servant, Mammy Callie (Caroline Barr). Callie had been born into slavery in 1845. She told him about life in the slave quarters, the Ku Klux Klan raids on Negro communities after the war, and folktales which slaves had passed from one to another orally. He was also influenced by Romantic poetry and dark, eerie Gothic tales.

Sartoris, published in 1929, began the saga of Yoknapatawpha county which introduced the Sartoris and Snopes clans. These families would appear again and again—in major or minor roles—in Faulkner’s novels and short stories. Between 1929 and 1935, Faulkner had written his best works: The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom! Absalom!

In As I Lay Dying, his characters, members of a poor white farm family of the 1920s, are inhabitants of his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. Faulkner’s interest in history is apparent in this story, which is told by fifteen different narrators. Faulkner’s characters speak in stream-of-consciousness, a literary style made famous by the Irish writer James Joyce. Characters say exactly what is on their minds, as they think it, without sorting through thoughts and organizing them into logical groups. Faulkner demonstrates how there are many ways of looking at and interpreting history. It is necessary to consider all views, to synthesize them, and to arrive at a more complete picture.

In addition to using stream-of-consciousness, Faulkner often wrote long, complicated sentences. Some of his novels contain sentences that run for pages without a paragraph break. As I Lay Dying, however, is different in its relatively brief narrative sections, some of which are no more than one or two sentences long.

Faulkner is considered a writer who feels religion deeply. Although his novels deal with dark themes and a number of despicable characters, he does emphasize hope. For example, in As I Lay Dying, although Addie Bundren can be viewed as a devilish character, she is the one who insists that actions or deeds are more important than mere words. She is a direct contrast to the self-righteous, churchgoing Cora Tull who often mouths religious ideas without having an understanding of what she is talking about, or Anse, whose real motive for burying Addie in Jefferson is hidden behind claims that he gave his sacred word that he would bury her there.

Another recurring theme in Faulkner’s writing is the need for human community. If people are unable or unwilling to understand and empathize with others, there is no hope for society. In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner’s characters, such as Darl and Addie, understand the significance of real communication with others. Dewey Dell’s predicament underscores this idea: if there were only someone with whom she could speak, her burden would be lighter. Unable to open up to anyone, she is forced to “communicate” with the dumb animals in the barn.

Though his literary reputation established him as a celebrated and sought-after writer, William Faulkner personal life was unsteady. He had problems with his marriage and finances, as well as with his drinking. Despite the fact that he had been elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1939, his reading public was abandoning him. In an attempt to create security, he accepted a job as a Hollywood screenwriter. He worked for six months at a time in Hollywood, just enough time to earn enough to enable him to support himself and his family for the other six months back home in Oxford. He disliked the Hollywood lifestyle and preferred the life of the gentleman-farmer which he led back in Mississippi.

By 1945, Faulkner’s reputation as a writer was in decline. His books were out of print and publishers and critics slighted his works. Only two of his seventeen novels were listed in the New York Public Library Catalogue. Faulkner was also disappointed with his screenwriting career. In an attempt to save his marriage he left Hollywood and returned to the real home he longed for, Mississippi.

When Faulkner was 46-years-old, he received a letter from Malcolm Cowley, a critic who had read his works extensively and who believed in Faulkner’s talent. Cowley praised Faulkner’s work and asked whether the writer would be interested in meeting with him in order to discuss his life and work for an article he wished to publish. Although he was an intensely private man who preferred to keep his private life out of the public’s view, Faulkner opened up to Cowley and established a correspondence and a friendship with him. Cowley eventually edited and published a collection of Faulkner’s works, The Portable Faulkner, reviving interest in the author. After receiving the Nobel Prize in 1950, he was again in demand for lectures, interviews, and speeches. In 1955, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, A Fable. Faulkner seemed embarrassed or uncomfortable at being the recipient of awards and honors. He declined making personal appearances to accept many of these honors and attended the Nobel Awards ceremony only at the urging of his daughter, Jill.

During the 1950s, Faulkner spoke out against racism in response to the tensions surrounding the growing Civil Rights movement. He had upset some fellow Mississippians by saying that African Americans ought to be able to attend the University of Mississippi. Though he firmly believed in racial equality, he believed that Northerners should not force integration on Southerners. As a Southerner, he insisted that Northerners could not understand the South’s deeply rooted emotions concerning race relations nor could they understand the history which bound the two races together in a way which only fellow Southerners, both black and white, could appreciate. His middle-of-the-road stance was realistic. However, he was threatened and criticized by some members of both races.

Before his death, William Faulkner was working as a writer in residence at The University of Virginia and had just completed his last novel, The Reivers, which was scheduled for publication in June 1962. While other writers of his generation sought inspiration abroad and wrote about cosmopolitan characters engaged in universal conflicts and questions, Faulkner is remarkable for having expressed the same kinds of universal themes through characters and plots based in Southern history and a small, fictional Mississippi county. His reputation as one of America’s greatest writers was secure. At the age of 65, six weeks after receiving the Gold Medal for Fiction, William Faulkner died on July 6, 1962, in Oxford, Mississippi.

Historical Background
World War I caused many social and cultural changes in the United States. The prim and proper ways of the Victorian and Edwardian world were replaced by openness about sex, more permissiveness in dating, drinking, smoking, and fewer restrictions on women’s behavior. The exposure to other cultures which servicemen had experienced resulted in a greater exchange of artistic and philosophical ideas. Modern, abstract, and experimental art, poetry, music, and novel writing were introduced to America. In exchange, America gave the world jazz music. Many American writers and artists found the atmosphere in Europe to be freer and more open to new ideas. They became expatriates and spent much of their lives practicing their art abroad. This period produced some of America’s best writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner.

Another significant by-product of the war was the changing role of African Americans. Segregated units had been sent overseas to fight. However, the European black soldiers were not met with prejudice. For the first time, especially among those black soldiers recruited from the South, they were treated as equals by white people. On returning home to America, they anticipated the same treatment but were met with increased prejudice. Lynchings, riots, and violence broke out all across the country over race issues. The war had changed the face of the world, but America was not ready for all the changes.

Technology was advancing at an astounding pace. Talking pictures were introduced in the late 1920s, the radio brought music, news, and advertising into everyone’s home, and the popularity of the automobile caused the first traffic jams in history. Wartime pilots were now stunt pilots, couriers, and commercial airline entrepreneurs. Household appliances and conveniences made chores easier, provided more leisure time, and created a nation of consumers.

Golf, football, swimming, skiing, and other sports changed our attitudes about health and recreation. Young people now preferred a healthy tan to a refined pallor. The feminine standard of beauty changed from the round, soft curves and flowing hair of the Gibson girl to the thin, straight, boyish figure and short, bobbed hair of the Flapper.

Faulkner began As I Lay Dying during the time of the great stockmarket crash of 1929. The novel was published the following year. Though many wealthy people lost their fortunes because of the crash, the financial disaster affected every part of society. Rural and farm families, like the Bundrens of As I Lay Dying, lost whatever savings they might have had. Because of the poor economy, there was less demand for farm products. As the prices dropped, farmers lost the ability to upgrade their operations, buy essential supplies, and pay their existing bills. Many farmers had to sell off their livestock and equipment just to buy the necessities of life. During the Dust Bowl exodus of the 1930s, large numbers of farm families from the South, Southwest, and Midwest lost their farms and moved West in search of migratory work on California fruit and vegetable farms. John Steinbeck’s classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, describes how the Great Depression breaks up a close family when foreclosure forces them to move from the farm on which they had been living together for generations.

William Faulkner is one of the great writers of the “Jazz Age” of post-World War I America. He wrote As I Lay Dying in only six weeks while he was working the nightshift at a local powerhouse. He used the back of an old wheelbarrow for a desk and wrote between eleven at night and four in the morning. Whereas most novelists of his generation set their stories in cosmopolitan or exotic locales, As I Lay Dying, like most of Faulkner’s stories, takes place in a small Southern community, much like the Oxford, Mississippi in which he spent most of his life. The novel depicts the difficult life of impoverished and poorly educated Southern farm families during this period.

The hardships of the Bundren family and the preoccupation of each individual with his or her own interests, needs, and desires reflect the way in which people face misfortune and disasters, each with his own agenda. Though some characters might seem less than admirable, they are realistic if we consider how we might react in their place. The novel received successful reviews and helped establish Faulkner’s early reputation. It is considered among his greatest achievements.

Religion in the novel

Religion 1: Cora Tull bakes cakes and speaks of the Lord with her daughter Kate. She reminds Kate that money is unimportant in the eyes of God. God only cares about people's hearts and emotions.

Religion 2: Cora Tull relies on her strong faith in God to direct her during this hard time. She wants to help her neighbor, Addie, and will do whatever she can to aid the family in her dying days. She witnesses, what she believes to be, Darl's deep concern for his mother and Jewel's supposed cold-heartedness. This initial observation taints her opinion of the family for the remainder of the novel.

Religion 3: After Addie dies, Tull sees his pious wife helping the Bundren family. He thinks that if anybody were to replace the Lord, Cora would be the best person for the job. She might make a few changes, but they would be changes that would be good for all mankind.

Religion 4: Whitfield is the local minister with whom Addie had an affair years earlier. The relationship resulted in Jewel. He arrives at the Bundren home to direct the funeral according to Christian faith. Cora continues to sing to the Lord for Addie's soul to rest in heaven.

Religion 5: When the men are finally seated in the wagon, Cash prays to the Lord that he made his mother's coffin well. Despite their lack of religious observance, the Bundrens still pray to God in their times of need.

Religion 6: As Dewey Dell looks around at her family and the land, she decides that she believes in God. Despite her unbridled lust and unborn child with Lafe, she thinks that she may believe in a higher power.

Religion 7: When Tull finally offers his mules to Anse, he gives him his word of honor. Anse tells Tull that Addie will bless him in heaven for being so kind a man and so good a Christian.

Religion 8: Cora recalls a conversation she had with Addie about sinning. Addie believes her daily life to be absolution of sin, while Cora insists upon religious observance. They disagree on the religious methods in which they live their lives. However, Cora continues to pray for Addie and believes her only sin is loving Jewel over Darl.

Religion 9: Cora tries to convince Addie to confess her sins so that she can go to heaven after death. Instead of submitting to religious observance, Addie submits to the sin of adultery with a man of the cloth - Whitfield the priest.

Religion 10: Whitfield wants to see Anse before Addie dies so that he can be forgiven for his sins. He never gets to see Addie before her death and consequently blesses Tull's house as a seeming replacement. His religious devotion seems to be interchangeable.

Poverty in the novel

Poverty 1: Anse and Addie Bundren live in a poor section of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. It is a fictional setting in which Faulkner sets most of his stories. Because of their poverty, they are forced to live life in a more difficult manner than those who have more money for the better things in life.

Poverty 2: Although the Tulls are not as poor as the Bundrens, they also feel the financial strain of life. Kate is frustrated when the wealthy townswomen no longer need Cora's cakes. Cora tells her that money is unimportant in the eyes of the Lord.

Poverty 3: Vernon Tull offers Anse a lumber job for which he and his sons can earn a total of three dollars. Because money is so scarce, Jewel and Darl decide to take the job so that they can make the money, and leave home despite their mother's illness.

Poverty 4: Peabody is a doctor who comes from greater wealth than the Bundrens and thinks them lower class. He enters the poor family to help Addie as she dies. The stark distinction between class and money is obvious as Peabody speaks with Anse.

Poverty 5: Because of Anse's promise to Addie in conjunction with their poverty, the Bundrens travel in a rickety wooden wagon to Jefferson County. They do not have enough money to travel any other way, and have also promised their mother to bury her with her family.

Poverty 6: Anse complains of the differences between city and country folk. One of the distinctions is money and he wishes that all people would get the same profits and be treated equally. He has no teeth and has not had enough money or means to buy a new set. He hopes to get some in Jefferson.

Poverty 7: Jewel spends his night hours doing hard manual labor, cleaning a field, in order to purchase his own horse. Since money is scarce in the County and among the Bundrens, Jewel tells nobody about his nocturnal activities, until he brings home the new stag. He tells Anse that he will take care of it without a cent of monetary aid from him.

Poverty 8: Anse trades Jewel's horse in for a new team of mules to help the family get to Jefferson. He also mortgages some of his farming equipment, for he does not have enough money on his own to get the mules. Armstid feels badly for the Bundrens, for they are poorer than he and in need of help. He wants to lend them his mules for their journey.

Poverty 9: Dewey Dell walks into the pharmacy in Mottson with her mere ten dollars from Lafe seeking an abortion. The pharmacist is appalled by her request and throws her out, telling her that the ten dollars should be used to get married. Dewey Dell does not understand and sees the financial means necessary for her predicament and furthermore does not understand the image of bringing her abortion into a wealthier city. To Moseley the pharmacist, she looks like a poor country girl with only ten dollars begging for an abortion. Moseley also hears the story about the Bundrens describing them as a poor family in a dilapidated wagon from the country.

Poverty 10: Peabody is shocked to learn of the poor method in which the Bundren family takes care of Cash. Their personal methods of fixing his broken leg will now leave him permanently disabled. They did not have the money and time to help Cash during his time of need, and therefore continued onward. Cash never complains about his pain and now accepts his station in life as a poor cripple.

Poverty 11: Anse questions Dewey Dell on the source of her ten dollars. She cannot tell him that it comes from Lafe for an abortion. Because he has no money and is desperate for new teeth and a new life, he takes her money and runs.

Poverty 12: Anse returns from town with new teeth, a gramophone, a new clean-shaven look, and a new wife. It seems that he has used whatever money he has to bring his appearance out of the poverty level.

Family Devotion in the novel

Family Devotion 1: The novel begins as Addie Bundren's sons work for her dying wishes. Her eldest son, Cash, is perpetually working on her coffin, sawing outside for everyone to see. All of their actions seem to be with Addie's desires in mind.

Family Devotion 2: Anse does not want to upset his dying wife and plans to honor her dying wishes in any way possible. Jewel and Darl do leave on a job, but plan to return the following evening so that they can be with their mother before she passes away.

Family Devotion 3: Anse is bitter and frustrated over his wife's current ill condition and is concerned over his sons' actions in terms of their mother. He blames the roads for Addie's illness. He knows that they are difficult boys, but praises Addie simultaneously for doing the best job she could in raising them.

Family Devotion 4: The Bundren family says their final goodbyes to their beloved mother. Addie cries out for Jewel, only to discover that her so-called devoted son is not present. Cash comes to her bedside and Dewey Dell drapes her body over her dying mother to show the love and necessity she feels for her.

Family Devotion 5: The family works hard in order to set up everything perfectly for their mother's final wish. Cash has made a personalized coffin that Addie can lie in properly in her wedding dress, and prepares the wagon especially for the journey.

Family Devotion 6: Anse explains his promise to Addie to his host, Samson. Most outsiders do not understand the Bundren persistence in traveling to Jefferson in such terrible weather. Anse, however, cares nothing about others' opinions and vows to honor his late wife's last wish despite all obstacles.

Family Devotion 7: Dewey Dell is confused about her feelings towards the men in her family. She wishes that she could have more time with her mother, but understands that she cannot because her mother has passed away. Despite her uneasy feelings, she remains a part of the Bundren family and does not care to desert them.

Family Devotion 8: When Addie's body and coffin fall out of the wagon and into the river, Jewel jumps in to find her. Vardaman screams after him to find his beloved mother. Addie's sons stop at nothing to save her corpse and continue onward to honor her last wishes.

Family Devotion 9: Addie's idea of family devotion seems different than her children's. While they love her and journey far to honor her dying wishes, she has difficulty appreciating their life. She is unhappy after giving birth and has more children to make up for past mistakes.

Family Devotion 10: Jewel rushes into a burning barn in order to save his beloved mother's corpse from incineration. He risks his life so that Addie can have her last wish, even in death. This heroic feat results in deep burns on his back.

Family Devotion 11: As soon as Anse honors Addie's final wish, he loses his devotion to the former wife and finds a new one. In less than a fortnight, the family he has known from the past is changed without hesitation.

Objects/Places in the novel

Yoknapatawpha: The Bundren family lives in Yoknapatawpha County, a small fictional town in Mississippi. Most of Faulkner's novels take place in this county, created from the imagination of Faulkner. It is rural, dirty, poor, and worn down, and is the source of much turmoil for many of Faulkner's characters. The majority of As I Lay Dying does not take place in the county; however, country life is always remembered as their soul and their home.

Jefferson: Jefferson is the town to which the Bundren family makes the pilgrimage and journey and is the capital of Yoknapatawpha County. Addie Bundren's family hails from this 'big city' and her wish is that she is buried with them within the city limits.

Coffin: The coffin in which the family places Addie Bundren is a homemade wooden box made by master carpenter and eldest son, Cash. He is persistently working on it throughout the first half of the novel and is devoted to creating an everlasting home for his mother which she will like and find comfort in. The coffin survives the wagon ride, water, drilling, and a barn fire.

Wagon: The old wagon is the home for the Bundren family on their journey from Yoknapatawpha to Jefferson. It is old, rickety, and decrepit, and miraculously survives the nine-day trip. Outsiders are stunned when they see the family pull up in such an old piece of wood and wheels.

New Hope: New Hope is one of the cities in which the Bundrens stop on their journey.

Mottson: Mottson is another town in which the Bundrens stop on their journey to Jefferson. While in Mottson, Dewey Dell visits a pharmacy, from which she is thrown out of for inquiring about an abortion and where Anse throws Darl on the ground in public for setting fire to the Gillespie barn.

Anse's teeth: Anse possesses an empty, sunken mouth devoid of teeth. He wants to get to Jefferson desperately so that he can buy himself false teeth. He eventually gets his wish at the conclusion of the novel.

Cora's cakes: Cora Tull bakes cakes at the beginning of the novel for a society event that is cancelled. She does not mind, for she has not lost money in the order. She brings the cakes to the Bundren's house when Addie passes away. Dewey Dell carries them throughout their journey to Jefferson.

Jewel's horse: Jewel is extremely possessive and passionate about his horse. He had spent his nights cleaning up a field in order to buy it with his own money. Anse takes the horse and trades it for a team of mules to bring the caravan to Jefferson.

Fish: Vardaman catches a fish on the day his mother dies and cuts it up and brings it inside to be cooked. However, because the blood of the fish is smeared all over him on the same day Addie passes away, he associates fish with his mother and believes her to be a fish for the remainder of the novel.

Quotes from the novel

Quote 1: "Riches is nothing in the face of the Lord, for He can see into the heart." Cora, p. 7

Quote 2: "The quilt is drawn up to her chin, hot as it is, with only her two hands and her face outside. She is propped on the pillow, with her head raised so she can see out the window, and we can hear him every time he takes up the adze or the saw. If we were deaf we could almost watch her face and hear him, see him. Her face is wasted away so that the bones draw just under the skin in white lines. Her eyes are like two candles when you watch them gutter down into the sockets of iron candlesticks. But the eternal and the everlasting salvation and grace is not upon her." Cora, p. 8

Quote 3: "I know her. Wagon or no wagon, she wouldn't wait. Then she'd be upset, and I wouldn't upset her for the living world. With that family burying-ground in Jefferson and them of her blood waiting for her there, she'll be impatient. I promised my word me and the boys would get her there quick as mules could walk it, so she could rest quiet." Darl, p. 18

Quote 4: "I have heard men cuss their luck, and right, for they were sinful men. But I do not say it's a curse on me, because I have done no wrong to be cussed by. I am not religious, I reckon. But peace is my heart: I know it is. I have done things but neither better nor worse than them that pretend otherlike, and I know that Old Marster will care for me as for ere a sparrow that falls. But is seems hard that a man in his need could be so flouted by a road." Anse, p. 37

Quote 5: "I knew that nobody but a luckless man could ever need a doctor in the face of a cyclone." Peabody, p. 40-41

Quote 6: "It's because I'm alone. If I could just feel it, it would be different, because I would not be alone. But if I were not alone, everybody would know it. And he could do so much for me, and then I would not be alone. Then I could be all right alone." Dewey Dell, p. 56-57

Quote 7: "I reckon if there's ere a man or woman anywhere that He could turn it all over to and go away with His mind at rest, it would be Cora. And I reckon she would make a few changes, no matter how He was running it. And I reckon they would be for man's good. Leastways, we would have to like them. Leastways, we might as well go on and make like we did." Tull, p. 70

Quote 8: "The wagon moves; the mules' ears begin to bob. Behind us, above the house, motionless in tall and soaring circles, they diminish and disappear." Darl, p. 98

Quote 9: "[Vernon] watches Jewel as he passes, the horse moving with a light, high kneed driving gait, three hundred yards back. We go on, with a motion so soporific, so dreamlike as to be uninferant of progress, as though time and not space were decreasing between us and it" Darl, p. 101.

Quote 10: "I heard that my mother is dead. I wish I had time to let her die. I wish I had time to wish I had. It is because the wild and outraged earth too soon too soon too soon. It's not that I wouldn't and will not it's that it is too soon too soon too soon." Dewey Dell, p. 114

Quote 11: "She cried hard, maybe because she had to cry so quiet; maybe because she felt the same way about tears she did about deceit, hating herself for doing it, hating him because she had to. And then I knew that I knew. I knew that as plain on that day as I knew about Dewey Dell on that day." Darl, p. 129

Quote 12: "It is as though the space between us were time: an irrevocable quality. It is as though time, no longer running straight before us in a diminishing line, now runs parallel between us like a looping string, the distance being the doubling accretion of the thread an not the interval between." Darl, p. 139

Quote 13: "Because it is not us that can judge our sins or know what is sin in the Lord's eyes. She has had a hard life, but so does every woman. But you'd think from the way she talked that she knew more about sin and salvation than the Lord God Himself, than them who have strove and labored with the sin in this human world." Cora, p. 159

Quote 14: "While I waited for him in the woods, waiting for him before he saw me, I would think of him as dressed in sin. I would think of him as thinking of me as dressed also in sin, he the more beautiful since the garment which he had exchanged for sin was sanctified. I would think of the sin as garments which we would remove in order to shape and coerce the terrible blood to the forlorn echo o the dead word high in the air. Then I would lay with Anse again - I did not lie to him: I just refused, just as I refused my breast to Cash and Darl after their time was up - hearing the dark land talking the voiceless speech." Addie, p. 166-7

Quote 15: "I give that money. I thought that if I could do without eating, my sons could do without riding. God knows I did" Armstid, p. 182

Quote 16: "It had been dead eight days, Albert said. They came from some place in Yoknapatawpha County, trying to get to Jefferson with it. It must have been like a piece of rotten cheese coming into an anti-hill, in that ramshackle wagon that Albert said folks were scared would fall all to pieces before they could get it out of town, with that home-made box and another fellow with a broken leg lying on a quilt on top of it, and the father and a little boy sitting on the seat and the marshal trying to make them get out of town." Moseley, p. 193

Quote 17: "Jewel came back. He was walking. Jewel hasn't got a horse anymore. Jewel is my brother. Cash is my brother. Cash has a broken leg. We fixed Cash's leg so it doesn't hurt. Cash is my brother. Jewel is my brother too, but he hasn't got a broken leg." Vardaman, p. 200

Quote 18: "When I went to find where they stay at night, I saw something that Dewey Dell says I mustn't never tell nobody." Vardaman, p. 215

Quote 19: "Life was created in the valleys. It blew up into the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That's why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down." Darl, p. 217

Quote 20: "Sometimes I aint so sho who's got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint. Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It's like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it." Cash, p. 223

Quote 21: "She looked pretty good. One of them black eyed ones that look like she'd as soon put a knife in you as not if you two-timed her. She looked pretty good." MacGowan, p. 232

Quote 22: "Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes." Darl, p. 244

Quote 23: "'It's Cash and Jewel and Vardaman and Dewey Dell,' pa says, kind of hangdog and proud too, with his teeth and all, even if he wouldn't look at us. 'Meet Mrs Bundren,' he says." Cash, p. 250

Summary: This essay argues that the character of Anse in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is disgraceful and dishonorable

A Purpose for Degradation

People care about their outside appearance because it determines how others view them. In William Faulkner's As I lay dying, Anse Bundren does not appear to care. As Anse loses his wife and deals with the responsibility of raising five children on his own, his true character is illustrated through his poor fathering skills and incapability of maintaining a healthy family. Anse, an extremely lazy person, constantly makes bad choices and is looked down upon. His poor qualities reveal not only his actions, but his body parts as well. Faulkner gives Anse disfigured body parts to portray him as a sluggish, shallow, and awkward character, which overall makes him look like a fool. The hump on Anse's back represents his laziness, while his false teeth show his weakness and self absorbment. Additionally, his splayed feet make him clumsy and awkward. With these characteristics, Anse is depicted as a dishonorable father and a disgraceful husband to his dying wife.

Faulkner gives the character Anse a hump on his back to show his laziness. Anse, known for his laziness, may have acquired his humped back because of his lack of work. Anse feels that "if he ever sweats, he will die" (17). Therefore, Anse does not work at all. Poverty is a big issue in the Bundren family. They do not make a huge amount of money and have to rely on their neighbors for help. Anse shortly becomes dependent on the Tull's and is "too busy letting the neighbors do for him" (27) to actually work by himself. Anse relies on others when he needs money to buy a new 4team of mules. "So that's what you were doing in Cash's clothes last night" (190). He turns to Cash to steal eight dollars, a small amount which Anse sadly cannot afford by himself. Although Anse is the father of five children, he is a follower rather than a role model. "He touches the quilt as he saw Dewey Dell do, trying to smooth it up to the chin, but disarranging it instead" (52). Everything Anse attempts, he fails constantly causing disasters. This causes his children to despise him. Instead, of paying attention, they simply ignore him all the time. While Addie follows her process of dying, Anse speaks a lot but others never listen. "Cash looks down at her face. He is not listening to pa at all"(50). Anse tries to be heard and help the situation but lacks real feeling. He truly does not care much about Addie's death. He sends his two sons to make three dollars while she is on her death bed. A person with true emotions and character would care more about his wife than material desires.

Anse's missing teeth further reveal his superficiality and lack of consideration. Throughout the process of Addie's death, Anse has only one thing on his mind: to get false teeth when he can afford it. Anse thinks he will be able to buy this precious item after Addie's death. Anse waits for Addie to die, hardly caring about her death so that he can finally get his false teeth. By wanting such an insignificant item and not caring about his wife's passing, Faulkner displays Anse's selfish and shallow side. Anse attempts to cover up his selfishness by using a poor excuse to justify the purchase. ."..so I can eat God's appointed food"(191). Without teeth, Anse does not speak well, and cannot articulate his words properly. With this poor trait, Anse is also not well respected. The neighbors witness that Anse does not treat his wife admirably and joke that he will move on to another woman after Addie dies. The neighbors also do not trust Anse. In a sarcastic tone, Cora says to Mr. Tull; "And you would believe Anse, of course," (23). Tull does not think much of Anse either. "It aint never been what he done so much...so much as how he looks at you" (125). Anse makes a lousy reputation for himself during his life. His false teeth represent his weaknesses and his character flaws as a human being.

Anse's splayed feet make others think of him as a clumsy and unstable man, unable to raise a family. Anse has no job, no education, and has made no money for himself or his family. Anse put himself in a position to take Jewel's horse and sell it in order to get some spending money for a team of mules. Armstid feels bad for Jewel, but not because he loses his horse: "And I be durn if I could blame him...for getting shut of such a durn fool as Anse" (192). Armstid feels worse that Jewel has to deal with such a miserable and foolish father. With the techniques Pa uses to raise his family, he lowers his reputation, and people begin to feel bad for Addie who dies, and feel bad for the children as well. Although Anse makes an attempt to grant Addie's wish, he does it in a clumsy way with many mistakes along the journey to Jefferson. "It's like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it" (233). Because the family looks as if they are decaying physically and remain ungroomed, such as Cash's rotting leg, they look like an overall dysfunctional family. "Great God, what they got in that wagon?" (229), one Negro says as the Bundren's pass through town. The wagon attracts the attention of the townspeople because it is obviously not taken care of well. It looks atrocious and says a lot about the family who is in charge of the dead body in the wagon. Since Anse is the head of the family and is unstable, it causes the whole family to be unstable and therefore to decay.

Faulkner adds Anse, a lazy, selfish, and clumsy character to the novel to show how much Addie is missed after her death, and the huge effect she has on the family. The Bundren's cannot survive with a father whom they cannot look up to or rely on, and therefore are deeply upset and individually affected by the death of Addie. Without their mother, the Bundren's are left with a lazy and weak father whom they do not respect.

The Influence of Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying

Summary: In the novel "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner, Addie Bundren, although a minor character in the book, is the primary influence in the development of her children's personality traits. (6.4 pages / 1920 words) Read Essay

In life, parents have a profound influence on the development of their children. Children look to their parents for guidance and support, for love and attention, and parents become the primary sculptors of the personalities of their children. In As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, Addie Bundren, although a minor character in the book, is the primary influence in the development of her children and their personality traits because of her absence as a mother to her children.

Addie's first child by her husband, Anse Bundren, is Cash. Cash is a skillful carpenter, who eventually constructs his mother's coffin when she is on her deathbed. While constructing the coffin, Cash is methodical and precise. He makes sure that his mother's coffin is as close to perfect as he can manage. As a result he is enthralled in his work. Cash is also portrayed as selfless and patient, seen when the family is on the way to Jefferson and he suffers a broken leg. His leg's condition continually worsens, but he never complains about it. "It don't bother me none" he says repeatedly, as sweat pours down his face, obviously from the intense pain he is feeling. He puts his mother's wishes and his family before himself and his own ailments, even though his injury degenerates to the point of permanent damage. "About next summer you can hobble around fine on this leg. Then it won't bother you, not to speak of..." is the local doctor Peabody's diagnosis. These traits undoubtedly emerge from the role of Cash as the oldest child of a mother who didn't particularly want children or love their father; and a father who is described throughout the novel as dead and a shadow. "He (Anse) did not know he was dead." Cash has to resume the role as surrogate parent to his brothers and sister, which required him to be responsible and patient, always putting the needs of his family before his own. Addie's detached nature caused her husband to become like a shadow, absent and un-father like to his children, which caused Cash to take his father's and mother's places as parents in the lives of his brothers and sister, and resulted in the development of Cash's character.

The second eldest child, Darl, is the main narrator of the novel. In his nineteen monologues, Darl emerges clairvoyant, as if he can read the minds of others. For instance, he knows of his sister's, Dewey Dell's, intimate relations with a neighbor farm boy, which has resulted in her pregnancy. "It was then, and then I saw Darl and he knew. He said he knew without the words like he told me that ma is going to die without words, and I knew he knew because if he had said he knew with the words I would hot have believed that he has been there and saw us." He also narrates his mother's death even though he is not present at the actual event, as he and Jewel are out making a delivery trip for their neighbor, Tull. "Do you know that she is going to die, Jewel?" Darl's intense jealousy of his brother, Jewel, also emerges. Darl is obsessed with his brother, and knows that they do not share the same father, a fact with which he taunts Jewel. The main source of jealousy Darl has for Jewel stems from the affections and love their mother had for Jewel, and not for Darl. In fact, Darl is so persistent to make the delivery for Tull because his main objective is not to make three dollars, but to take Jewel away from their mother when she dies. It becomes apparent in Addie's single monologue that she felt no affections for Darl when he was born, and talks about her death with Anse soon after Darl's birth. "And when Darl was born I asked Anse to promise to take me back to Jefferson when I died." It's as if after Darl's birth, Addie wants to be as far away from her family as she could. Addie also refers to Darl as the child whom she "robbed Anse of", which suggests that Addie felt no motherly bond or affection for Darl, and never acted as a mother to Darl. "I refused my breast to Cash and Darl..." Addie's treatment of Darl molded him into an intellectual, secluded, and slightly tormented man, seen by others as odd. "It was Darl, the one folks say is queer, lazy, pottering around the place no better than Anse." He is forced to grow up on his own, without a mother, and with a shadow-like father. He's always desperately competing with Jewel for his mother's affections, but never winning, which causes him to take drastic measures, such as setting Armistid's house on fire to destroy his mother's coffin so the journey to Jefferson could be ended. Of all the Bundren children, Addie had the greatest effect on Darl, which could be why Faulkner chose him to narrate most of the novel whose main action centers on Addie.

Addie's third child, Jewel, was conceived through an affair with Whitfield, the local minister. While this fact is never revealed to Jewel, he is described as being very different from the rest of the family. "He is a head taller than the rest of us, always was." Although Darl, with his clairvoyant ability, knows that Anse is not Jewel's father and he asks, "Your mother was a horse, but who was your father, Jewel?" Jewel was undoubtedly Addie's favorite child. His name, "Jewel", describes him perfectly in the eyes of Addie. It is evident that Addie feels a great deal of love for Jewel. "With Jewel- I lay by the lamp, holding up my own head, watching him cap and suture before he breathed-the wild blood boiled away and the sound of it ceased. Then there was only the milk, warm and calm, and I lying calm in the slow silence." She finds tranquility in her position of mother to Jewel, something that she feels with none of her children with Anse. Even on her deathbed, it is understood by the rest of the family that "it's Jewel she wants." Jewel is the most mysterious character in the novel. He is strong and fierce, independent and passionate. He loves his mother just as much as she loves him, but has a harsh way of showing it. Jewel's ferocity stems directly from being the sole receiver of his mother's love, which is the one thing the rest of the Bundrens wanted. Addie is resentful of her family, so Jewel is resentful of his family. He wants it to be "just me and her on a high hill and me rolling the rocks down at their faces." Jewel feels he needs to protect his mother from his family because they don't share the bond that he and Addie share. This causes Jewel to be very secluded from the rest of his family and very independent. Jewel is also very loyal and dedicated to his mother, which is seen when Jewel saves his mother's coffin from being lost in a river and when he runs into a burning barn to save his mother from being cremated. Addie had said that Jewel would "save her from the water and from the fire." He is her hero, both physically and emotionally.

Addie's fourth child, her third child with Anse, is their only daughter, Dewey Dell. Like the rest of Addie's children with Anse, Dewey Dell is deprived of her mother's attention. In Addie's single monologue, she says she "gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel." Addie doesn't consider Dewey Dell to be hers, only Anse's. As a result, Dewey Dell never learns the things a mother teaches a daughter and the ethics by which a woman should live. Therefore, Dewey Dell is very naïve, especially when it comes to men. She bases her decision on whether or not to be intimate with a neighbor farm boy, Lafe, on whether or not her sack is full by the time they approach the woods. When her sack is indeed full, she says she "could not help it." This encounter resulted in her pregnancy, but she doesn't have a mother to go to to seek advice. She decides the only solution to "such bad luck" is to get an abortion when the family travels to Jefferson to bury Addie. When the family does get to Jefferson and Dewey Dell tries to get an abortion from a local drug store, she is taken advantage of and fooled by an assistant. Her mother never taught her anything about men and wasn't there to guide her into womanhood. Although Dewey Dell is trying to stop herself from becoming a mother, she emerges as a mothering figure to her younger brother Vardaman, to Jewel when he burns his back while saving their mother's coffin from a burning barn, and to Cash when he breaks his leg for the second time and becomes ill because of it. Being the only female left, Dewey Dell has to assume the responsibilities of the primary female in the Bundren household. Dewey Dell is also selfish, and her mind is totally occupied with thoughts of her abortion the entire time her mother is dying and the entire trip to Jefferson. She even tells on Darl when she sees him set fire to Armistid's barn, which causes him to be sent away, the sole reason being that he knew about her pregnancy, a fact that Dewey Dell wanted to keep secret. Dewey Dell's character directly relates to the lack of a mother-daughter relationship, which has a profound effect on her actions.

Addie and Anse's last child, Vardaman, is also known as just Anse's child, and not Addie's. "I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of." Addie, like Dewey Dell, thinks of Vardaman as a gift to Anse to fulfill her duties as his wife. She feels no motherly connection towards Vardaman either. As a result, Vardaman is a confused, simplistic, and somewhat idiotic boy. Such traits can be seen when Vardaman tries to make sense of his mother's death, and finds solace in identifying her dead body with the dead fish he had just caught. "My mother is a fish," he says repeatedly.

In William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Addie Bundren, although rarely appearing in the novel, is the main influence on the personalities of her children. Her love for Jewel and lack of love for the rest of her children is the defining factor in the development of her children. She is the reason the family is so secluded from one another, a fact Faulkner makes evident by writing the novel in separate monologues. Addie has caused her children to be selfish also, because they have had to look after themselves their whole lives. Each character has their own agenda for going to Jefferson, and are more concerned with their own needs rather than their recently deceased mother. However, the exception to this is Jewel. He was the sole receiver of his mother's love, and is therefore the only Bundren going to Jefferson simply for his mother. In Faulkner's novel, the notion that parents, especially mothers, are the sculptors of the personalities of their children is evident.

Analysis of Addie in the Novel "As I Lay Dying"

 

 Summary: Essay provides a character analysis of Addie in the novel "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. (6.1 pages / 1836 words)

This is a story of a journey, the adventures on the road that creates disconcert. Having died while a son sawed her coffin beneath her window, Addie Bundren is carried away in the family wagon through the road of yoknapatawpha. The family wanted to pleases her wish to be buried near her blood relatives in the Jefferson. Nothing goes well, their journey, like their spiritual life, is empty and confused. All the family members have their own reasons and motives for the journey, as they pass through unfortunate accidents both comic and terrible, fire and flood, suffering and stupidity, until at least, they reach the town. The rotten corpse is buried, Dewey Dell fails in her effort to get an abortion, Cash is badly injured, Darl has gone to a mental institution, and at the very end, and the father suddenly remarries to another woman. The various ways each Bundren family member deal with Addie's death is related to Addie's view of each child. In analyzing Addie's behavior, her understanding of life, maternity and sexuality we can determine that she represents not only the stereotyping but the feeling of revenge and defiant, that lead us to understand why her children react the way they do. (sparknotes.com)

Indeed, Addie in As I Lay Dying is, on the surface, portrayed as incompetent, unfulfilled, and dead. Most of what we know about her we learn from the narration of the other characters in the novel, including her husband and her children. Addie is an unhappy schoolteacher, who uses physical punishment in an attempt to establish a relationship with others. She also comments that she cannot wait for the last of them to leave and thus be free to go to the spring, which serves to her as a source of relaxation and retreat. She says: "in the afternoon when school was out and the last one had left with his little dirty snuffling nose instead of going home I would go down the hill to the spring where I could be quiet and hate them" .Addie associates herself with sensual nature in her description of her after-school walks "with the water bubbling up and away and the sun slanting quiet in the trees and the quiet smelling of damp and rotting leaves and new earth; especially in the early spring, for it was worst then" ( ). "Here she is expressing sexual desire; she thinks about it in bed with the erotic sounds of nature in the background, "faint, and high and wild."( ) She enjoys the outing with the excitement; she loves to be in the nature, the place where her association with sensuality is most intense. Thus, Addie is not satisfied with her teaching job, as revealed by the treatment she gives her students, and by quitting her job and marrying Anse. She gets married to Anse, not because she loves him, but because he owns a farm and a house. Therefore, when Addie discovers that Anse cannot fulfill her aloneness nor satisfy her sexuality, she commits adultery. Thus, her decision to marry Anse, and her adultery both indicate her stereotypical, but revengeful and defiant nature.

Perhaps Addie makes her children victims of her frustrated and unfulfilled relationship with Anse. Thus, Addie uses even her favorite son, Jewel to suit her own end, "he will be my cross and my salvation" (). Jewel treats Addie harshly while she is alive, and only once she is dead does he save her form the water and from the fire as she always believed he would. Addie invests her life and energy in a love that finds rewards only after she is dead. Perhaps she uses her children in an attempt to make them suffer as she does at the hands of their father. Addie herself says, "Now you are aware of me! Now I am something in your secret selfish life, who marked your blood with my own for ever and ever" (1755). In such words, Addie expresses her ability to impose physical abuse, but she fails to admit that she is the determining factor in those "secret and selfish" lives. Moreover, Addie rejects the role of self-sacrificing mother. Thus, her defiance and revenge affect first her students and later her own children directly. She demonstrates the same type of physical abuse on both her students and her children. Addie's inability to marry a gentleman with vision and the will to be productive marks her degree of incompetence that leads her to her deathbed. She is aware that Anse does not take care of his physical appearance. He does not cut his hair, and he cannot hold his shoulder up. She tells Anse, "If you've got any womenfolk's, why in the world don't they make you get your hair cut? ... And make you hold your shoulders up," (1756). Thus, Addie reveals her conviction that a woman can make a difference in a man's life. However I think she feels frustrates not being able change Anse whose means of survival is only based on the kindness of his neighbors. Furthermore, Addie's children are living proof of her incapability to fulfill her role as a mother. Each of her children's personality is marked by a lack of love, caring, and attention. While their mother is lying in her deathbed, none of them worries about getting her medical attention. Each of them, including their father, seems to be only preoccupied with his or her selfish motivations. Whereas Dewey Dell is worried about her pregnancy, and Cash is concerned about doing a perfect bevel on her coffin, Darl worries about making an extra three dollars and keeping Jewel away from Addie. Moreover, while Vardaman goes fishing, Anse says, "God's will be done,... Now I can get them teeth" (1713). Such cold and selfish attitude that they have toward Addie and her state of being clearly indicate that she is incapable of rasing a family with love, caring, and concern in the very least.

Her father used to said: "the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time" (), and for her "living" means have a job she hates, then her life is miserable. That is why se decided to marry Anse. As she said: "And so I took Anse," the word "so" indicating that he was the answer to her problems. She knew that Anse had a "house and a good farm" () and so he could offers her the life she wanted, and the fulfillment of her sexual desires. It is only with motherhood, though, that Addie discovers the lie about life. The phrase: "I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it" (). She realizes that motherhood "was the answer to it," (). Life is terrible for Addie, because she is missing a sense of connection with others. Having identified Addie's problem ("it") as isolation, they were the answer ("this") in family, specifically motherhood. Addie feels the need to achieve her identity by getting in someone else's identity, either through physical abuse such as beating school children, having sex, or bearing children of her own. Although she reports that her aloneness "had never been violated until Cash came," ( ) she later says that the aloneness was "made whole again by the violation" ( ). I believe that the word "violate" has the negative meaning, then aloneness must have been sacred to her, and that explains why, for Addie, living was terrible. (EBSCO). Maternity and marriage were frustrating for Addie, instead of being the answer to her problems; here she is again, unhappy and devastated about life.

"That was when I learned that words are no good; that words don't ever fit even what they are trying to say at" ( ). Maternity gives Addie the sense of union, which she sought elsewhere but failed to find because motherhood seems to be the only possible relationship that is not necessarily mediated by communication. Words do not fit because they are inadequate to the task; motherhood is more than mother, more than the verbal sign of a woman who has children. For instance, even before his birth, Addie knows there is an bond between Cash and her, and with his birth she says: "When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn't care whether there was a word for it or not" (). From a maternal point of view, it is the relationship itself of mother and child and not the way this bond is described that is important. Addie knows that "words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless," while "terribly doing goes along the earth, clinging to it" ( ). Words are not hurtful to Addie because they do not actually means anything to her. Acting, doing, and living are terrible and perhaps terrifying for her because they bring change and consequence, that she is not willing to accept.

Thus, as a stereotypical woman, Addie seeks not only male companionship and social status, but also sexual and perhaps material fulfillment. Unfortunately. Anse can neither satisfy Addie's expectations of companioship to free her from aloneness, nor can he fulfill her sexual drive. Addie considers Anse dead when he lies beside her in bed. She comments that her husband's attempts at sexual intercourse make no difference in her life. Therefore, as an added characteristic of the stereotypical woman, whose sexuality is not satisfied, Addie commits adultery with Whitfield, the Church Minister. This act, for the time that it lasts, gives Addie the kind of positive reinforcement that the stereotypical woman seeks attention and love from a man. In our discussion in class we point out the harships endured by rural southern women in the 1920s and 1930s, the lack of sexual education and the controversy over bith control. A setting where women instead to enjoy their marriage, it is a burden and overwhelming life.

By the end of the novel, however, laughter seems to be the only response. After spending nine days passing through all kinds of adversities in order to bring Addie's corpse to its final resting place, the funeral process ended in a scene that is described in less than two lines. All we hear of the actual burial is: "we got it filled and covered " ( ). The same sentence then describes how Darl is betrayed by his family and sent away to a Jackson's institution. The few remaining sections focus not the family's loss or on their sadness on burying the family matriarch, but on the individual motives that were the real driving force behind the journey. The introduction of the new Mrs. Bundren provides one of the biggest laughs in the novel,yet somehow such an ending hardly seems like a celebration of life's victory over death.

As I Lay Dying

Summary: Discusses the novel, As I lay Dying, by William Faulkner. Provides an analysis on the conflict between the brothers Darl and Jewel. Explores how they reach a resolution. (2.6 pages / 778 words)

The quest to bury Addie Bundren in her hometown seemed simple. The family made the journey, but hardship and hindrance marred its every step. The most significant conflict on the trip was that between Darl and Jewel, two brothers divided by a common goal: putting their mother to rest.

On page 22 Cora says "I always said Darl was different from those others. He was the only one that had his mother's nature, had any natural affection." She goes on to tell how Darl begged Jewel and Anse not to make him leave her so close to her death. Even so, Jewel was still her favorite. Jewel is Addie's beloved child because he is not Anse's son; he is her secret and her escape and has been from the moment he was born.

Darl feels like an unwanted son, while Jewel takes his mother's love for granted. The jealousy that forms in Darl becomes the source of his conflict with Jewel. Darl suspects that Jewel is an illegitimate child, and knows that the thought of this is very painful to him. Because of this, Darl uses the question of Jewel's lineage in many instances to bate and provoke him. On page 212 Darl asks "Your Mother was a horse, but who was your father, Jewel?" and is met with a barrage of insults as a response.

The internal conflict between the two brothers continues when the family reaches a river that needs to be crossed in order to reach Jefferson. When the family sees that the river is flooded, Jewel decides that he will carry Addie's coffin across on his horse. However, Darl sees Jewel's heroics as egotistical and tells Jewel that he should carry a rope to the opposite bank in order to pull the wagon across the river. The strong wills of Darl and Jewel, and the delay of action that results cause their feud to reach a breaking point that is symbolically embodied in the form of a log that floats down the river and knocks the wagon and the coffin off the bridge.

In the time that follows Addie's death, Darl and Jewel's roles as sons switch. While she was living, Darl was the loving, dedicated child while Jewel was rebellious and careless. Yet as the journey to comply with his mother's last wish becomes increasingly difficult, Darl becomes less intent on fulfilling that wish. After the log hits the wagon, Tull tells Cora of how "Darl jumped out of the wagon and left Cash sitting there trying to save [the coffin] and the wagon turning over." Darl is ready for this doomed excursion to end, even if it means forfeiting of his mother's will. And while Darl jumps off the wagon leaving his two brothers to fend for themselves and the coffin, Jewel saves Addie's coffin from the river.

It becomes apparent that after the incident in the river that Darl wants to end the trip in any way possible, while Jewel will stop at nothing to see his mother's wish through. When the coffin is resting under an apple tree, Darl says to Vardaman ""She wants him to hide her away from the sight of man." (pg. 215) expressing his belief that Darl believes that she should be put to rest, no matter where. Darl feels so strongly about ending the mission that he graduates from the simple lack of action he demonstrated at the river to sabotage. Here, the climax of Darl and Jewel's conflict embodies another external event. When the family stops to spend the night at a farmer's house, they store the coffin in the barn. During the night, Darl sets fire in the barn in order to burn the coffin. When Jewel rushes out to the barn, Darl attempts to prevent Jewel from rescuing their mother's corpse a second time by telling him to save the livestock trapped in the barn. However once the animals are saved, Jewel courageously reenters the barn and rescues the coffin from the fire. Jewel does not escape the barn without injury. His back is severely burned, leaving a reminder of his brother's betrayal.

Faulkner shows that internal conflict often leads to or is found near tragedy, violence, or pain. The internal insecurity and envy that Darl feels towards Jewel for being the favored child boils over, and this leads to the desire to destroy his mother's corpse and leave scars on his brother's back that match the ones on his self esteem and soul.

As I Lay Dying Cash, Bundren Character Analysis

 Summary: Analyzes the novel, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Provides a character analysis of Cash Bundren. Describes how his actions in the text demonstrate his character. (4.9 pages / 1479 words
"As I Lay Dying," by William Faulkner, encompasses a complex story which is narrated by many different characters. Each character describes the situation that he and all the other characters are experiencing, but the narrators never reveal personal feelings. Therefore, the reader learns more about a character through the eyes of the other characters. Cash Bundren, the oldest son of Anse and Addie Bundren, is consecutively characterized as the diligent, kind, and dedicated leader of the family. Not only do Cash's actions prove these qualities but also the descriptions of him by the other narrators depict Cash as a hardworking, loyal man.

The Bundrens, who all narrate in the book, feel differently towards Cash's leadership and abilities. Darl, the second oldest son of the Bundrens, treats Cash with respect and acknowledges his talents in the beginning of the book, "A good carpenter, Cash is - Addie Bundren could not want a better one, a better box to lie in." (4-5). Cash, in the first few monologues, is working day and night to create a sturdy, precise coffin for his mother before she passes away. He works so hard on the coffin even through the rain that his neighbor, Tull, whom he works for, repeatedly thinks to himself, "If Cash just works that careful on my barn." (33). Meanwhile others find Cash's constant sawing annoying and want him to stop working in front of his dying mother, who he shows every piece of the coffin to in order for her to see his progress. Jewel, the third oldest son who was the product of a secret relationship between Addie and Reverend Whitfield, shares a more intimate relationship with her mother because she cared more for him than for her other children. Jewel finds Cash's work very offensive: "It's because he stays out there, right under the window, hammering and sawing on that goddamn box. Where she's got to see him. Where every breath she draws is full of his knocking and sawing where she can see him saying see. See what a good one I am making for you." (14). Jewel believes Cash's motives for building the box aren't related to his love for his mother but are related to his want to show off his talents to his family and to the people that walk by.

Vardaman, the youngest son of the Bundrens, views Cash respectively, but as respectively as a seven year old can. He merely says a few things about Cash, mostly that he is his brother and so is Darl. Cash shows his kindness to Vardaman by never being angry with him. Cash finds Vardaman missing right after seeing Peabody's team run away. He also knows that Vardaman drilled holes into the coffin because he believes his mother is alive and still needs air. He even bores into Addie's face, but Cash still does not yell at him and simply mends the holes back. Anse, the father of all the children, does not care much about Cash's work or helpfulness. He at one point even gets in the way of Cash's work and Cash still treats him kindly, "[Anse] goes to the lantern and pulls the propped raincoat until he knocks it down and Cash comes and fixes it back. "You get on to the house," Cash says." Cash then leads his father back to the house and continues to work. Even though Jewel shows little respect towards Cash, Cash still is kind to Jewel and looks after him. When Darl and Cash become suspicious of Jewel sneaking out at night, Cash tells Darl not to confront Jewel about it because it would not do any good. Instead, Cash follows Jewel out one night and finds out that he has been working on clearing a field to raise enough money for a new horse. When Jewel surprises everyone by appearing with the horse, Cash defends Jewel and calms Anse's nerves by saying Jewel worked hard for his horse and only spent his own hard-earned money on it. Cash also consoles his mother who begins to cry after seeing her son defy his father in such a way. (135)

The most valuable possession that Cash owns is his tools. Throughout the entire book, Cash has his tools by his side and makes sure that their always with him. Darl describes briefly Cash's love for his tools when he quickly returns to them after helping bringing in the coffin: "He has returned to the trestles, stooped again in the lantern's feeble glare as he gathers up his tools and wipes them on a cloth carefully and puts them into the box with its leather sling to go over the shoulder." (80) Even Cash's first monologue is about his work on the coffin. He lists each advantage of making a coffin on a bevel. When Cash breaks his leg trying to cross the river in the wagon, his brothers find all his tools and place them by his side for the rest of the trip because they know how much his tools mean to him. Cash also loves his mother even though she wasn't particularly caring or nice to him. Cash shows his affection for Addie when he watches her pass away. He simply gazes at her "peaceful, rigid face" (50) ignoring his father's questions. He also takes great care in keeping Addie balanced in her coffin on the way to Jefferson.

Cash's leadership qualities can be observed during the beginning of the family's trip to Jefferson. The bridge which provides the fastest route to Jefferson is destroyed by the high water levels of the river. Anse, being the father, should be the one guiding the family across the river, but because he is so lazy and dependent, he leaves others to figure out how to cross. Cash takes charge and gives orders for the rest of the family to cross, while he, Darl, and Jewel try to get the wagon across. Cash puts everything into his hands and maneuvers the team through the river as he tells Jewel to support him with his horse. Cash ends up losing the entire team and almost dying. Even after the trauma of the whole incident, Cash blames himself for his broken leg and losing their valuables. He continually tells Darl that he "ought to [have] come down last week and taken a sight on [the river]." (144).

After being immobilized because of his injury, Cash continues to show his dedication to his family. He never complains about his leg and refuses to see a doctor because it would hold back the family from reaching Jefferson. He instead puts cement on his leg, which causes even more pain and damage, and insists on moving forward, "I can last it," Cash says. "We'll lose time stopping - It aint but one more day." (207). In the last few monologues of the book, Anse wants to send Darl to an insane asylum for burning down Gillespie's barn which held Addie in her coffin. Darl tries to burn Addie's coffin so that the family can stop trying to reach Jefferson and return home, but Jewel, in the nick of time, retrieves the coffin from the burning barn. Anse is confronted by the decision of whether to pay for the barn or make an excuse of Darl's insanity and not have to pay. Anse obviously chooses the ladder and mentions his plans of sending Darl away to Cash. Cash, in his fourth monologue, describes deeply his thoughts on sending his closest brother away. In his mind he logically puts it that it is best for both the family and Darl if he leaves, but he also knows he would betray a friend. When Darl is captured by the guards, Darl is shocked at Cash for not telling him his father's plans, "I thought you would have told me," he said. "I never though you wouldn't have." (237). Cash, although turning his back on his brother, has helped the family by not telling Darl. Anse no longer has to pay for the barn and he finds a new Mrs. Bundren to support the family.

Through the description of him and his actions, Cash can be seen as the hero of the family, maybe the only one having a true essence of kindness and faithfulness. Even as the corruptness of the Bundren family is revealed to the reader, Cash remains the only one pure in heart as he supports his family through its expedition. Cash's dedication to his family can be seen not only in the beginning when he is healthy, working and leading, but also when he is injured, encouraging the others to press on and to ignore his problem.

As I Lay Dying: Multi-themed

 
Summary:

The themes of the book "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner include sanity, duty, and the effects of death. (1.7 pages / 511 words)

A theme is a fundamental and often universal idea or ideas explored in a literary work. In the novel As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, many themes occur. One theme includes sanity and it states that there is a thin line between sanity and insanity. Duty is also discussed; the duty of the children and Addie's husband drove them to cart her body to Jefferson. The final theme in the novel is that death, while being inescapable, affects individuals differently. The many themes of Faulkner's book come together, bringing the Bundrens' story to life.

Sanity is one of the main themes of the book. A person's sanity depends on how the person's community views the mind of a human being and what they feel should be "normal." It isn't the person's actual state of mind, it's more the fact that someone believes there is something odd about that person. Sanity is mentioned throughout the entire novel, focusing mainly on Darl. At the beginning of the story, Vardaman rambles like an idiot, yet towards the end, everyone believes that Darl belongs in a mental institution. Darl is trying to save his mother from being humiliated because he loves her deeply, so he cannot be a lunatic.

Duty towards family is an important theme of As I Lay Dying. If the Bundren family felt no sense of duty, then they would have had no reason to take their mother's body to Jefferson. As Addie lies in her death bed, she asks to be buried with her family (away from the one she married into). Her children and husband felt they should fulfill her last wish. In her section of the book, Addie revealed how she felt about duty; there is no happiness in it, it just has to be honored. The family's obligation to each other wears down as they travel though. Anse is dating another woman before Addie was even in the ground. Plus, everyone betrays Darl at the end when they decide to turn him in.

The final theme is that death affects individuals differently. Some, like Jewel and Vardaman, go into denial. They make themselves believe that their mother is a horse or a fish, instead of accepting the fact that she is dead. Others, like Darl, want to just put it behind them, but no one will let them forget. Cash, at the beginning, and Jewel, towards the end, try to be heroes and honor the dead by bravely trying to save Addie's body. Dewey Dell, who seems to care the most at the beginning, is more focused on getting an abortion than the burial and Anse doesn't even seem to care.

The themes of As I Lay Dying include sanity, duty, and death. The Bundren family had to work hard to get over all of these obstacles, but they eventually fulfilled their purpose. These themes tie together the whole book and make it a powerful, unforgettable story.

Symbolism and Self- As I Lay Dying

 
Summary: The self refers to the conscious, the reflective personality of an individual, but can one's environment, hobbies, own self- knowledge, and physical appearance reflect to the individual's persona? And if one loses the ingredients which make up who he is, does one lose himself? Faulkner extends on this unsettled matter in his book, As I Lay Dying. (5.3 pages / 1592 words)

Symbolism And Self

What makes one individualistic and why does the whole population present contrasting characters? The self refers to the conscious, the reflective personality of an individual, but can one's environment, hobbies, own self- knowledge, and physical appearance reflect to the individual's persona? And if one loses the ingredients which make up who he is, does one lose himself? Faulkner extends on this unsettled matter in his book, As I Lay Dying. He presents the ideals of self through the symbolic staging of Cash's tools which contribute in expanding on how these tools exhibit Cash's true identity and self, which is lost when his tools or not by his side, and each follow to distinguish a distinct Bundren, as if each member is given identity when presented as a whole tool box; an identity which is swiftly lost in division.

Cash is identified as a carpenter, because that truly presents his self. He is one who cannot live without his tools because his tools are his solitary means of representation, evident by his carpenter proficiency. When he is not safely encounter with his tools he looses self, and consciousness, and he is not able to speak. He never finishes a sentence completely because people cannot portray him as an individual without his tools, so they talk over him, and forget to listen to what he has to say.

His tools give him sanity and security. He donates his time to their use other than to mourning because he knows they will help him move on trough his problems, which sweat off sanely when he is encountered with work; he will not become pretentious by the severe journey, since he will not devote it any matter of consideration. All the required awareness that one should grant from time to time will all be donated to his tools. Because of their beneficiary purpose, he, in return, donates time to "(gather) his tools and (wipe) them on a cloth carefully and (put) them into the box" ( Faulkner 80). Cash's importance for his tools is respected by all other characters, who are aware of the security it brings him in acquaintance with them To please the bed- struck Cash,

"Vernon got them (tools) and put them into the wagon. Dewey Dell lifted Cash's head so he could see them"(181). Darl observes the strong correlation between Cash and his tools as he watches Cash as he moves drags his body " where he could reach his hand and touch them when he felt better"(186). Cash's dedication to his tools corresponds to the time he dedicates to make his own family happy, because they also are a deep part of him which keep him sane by donating him the security which he cannot live without, formulating a strong connection between the two.

Cash's box encloses seven dissimilar tools which supplies to the production of seven diverse individualities. The square is presented to illustrate the qualities of Cash who alike a square, which formulates accurate measurements in the task of formulating right angles, has persistence upon exactness. Jewel presents the story of how "when Cash was a little boy" he wanted to please his mother who asked for fertilizer, so Cash took " the bread pan and brought it back from the barn full of dung"(14). Cash presents his dedication to accuracy when he is questioned by the height of the fall he undertook from the church when he broke his leg, when he confidently replies " twenty- eight foot, four and a half inches, around" (90). Even an implication by Peabody allows a physical similarity between Cash and the tool, by contemplating that Cash would " have to limp around on one short leg for the balance of his life"(222); a demonstration previewed by the squares unequal blade lengths. The plane is one that can either plan against the grain and formulate rough surfaces or plan with the grain to contribute in the production of smooth ones. Darl is one who easily plans smooth grain's against people like Cora who implicates Darl to one that has been " touched by God Himself" (167). However he has been much quicker to originate rough surfaces because he had the ability to alienate others, due to the matter that one could encounter his real self through Darl`s eyes. His graining had caused smoothing of the surface so one can straightforwardly see what is inside; one has no lies left to hide behind. This correlates to Dewey Dell who in encounter with Darl was informed of her "bad luck", and her selfish desire of her own mother's death just so she could go to town. Jewel is also often frustrated by Darl's endless bickering about " who was your father, Jewel"(212). Darl always knew Jewel was the favorite in Addie's eyes, because he had something the other's could not.

Jewel was illustrated to correlate to the hammer, which is usually considered as the most beneficiary tool of the tool box, alike Jewel was always first on Addie's list, as Darl exemplifies that " Ma always whipped him and petted him more" (Faulkner 18). Alike the hammer Jewel had the ability to do multiple tasks; he was always useful and " he was always doing something to make him some money." The wooden appearance of the hammer even associate with Jewel's presentation in physical appearances due to his "pale eyes like wood set into his wooden face (13). The chalk- line, which is presented as "the blue line," formulates to illustrate Dewey Dell who "picked on down the row" (27) with Lafe and became impregnated. This exemplifies not only the line characteristic of the chalk-line but the new companionship between the chalk and the string, illustrating the new company of the baby, defining one as part of the other. Dewey Dell's substituted sidekick, Vardaman, correlates to the saw, which is demonstrated as the second most essential tool of a carpenters box. Vardaman is presented as the second favorite child by Addie's eye movement at her deathbed when she looks at Anse "without reproach, without anything at all," then at Cash "neither with censure nor approbation." and as her eyes cannot find Jewel she beholds her eyes on "Vardaman, her eyes, the life in them, rushing suddenly upon them; the two flames glare up for a steady instant" (48), allowing her to die in peace. Vardamn's sentence structure and dialogue further formulates a valid resemblance between the two, as it correlates to the back- and -forth rhythm of the saw, as the time in which his confusion has allowed him to place the cause of his mother's death on Peabody and taking out his anger on him with words as he composes in his head "Durn him. I showed him. Durn him"(56). As Cash is making the coffin for his mother "the saw in the board sounds like snoring"(9), alike the early morning when was" laying asleep on the floor" (73), right after he bore holes for his mother to get out of the coffin. The folding ruler, is one of very inaccurate measurements and composed of multiple folding angles and folds. These characteristics relate extensively to Anse's appearance as his "feet are badly slayed, his toes cramped and vent and warped," while his "wrists dangle out of his sleeves." Anse, alike the ruler is a hopeless dictator of rule, because he cannot seem get control of his kids and teach them manners, due to the fact that he is a poor role model himself. The most beneficiary to the tool set is the saw set because it keeps all the other tools in function. Addie was one who added adjustments to her family and the one who made live go on functionally. Her desire for modification was presented in her relation to the students when she "looked forward to the times when they faulted, so she could whip them" (170). She even admired presenting flaws which she would like to transform in Anse as that when he "needed a haircut" and how he should " hold (his) shoulders up" (171). According to Tull, she was the one that had "kept (Anse) at work for thirty-odd years" (33). The saw set was also the tool that was permanently lost in the river, forever gone from the tool box. (Poland)

Each tool presents donates a specific function to a project, just like each individual of a household provides certain beneficiaries for the family, in a way in which the family can either grow or fall into bad misfortunes tighter. Each different characteristic of every individual is presented as a necessary for that downfall, because the removal of one individual would only provide an empty story. The story of the Bundreds would have not been so effective without the involvement of an Addie, or an Anse, a Jewel, or even a Darl. The Bundreds are like a box of tools because each character correlates with the other, and each correlation gives the characters self, as that of who they are, and what makes them who they are.

ASSIGNMENT 1:  Study Questions

1. Describe the setting by examining the words and phrases used to depict the Bundrens’ home and the surrounding elements (weather, sky, etc).

2. Select a character (Jewel, Darl, or Anse) and compare and contrast the ways in which he is described by other narrators who talk about him.

3. Examine the ways in which each of the characters in this first section view Addie Bundren on her deathbed and discuss their emotional responses to her death (for example, sympathetic, caring, worried, etc.).

4. In the first part of the novel, we learn that Anse Bundren’s wife is on her deathbed. By making a close study of what Anse talks about and says how does he feel about his wife’s impending death? What does Anse’s main concern seem to be?

5. Examine the narratives which connect any one of the following pairs and discuss how the narrators—and Faulkner —use animal imagery: Jewel and his horse; Dewey Dell and the cows; Addie and the fish; Anse and a steer.

6. Anse claims that he is being chastised by God. Describe the physical and personality changes he undergoes after Add