As I Lay Dying Literary Analysis

The last child of Addie's was Vardaman who was a replacement of the child she robbed Anse of. Ironically Vardaman replaced Addie with a dead fish. Every attitude and relationship Addie had toward each child resulted in what happened and the treatment after her death. This concept brings a different meaning to treat others how you would want to be treated and I think that was Faulkner’s goal behind the relationships within the Bundred

Families back then are not what they are today. Faulkner is able to accurately portray how unhealthy and toxic families were during the 1930’s. He illustrates how families treated each other, such as Anse marrying another woman at the end of the novel. He does this not for love or to recreate a family, but to have someone to take care of the house and children. This conflict helps to allow the characters to become more dimensional and human. It allows the characters to have their own natural flaws, internal and

In the novel, Faulkner writes Addie’s character as someone who is always being faced with a conflict, and as a depressed woman living a miserable life. Addie’s biggest conflict is internal. Previous to Addie Bundren’s death, and before she is married to Anse Bundren, Addie is a school teacher with a miserable life, and a strong hatred for her job as a school teacher. According to the novel, the worst part about Addie’s job is the children; they never listen to her and due to this, she lives for the moments where she gets to scold them. Faulkner reveals Addie’s pure hatred for the children and

We have all manner of licentious people in the village!’” (Miller 41). The possibility of witches being present in the village, especially in his own home brings immense trouble. In Faulkner’s novel, Addie’s dying wish is to be buried in Jefferson, requiring her family to go on a troublesome journey. This puts a burden on her family, requiring them to put their lives on hold and complete her wish. With this continuing idea, Anse finds it necessary to try to fulfill his dying wife’s wish, “‘I done my best’ I says. ‘I tried to do as she would wish it…’” (Faulkner 106). Throughout both works, everyone’s lives are centered around the female characters.

Although Amari relates to Teenie’s mom, she also relates to Polly. Amari can relate to Polly because both

In “The Lives of the Dead”, Tim O’Brien talks about his fourth day in the war. He begins to reminisce on when his platoon fired into a village in the South China Sea. After seeing dead bodies, he beings to tell Kiowa about his first puppy love that he experiences when he was nine years old. O’Brien compares his childhood experience with Linda his first love with the war. Given that he seen a dead man in a pigpen laying down and brought the memory of his first love Linda lying in a casket.

After Addie passes away, Anse is left to take sole control of the family, however he is far from a natural leader. From the beginning of the novel, Anse makes his

The conversation to redefine gender roles is often dominated by polarized extremes. In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner explores the social and psychological effects of the traditional southern female gender role with the character Addie Bundren. Through Addie’s narrative, Faulkner presents the struggles of a woman as she lives the oppressive consequences of expressing her sexuality: childbearing and motherhood. The same consequences are reflected in the destruction of the life of Addie’s unwed daughter, Dewey Dell. Through these women’s stories ,Faulkner reveals the damaging effect of institutional patriarchy in women’s lives as storyteller rather than feminist.

In oriental society, the family is a critical segment, which is viewed as the principal organization. Inside the family, every part assumes a part that characterizes this establishment. However, consider the possibility that a relative neglects to do his or part in the family. What are the outcomes that are looked by the family? Avarice, childishness, and the want to get the consideration of all may demolish families, as effectively depicted and deified by family quarrels. It is basic to comprehend that the parts and obligations of every individual from the family ought to be played legitimately for the advancement of every part and for the satisfaction of the objectives and targets of this organization.

He was a product of Addie's infidelity to Anse, an act that was on Addie's mind until the day she died. The guilt she felt, even to the husband she had no love for, was so overwhelming that she produced both Dewey Dell and Vardaman to "negative" the sin that was Jewel's birth. Her self-worth was then so low that she felt she was ready to die after her recompense to Anse was finished. "And now he has three children that are his and not mine. And then I could get ready to die" (Faulkner 176). Addie had strong opinions on sin, as shown in her one chapter of the novel. She recounts an instance with her neighbor Cora Tull: "She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too" (Faulkner 176). Addie's sin with Jewel seems to perplex other members of the family through their journey to bury her; Darl's inability to mentally communicate with Jewel leads him to question Jewel's origin. Darl also seemed to put his views into the mind of Vardaman, though the poor neglected child was confused enough. Addie and Anse's relationship, as explained in Addie's narrative, has an obvious lack of intimacy, closeness, and meaningfulness. This can be seen as a sin inherited by their daughter, Dewey Dell. Her sexual curiosity and naïveté lead her to an unwanted pregnancy with a father, Lafe, who does not care about her.

Into this error Adeline’s society has fallen and as soon as she decided to be “a kept miss”(Opie 1999:, 116) people concluded that she was no longer virtuous. She could no longer belong to the society of the honorable and righteous women.

The irony of her mother’s inability to accept the money or forgive Ada, almost made what Ada did seem futile. Which added to her own personal guilt that all that she did to save her mother and hopefully bring them closer, ended up tearing them apart. Ada, demonstrates a strong love for her mother, willing to do anything to save her life. Although her mother rejects the offer, and her daughter’s money, then dies. Her mother final rejection of Ada. After the death of her husband, her personality disappeared becoming more closed off from Ada and the world. Refusing to forgive Ada, was the mother losing all compassion, rejecting humanity and accepting

On the back of my edition of As I Lay Dying there is a quote from William Faulkner on the subject of his novel. The quote says: I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I even put pen to paper and set down the first word I knew what the last word would be and almost where the last period would fall. The end result is a work of precision and care. Each word has been carefully chosen and carefully ordered to create his “tour-de-force”. This can be both a comfort and a frustration to a reader. On the one hand, a reader has a good deal more motivation to go looking for answers if they know that there is indeed an answer to be found. A reader can trust that Faulkner knows what he’s doing. On the other however, Faulkner’s deliberation means that not one word can be left unstudied nor one phrase unparsed if a reader wishes to fully grasp Faulkner’s intentions. At present, I do not believe myself to be fully capable of deciphering all of the novel’s layers, but I will make an attempt to understand a particular phrasing which I believe to be rather significant, that is, the title.

The story in chapter 40 goes back to the time before Addie and Anse married. Addie was working as a schoolteacher, hating her life and hating her students. She hates her students so much that her only pleasure was in punishing them. Which Addie being described in this way was to no surprise from which her relationships with her family were

Her daughter giving her a passing grade on a pass/fail scale is the equivalent of her son saying she is average. This shows that she gives her children about the same amount of attention but still is unable to make them completely