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Hats In Joseph Campbell's The Power Of Myth

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Within the text of As I Lay Dying, the Bundrens face many emotions while dealing with Addie’s death. Whenever strong sadness is bound to be felt, hats are mentioned. Due to this, I believe the wearing of hats represents experiencing sorrow and grief. In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell speaks about how experience is necessary to fully understand a message (73). This relates to emotion. Everyone feels emotion, however there are certain emotions that we cannot fathom without having experienced them firsthand, such as depression. Campbell says “[we] are shaped by [our] lives” (186). This means that it is the events surrounding us that make us who we are and create the feelings we experience. Campbell shows that experience is necessary for understanding, and it is our surroundings that allow this experience. Cash is impacted with emotion similar to the way hats impact our head. The first instance where hats become a symbol occur the night of Addie’s death. Faulkner states, “about [Cash’s] head the print of his hat sweated into his hair” (60). Cash had to cope with feelings that seem to be new to him. In The Power of Myth, Campbell states we do not understand death, but we learn how to accept it (187). Cash did not understand death, and he was learning to …show more content…

As we look at the text of As I Lay Dying, it may seem that hats are present at times of a boy crossing a threshold to become a man. However, there are times in the book where women wear a hat. For example, while Dewey Dell is headed to the pharmacy to ask for an abortion, “she had on a stiff-brimmed straw hat setting on top of her head” (Faulkner 198). Dewey Dell was asking for an abortion, so there was a possibility she felt guilt, grief or sorrow. Dewey Dell is not a boy; therefore, she cannot cross a threshold into manhood. The hat in this situation once again represents the grief and sorrow Dewey Dell is probably

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