Addie Bundren In As I Lay Dying

Most works of literature often use events and objects to display a deeper meaning to the current situation. In As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, there are many references that connect the Bundren family to mythological, Biblical, and classical allusions. Faulkner’s use of various types of allusions emphasizes the characters’ behavior and relationship to each other.

As I Lay Dying is a novel by William Faulkner that chronicles the journey of the Bundren family (Anse, Dewey Dell, Darl, Jewel, Cash, and Vardaman) to bury their recently deceased mother, Addie, in Jefferson. Throughout As I Lay Dying, Faulkner treats Darl as the de-facto narrator of the novel, endowing Darl with the most passages in the novel and endowing him with an omniscient perspective of the events chronicled in the book. Jewel, however, gets the opposite treatment from Faulkner; he only is designated one passage in the entire book and is known for being self-centered and close-minded. In terms of the motivation of traveling to Jefferson, Darl has none, while Jewel’s sole purpose is to give Addie a proper burial. By the end of the novel,

In As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner the reader gets to see how hard life is for the Bundren family. The Bundren’s face many obstacles throughout the book and somehow manage to come through most of them okay. The family fulfills their desires along the way to relieve them of these struggles. The main theme in As I Lay Dying is family dysfunction, and this family dysfunction leads to Darl’s insanity.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your vision is clear, your whole body will be full of light” (). Ever since the creation of mankind, the eyes exist as the window to the soul. Taking one look into a person's eyes can leave you with more knowledge than ever thought imagined. Love, anger, lust, hatred, sympathy and guilt can all express themselves in just one glance. William Faulkner knew of this interesting trait and applied it to his 19___’s novel “As I Lay Dying”. Each character possesses their own unique traits and personalities which drive them to fulfill their end mission: burying their mother in Jefferson. To express their personalities, Faulkner incorporates a variety of similes and metaphors all relating to the eyes. This technique sheds light of their selfish ways. These selfish qualities, not the love for their mother, cause the Bundren children to succeed in their mother's dying wish.

His family wasfinancially stable, but his father, Murry, was an alcoholic. Their family dinners were done silentand Murry unexpectedly left town for a couple of days and then came back. Faulkner’s mother,Maud, was an independent, hardheaded woman. Murry and Maud fought really often. WilliamFaulkner’s books explore family dynamics, race, gender, and social class. Faulkner was somewhat misfit. It is said that he used to invent stories about himself. (“As I Lay Dying Analysis”).As I Lay Dying was a required to read in Pulaski County High School, a high school inSomerset, Kentucky as a reading assignment in an advanced English class. The book waschallenged because the book contains profanity and a part about masturbation. School boardmembers were concerned for the book’s language and dialect. Central High School in Loisville,Kentucky decided to ban the book for profanity and confusion on the existence of God (“Bannedand/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20thCentury”). Some of the bans were quickly reversed, but some remained banned (Baldassarro,“As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner”). “Then I would wait until they all went to sleep so I could lie with my shirt-tail up,hearing them asleep, feeling myself without touching myself, feeling the cool silence blowingupon my parts and wondering if Cash was yonder in the darkness doing it too, had been doing itperhaps for

She becomes a wife and a mother. She loves her children and they adore her. When she grows old they will take of her, and when she dies, they long for her the rest of their days. The concept of such a desired and completed journey of motherhood and womanhood is dismantled in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. On a spectrum of maternity, characters Cora Tull, Addie Bundren and her daughter Dewey Dell each represent a different degree. Cora is a dedicated mother, Addie struggles to accept the idea of motherhood, and Dewey Dell rejects the role altogether. Through these female characters, Faulkner also aims to point out the absurdity of the universal experience of womanhood.

Despite the fact that human beings are oftentimes reluctant to admit it, it is a fact of life that one of the most fundamental aspects of human nature is self-interest. Selfishness pervades everyday life, no matter what efforts are made to deny and rationalize its existence. In the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, the unique method handling the death of Addie that each character uses exemplifies the inherent selfishness apparent in human nature and outlines the various emotions that accompany the death of a loved one.

    Analyzing character in a Faulkner novel is like trying to reach the bottom of a bottomless pit because Faulkner's characters often lack ration, speak in telegraphed stream-of-consciousness, and rarely if ever lend themselves to ready analysis.  This is particularly true in As I Lay Dying, a novel of a fragmented and dysfunctional family told through fragmented chapters.  Each character reveals their perspective in different chapters, but the perspectives are true to life in that though they all reveal information

As I Lay Dying and Little Miss Sunshine are two stories about a family’s journey and the setback they face along the way. The type of journey the families endure follows the path of rising and then falling that occur throughout their time together. Little Miss Sunshine is an effective contemporary version of the archetypal journey when compared to As I Lay Dying because of the similar archetypal events, characters and symbolism.

A morally ambiguous character in As I Lay Dying is Anse Bundren. Anse Bundren’s dedication and determination to fulfil his wife’s wish counterpoises the fact that he is self-centered and neglectful towards others. With his two biggest goals in mind, burying his wife and getting a new set of teeth, Anse Bundren demonstrates the theme of self-interest vs. heroic actions. Most of the members of the Bundren family have goals at the end of their journey to Jefferson, but Anse’s two goals are both the most selfish and altruistic goals of the book.

William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying examines the connections and disconnections between speech, silence, and the meaning of words. However, having words is as good as having no words because the characters in this book, especially the members of the Bundren family, use words that obfuscate their true emotions. Faulkner uses his characters to portray speech as just another factor of nominalism and allows only silence to present the truth.

Just finished “As I lay Dying”. I had a love hate relationship with this novel. As the Bundern’s family traveled farther in their journey, the events became difficult for me to read. The family could not catch a break and Faulkner never really made it clear they deserved to.

As I Lay Dying covers the story of a family as they journey to bury the mother, Addie, in her hometown after her death. They all go through the same situations but each experience different emotions and thoughts. They express these through the language they use. What each character says as well as how he/she says it lets the reader see the

The author of As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner, really contributes to the aspects of literature through his ability to tell a seemingly incredible story through only the “stream-of-consciousness” technique. Faulkner takes his insight beyond the piece, through other’s views and thoughts. Although the characters might be acting differently upon each subject or handling each action in opposite ways, the tone and theme that he uses really brings the whole piece to a perfect balance. In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner displays contradicting elements through the reactions of the family members towards the mother’s death with the use of dialogue, tone, imagery, and internal conflict.

William Faulkner’s unconventional writing style is widely renowned for his disregard of literary rules and his keen ability to peer into the psychological depths of his characters. His novel As I Lay Dying is no exception to his signature style. This book sets forth the death of Addie Bundren, her family’s journey through Yoknapatawpha County to bury her with her relatives in Jefferson, Mississippi, and examines each character in depth from a variety of perspectives. While this journey wreaks havoc among members of the family, As I Lay Dying serves as a dark reminder that life is to be lived and that happiness is within reach.