Relationships In William Faulkner's 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.

Another example, is when Addie speaks. She speaks to reveal her selfishness. She admits to having an extramarital affair with the local preacher, who is Jewel’s biological father. The reader can see this when Addie says, “I gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel. Then I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of” (176). Further, Addie admits that she wants to be buried in Jefferson because she wants to spend eternity as far away from the Bundren’s as possible.

However, Jewel has a much different view of their journey. Jewel sees it as a way to make up to his mother for not being there when she passed (Faulkner 48). Therefore, he does everything in his power to get her there . . . including running into a burning barn and nearly drowning to save her coffin (Faulkner 154 and 221). These acts, although seemingly heroic, arise as truly selfish and shallow. These shallow acts can exist through Jewels “pale eyes” which look “like wood” (Faulkner 4). This simile compares Jewel to a simple substance which mirrors how his actions towards his mother are self-absorbed. Wood is two dimensional and shallow. When Jewels refuses to let the past go and continuously holds on to the idea of upsetting his mother, he in turn works for his own benefit. Jewel seeks his mother's approval out of self absorption and not out of love; he acts shallow and hollow like wood. In turn, Jewel ignores his siblings and continues to push towards

After Dewey Dell brings out Addie’s will, Anse does not send Jewel to her. Instead, “pa says, ‘him(Jewel) and Darl went to make one more load. They thought there was time. That you would wait for them,’”(Faulkner

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

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

Exploring the Layers of Maternity and Southern Womanhood in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

    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

Jewel is very different from the others when it comes to his family affairs. He dislikes

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.

In the novel, As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, two characters ,Darl and Jewel Bundren, each cope with their mother’s death and deal with their isolation from their family by expressing their feelings in deeply emotional behavior. Darl, the second eldest sibling out of five, questions his existence because of his isolation and the lack of love he received from his mother growing up. Jewel, on the other hand, was his mother’s favorite of all five of her children. Jewel was the bastard son of Addie Bundren and the minister she had an affair with, Whitfeld. Due to the violent situation by which he was conceived, Jewel expresses all of his actions, including love, through violence and hatred. Both Darl and Jewel Bundren, convey their

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.

Loyalty is a powerful force. Oftentimes it blindsides us and causes us to support things we would not normally. Even do things that we despise. William Faulkner’s Barn Burning illustrates just such a case. Presenting a young boy’s progression from a loyal child, to an independent man as a conflict of loyalty and morals. This boy, Sarty, battles his own forming morals versus his father’s decisions, which leads to his development from child to adult. Faulkner writes his characters progression in five stages: blind loyalty, repressed disagreements, open questioning, and attempted reasoning with his father, before finally taking action to contradict his father.

The modern world is in the midst of reconstructing gender roles; debates about contraception, reproductive freedom, and female inequality are contentious and common. The majority now challenges the long established assertion that women’s bodies are the eminent domain of patriarchal control. In the past, a woman’s inability to control her reproductive choices could come with ruinous consequences. Proponents of patriarchal control argue against reproductive independence with rhetoric from religious texts and with anecdotes of ‘better days,’ when women were subservient. Often, literature about childbearing fails to acknowledge the possibility of women being uninterested in fulfilling the role of motherhood.

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.