As I Lay Dying Critical Analysis

Anse Bundren is a selfish, lazy and indigent farmer who married Addie for more than thirty years. Anse shows the deceiving trait mainly because he is so reliant on his family and friends. The act of selfishness enables him to be separated from Jewel and Darl, who, coincidentally have picked up this similar trait. On his way to Jefferson to bury his dead wife, a promise was made to Addie. He was promising to better himself as a whole, yet sadly his only concern on the journey to Jefferson was to buy him a new set of teeth. Despite any consideration of

In the novel, As I lay dying by William Faulkner, the Bundren family go through a mental journey of loss and death of their mother later to go on a physical journey to bury their mother. To the conclusion of any novel, many have an opinion on what is much happy or not a happy ending. In the case of the ending to As I lay dying, include no real burial of how the mother wanted, which was the point of the physical journey in the first place, secrets comes out, one of the five the siblings gets taken away, and many are left with unfinished business, was not a happy at all for most of the characters.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner follows the Bundren family on their arduous journey to fulfill their dying mother's wish: to be buried with her family. Faulkner utilizes fifteen narrators, including Vardaman, the confused child, Addie, the dying mother, and objective characters such as the Tull family, to recount the details of the family's quest. Although death is a meaningful and somber topic, Faulkner reveals his opinion that death is an escape from the difficulties of life. Despite this grim subject matter, Faulkner uses irony and humor to effectively turn the novel into a dark comedy. Faulkner illustrates this dark humor through Addie's anticipation of her death, Anse's blatant ignorance toward his dying wife, and Vardaman's amusing confusion about death.

Betrayal is defined as, “an act of deliberate disloyalty" (vocabulary.com). In William Faulkner’s book, As I Lay Dying, there is a lot of betrayal between the Bundren family. From, Addie having an affair to most of her family travelling to Jefferson for selfish reasons. The Bundren family is a lying and selfish family. Most of the characters betray Addie specifically in many ways. For example, Anse betrayed her by not even waiting ten minutes after burying her to go and find himself a new wife. Betrayal is a large part of their lives. Dewey Dell is like her mother in many ways. However, she too betrays Addie and Addie’s last request.

William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying follows the Bundren family on a journey while it explores the subject of heroism and discusses its subjectivity. The family travels on an expedition to bury Addie, the deceased mother of the protagonist, Darl Bundren, and his siblings. As days continue to pass, however, the journey seemed interminable. During the adventure, the family takes a stop at Gillespie’s barn for the evening. While they rest Darl sets the barn, in which the coffin sits, ablaze. Darl Bundren’s act of arson exhibits heroism because he performed the act for the sake of others. Faulkner uses irony to subvert the preconceived notions of heroism. Although the protagonist was sent to a mental institute at the end of the novel for

In the novel, As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner shapes the plot based on the looming presence of the absentee protagonist, Addie Bundren. The reader’s knowledge of Addie accumulates through the monologues of other characters, so the reader gains only bits and pieces of Addie’s character. However, after her death, the reader obtains a better understanding of Addie’s voice through her own monologue and as a result, is characterized as cold and selfish. Through the use of similes and interior monologue, Faulkner shows Addie’s tendency to detach herself from the people in her life, which relates to the novel’s overall theme of solitude as Addie adheres to her father’s philosophy that the reason for living is no more than “to get ready to stay dead a long time” (169).

The attitudes to grief over the loss of a loved one are presented in two thoroughly different ways in the two poems of ‘Funeral Blues’ and ‘Remember’. Some differences include the tone towards death as ‘Funeral Blues’ was written with a more mocking, sarcastic tone towards death and grieving the loss of a loved one, (even though it was later interpreted as a genuine expression of grief after the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” in 1994), whereas ‘Remember’ has a more sincere and heartfelt tone towards death. In addition, ‘Funeral Blues’ is entirely negative towards death not only forbidding themselves from moving on but also forbidding the world from moving on after the tragic passing of the loved one, whilst ‘Remember’ gives the griever

In the excerpt from William Faulkner’s Southern novel, As I Lay Dying the author structures his novel through the use of literary features such as allusion, similes a belittling yet humorous tone, concrete imagery and a stream of consciousness style in the passage. Faulkner throughout the passage not only describes Cash’s reserved character and Darls perspective imagination but he also foreshadows the struggle the Bundren’s will go through as they prepare to go on the journey of burying Addie.

What would one expect from a father who kept his daughter locked in a cell for decades to Abu Ghraib? Tracy K Smith, in Life on Mars, shows herself as the poet of extraordinary ambition and rage. In No-Fly Zone, Smith has ambiguously talked about a girl (can be the poet herself) tracing a growth of African-American girl who must learn hard lessons of puberty and early adulthood and linking it to the history of America by depicting what it meant to be a black woman. With the use of elegy, figurative language, socio-political commentary, and metaphors in the third section of her collection, mainly in No-Fly Zone of Life on Mars, she talks about the ambiguity of what a girl has to fear in the society, her loneliness without parents, and why a girl has to save herself for her husband.

Darl Bundren: sane intellect in an insane world or mentally unstable son of Anse Bundren? In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the Bundren family goes on a long journey to Jefferson to bury their dead mother. Darl is the second oldest child, behind Cash, of Addie and Anse Bundren and the leading narrator throughout the novel. At the end of the journey he is sent to an insane asylum in Jackson, his family classified him as mentally insane. Darl was not insane, he was just the only sane man in the insane Bundren world. He survived the two greatest catastrophes, man can go through, Anse Bundren is not a proper judge of character, Darl still commits good deeds, and he seems to have a different outlook on everything else.

Death is a recurring theme in this book. Not only is death explained as being sad, but what is kind of weird is how death can be seen as sort of a happy thing. Dying, in general, is sad. But the whole ordeal of it can bring people together, or fix relationships that have been broken. In the case of Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom, Morrie and Mitch were separated due to the fact that Mitch cared more about his job than the most important things in life; love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and the main theme, death. Now, Mitch cared too much about work when he should have cared about his family, girlfriend, and Morrie. But, Morrie teaches Mitch that there are more important things to life than working. This is where Morrie’s death comes into play.

The time and setting during which the novel was written are very important for understanding William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. This novel was written in 1930 Mississippi; during this time Mississippi was very religious. Unsurprisingly, Christianity and religion also plays a big role in As I Lay Dying particularly through imagery and symbolism that connects different characters to religious figures, including Jesus Christ. However, somewhat ironically, the character who is perhaps the most standout Christ figure in the novel is Jewel, who in his only chapter questions the existence of God. Although Jewel doesn’t seem like the ideal Christ figure because of the way he speaks and the actions he takes, William Faulkner

Grieving is a common and unhappy process that many people go through in their lifetime. Through the grieving process, people often come to conclusions about their life. In Please Ignore Vera Dietz, Vera loses her best friend Charlie and tries to stray away from her parent’s examples, only to find out that she will have to come to terms with the loss of her best friend. In We Were Liars, Cadence gets sick in a tragic accident that causes her to wonder about her family and find out the truth. In both, Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King, and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, we learn that when people grieve it causes more loss and unlawful actions.

In the novel, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, there are many passages that tend to be perplexing and difficult to understand, if not read closely by the reader. Although there are many passages in the novel that are compelling, the passage expressed by the deceased

Faulkner fulfills the writer’s duty by introducing problems the writers can relate to. Faulkner inspires readers to write about, “problems of the human heart... with itself which can make good writing...because that is only worth the sweat agony” (Faulkner 14-15). The narrative, As I Lay Dying, develops a reading of the Bundren family. Each of the family members including the mother that is dead, narrate about themselves in relevance to the entire family. By writing about relatable problems for the audience to relate to, Faulkner discusses the loss of the mother, Addie. Dealing with a significant family loss, Anse, already justifies that Faulkner is fulfilling his own vision of the writer’s duty. The author reflects on Addie, who is the mother in the entire story and