As I Lay Dying Family Analysis

Poor or no communication creates intense barriers of misunderstanding and resentment between family members. Particularly between siblings who are rivals fighting for their mother’s love. Personal needs trump familial duties, though these selfish acts are masked with the pretense of devotion. The Bundren family’s journey to Jefferson is driven by familial duty, not by familial love.

The trait that most resembles a heroic quality can be traced within the selflessness within the novel. The acts of selflessness can then be traced within the three eldest Bundren brothers Jewel, Cash and Darl. Jewel Bundren is not a man of words and only has one vocal chapter in the novel. His heroic selflessness stems not from how he expresses himself but instead from his actions. Jewel Bundren is often described as wooden and disconnects his emotions from both the other characters in the novel as well as the reader. Though he is cold, Jewel balances his outward appearance with selfless actions. Jewel’s only emotional connection his family is through Addie. It is because of this connection that drives him relentlessly forward with the mission. He shows dedication to his family when he searches valiantly for Cash’s tools after the river crossing. Jewel is motivated through his connection to Addie to connect to his family. Finally, he is so devoted to delivering his mother towards Jefferson to the point that he

It would seem that the primary struggle that Darl faces in the novel is the differentiation between “being” and “not-being” and the value, meaning, and importance of his own self. In the same way that Vardaman does not understand mortality, Darl does not understand himself, and this severely clouds his judgment when it comes to coping with the death of his mother. Darl seems to be a rational person at the beginning of the novel, but he plagues himself with questions regarding the fact that, “In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know if I am or not” (Faulkner 80). Darl cannot navigate his own identity, and it seems that this, combined with his subpar relationship with Addie, leads him to attempt to cope by repressing his despair in multiple failed attempts to understand himself. Butchart notes that “By dissociating himself from his mother and employing dangerous defense mechanisms, Darl’s sanity atrophies” (Butchart 60). The descent to madness that Darl endures is a sympathetic plight to most readers, since Darl is arguably one of the more sympathetic characters in the novel, but this decline is ultimately guided by his inability to come to terms with himself and his actions, especially concerning the fact that he was not present at the death of his mother. Jewel copes with the death of his mother in a way that is similar to the method that Darl utilizes, in that he represses his feelings, despite the fact that his close connection with Addie allows the reader to assume that he is the most hurt by her death. Jewel then uses his grief to fuel his devotion to heroic duty, which is primarily seen in his efforts to save Addie from the burning barn and

His name within itself shows he is precious. Due to the affair, Addie believes Jewel was conceived in violence leaving him to be her only salvation. The violence is shown through Jewel in the treatment of his horse. He also displays salvation as he saved Addie's body twice, from the river and from the burning barn. The way Jewel was born and the way Addie felt about him showed after her death in both a positive and negative way.

He usually doesn’t get along with his brother, Jewel, and often scrutinizes and makes fun of him, most likely out of pure jealousy. At one point, Darl goes so far as to try to keep Jewel isolated from his mother as she is dying. Darl also has what can only be described as telepathic abilities. He is the only character in the book that can accurately describe what is occurring at locations other than the one he is at. This ability is discovered when it becomes obvious that Darl knows of Dewey Dell’s pregnancy, despite the fact that she has maintained absolute secrecy in the matter. In fact, Darl discovers Addie’s death telepathically, and is able to tell Jewel about her death before either one of them have even returned to the house to see her. Darl’s own telepathy will become the biggest obstacle he is forced to confront in the novel, and it will eventually lead to his demise.

Darl and Jewel also have a complicated relationship. They don’t exactly get along all the time. Darl begrudges Jewel, considering Jewel and Addie’s relationship. Darl wants acceptance and love from Addie, which he doesn’t receive, and he takes it out on Jewel, although it really isn’t his fault.

Growing up I believed that the three bears in the tale of Goldilocks were a family because they lived under the same roof and ate at the same table. I also believed that Barbie and her little sister, Skipper, were family because they looked alike, and that Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head were family because they were married. Now that I am grown, my understanding of family has matured, and many sources have helped shape my belief. Carol Shields points out in her article, “Family Is One of the Few Certainties We Will Take with Us Far into the Future,” that all around us there are different definitions and symbols of family (Shields 558). In short, a family does not have to conform to

While, this may seem like the kind hearted thing to do, Jewel is settled on doing this because he wishes to prove that he loves his mother more than anyone else in the family. As a direct recipient of Anse’s cruelty, Jewel finds himself being more of father figure to the family than anyone else. This responsibility puts Jewel under massive amounts of stress and leads to him pushing the family on the mission despite the losses they had already taken and the disrespectful state that Addie’s body was in. For example. When another Bundren child, Darl, comes to the realization that there is nothing to gain from their situation, he takes matters into his own hands. After placing Addie’s coffin in a barn, he sets the building ablaze. In a quick response, Jewel jumps into action; putting the fire out, saving the animals, and rescuing Addie’s coffin. While this action may seem heroic, it is actually one of the most cruel performances throughout the novel. By saving Addie’s coffin Jewel is not only positively influencing his personal goal of demonstrating his love for his mother, he is also enabling this absolute failure of a trip to

A family consists of a group of interacting individuals related by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption who interdependently perform relevant functions by fulfilling expected roles. (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014, p. 150)

The character that has been chosen for the character analysis is Jewel. Jewel is the third child of Addie Bundren Jewel is seen as a really tough guy, and a hard worker in the story. He is also a goal achiever, what he wants he gets he completes his goals and needs. To his mother Addie Bundren, he is her favourite child, she believes that he will be the one to save her “from water and the fire”. Jewel is a type of quiet character that just gets work done, he has a different type of life apart from the Burdens.

He does not seem to do anything to actually cope and deal with his mother’s death and instead lets his “furious tide of… despair” fester (Faulkner 99). His mother’s death causes his negative emotions to multiply considerably to the point that he tries to injure and inflict pain upon all those around him, in particular his horse. The metaphor that “Jewel’s mother is a horse” comes into play because he treats the creature so poorly, going as far as to call it a “pussel-gutted bastard” (Faulkner 13). He abuses this creature and treats it poorly, but he also loves it more than any other person or creature out there; he treated his mom the same way. He “sits on his horse like they were both made out of wood,” and this simile shows that Jewel, Addie, and his horse are connected in an odd sort of way (Faulkner 122).

“When Jewel can almost touch him, the horse stands on his hind legs and slashes down at Jewel. Then Jewel is enclosed by a glittering maze of hooves as by an illusion of wings; among them, beneath the up reared chest, he moves with the flashing limberness of a snake”( Faulkner, page 9). Unluckily I think Jewel could be a character who is fully capable of and also has strong desires, but he stop them. The reason Jewel is stopping from his strong desires is because he says “Get the goddamn stuff out of sight while you got a chance, you pussel-gutted bastard. You sweet son of a bitch”(Faulkner Page 127). I believe there is a right away correlation between Jewel's treatment of his horse and his ambitions. He is opposition the family sitting by the bed and observance Addie die and money sawing away at Addie's coffin. However, at a similar time he tells Darl to shut up because Darl raises an objection on Addie’s order of making few dollars

According to the Dictionary of Contemporary English, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, formed by a father, a mother and children. On the other

James Agee's A Death in the Family is a posthumous novel based on the largely complete manuscript that the author left upon his death in 1955. Agee had been working on the novel for many years, and portions of the work had already appeared in The Partisan Review, The Cambridge Review, The New Yorker, and Harper's Bazaar.

A family can be defined in many ways, but the common denominator in all is the love and fulfillment one gets by being surrounded by family members. Families can sometimes be at odds with each other, but the strain of this type of relationship usually creates an upsetting feeling to the people involved. People want others to rely on, talk to, do things with, share, love, embrace, and be part of. No matter what the family dynamic is the qualities the word family has will remain the same, as time goes by, and life evolves once again for every person living their