Addie Bundren in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
Woman is the source and sustainer of virtue and also a prime
source of evil. She can be either; because she is, as man is not,
always a little beyond good and evil. With her powerful natural
drive and her instinct for the concrete and personal, she does not
need to agonize over her decisions. There is no code for her to
master, no initiation for her to undergo. For this reason she has
access to a wisdom which is veiled from man; and man’s codes,
good or bad, are always, in their formal abstraction, a little absurd
in her eyes . . . 1
In William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying,” all roads lead to Addie. As Diane
York Blaine aptly observes: “The title informs us that this is her story.”2 It
is very surprising, then, that Addie, the center of the novel, was so slighted
by the lack of criticism regarding her from the first half of the century. The
reason for this is self-reflexively connected to Addie’s dilemma in the book.
Just as Addie is unable to define herself through anything but words that represent
the oppressive patriarchal society to which she is opposed, early criticism
only evaluated her in these terms, focusing less on Addie’s first person
narrative, and more on what other characters in the novel (the men) had to
say about her. However, the changing social and political tides of the 1960’s
and 1970’s gave rise to feminist criticism, which was at least partially able to
break out of the patriarchal infrastructure, and evaluate her under a new set
of values, giving new insight into her character, and thus, to the novel as a
whole.
There is a conspicuous lack of early criticism regarding Addi...
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...(Beyond) Sexual
Difference (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press) 1990, p. 154.
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88 Alice Affleck
25 Diana York Blaine, “The Abjection of Addie and Other Myths” Mississippi
Quarterly, vol.47, Summer 1994, p. 403.
26 Mark Hewson, “’My children were of me alone’: Maternal Influence in
Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying”, Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 53, Fall 2000, p.
551.
27 Doreen Fowler, “Matricide and the Mother’s Revenge” The Faulkner
Journal 4: (1-2), Fall 1988-Spring 1989, p. 113.
28 Jill Bergman “’This was the answer to it’: Sexuality and Maternity in As I
Lay Dying” Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 49, i. 3, Summer 1996, p. 393.
29 Mark Hewson, “’My children were of me alone’: Maternal Influence in As
I Lay Dying” Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 53, Fall 2000, p. 551.
30 Ibid, p. 553.
Characterization: Her character becomes very confident and self-forgiving as shown from this passage. What she used to do was only because she was trying to recover from her deceased husband.
... to find your symbol” (p.49). This is very simular to the traditional novels where they have to go on a quest to find certain objects or defeat certain enemies, the only difference is who we are reading it from and the struggles to achieve this even if it takes a long time to prepare for the evil. With the balance of traditional and modern she was able to create a more deceptive antagonist who we all could relate to and communicate with at least one point in our lifetime.
William Faulkner, a Nobel Prize winning author, wrote the novel "As I Lay Dying" in six weeks without changing a word. Considering the story's intricate plot, not changing a single word seems like it would take a literary genius to complete. Many people agree that Faulkner could very well be a genius due to the organization of this story. Faulkner uses fifteen different characters to narrate and allow the reader to analyze each of their point of views. Through the confessions of each character, the reader is able to form his or her opinion about different characters and issues. Since some narrators are unreliable for different reasons, it could be confusing to form opinions. One character that is easily understood is Dewey Dell Bundren. She is the only daughter in the Bundren family and ends up being the only woman in the family. "As I Lay Dying", the story of a family's journey to bury their mother and wife, is also the story of Dewey Dell's journey toward maturity. Along their journey to bury their mother, the characters, like Dewey Dell, seem to evolve through their encounters with other people. Faulkner depicts Dewey Dell as a very monotonous person in the beginning of the book. In the beginning, Dewey Dell is seen fanning her mother, picking cotton, or milking cows. However, towards the end of the book, her repetitiveness is lost. Towards the end of the novel, Faulkner specifically shows Dewey Dell in numerous situations becoming a mature individual.
... the book has to offer. She gives Montag a new outlook on life, simply by asking questions, and actually taking interest in his life.
Women throughout time have been compelled to cope with the remonstrances of motherhood along with society’s anticipations
...cters and event influences, helping them to develop their character by the end of the story.
Anse Bundren is one of the most exceptional characters in “As I Lay Dying”. He was the husband of Addie Bunden. In the Story, he portrayed himself as being a very selfish individual.
William Faulkner loves to keep the reader guessing. One of his favorite narrative techniques is to hint at a topic and raise questions and then leave the reader dangling. We are left with a void which we can not fill. The questions that the reader is left with will eventually be answered, but the reader will find the answers before Faulkner comes out and states what is by then the obvious. A good example is in As I Lay Dying where understanding the significance of Jewel is a major part of understanding the story.
In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner uses the characters Anse and Cash, and a motif/symbol in "My mother is a fish," to reveal the psychological and societal problems of the twenties and thirties. Written as soon as the panic surrounding the stock market in 1929 started, Faulkner is reported as having, “took one of these [onion] sheets, unscrewed the cap from his fountain pen, and wrote at the top in blue ink, 'As I Lay Dying.' Then he underlined it twice and wrote the date in the upper right-hand corner"(Atkinson 15) We must take care to recognize Faulkner not as a man of apathy, but one of great compassion and indignation at the collapse of the economic foundation of the U.S. This is central in appreciating the great care with which he describes the desolation and poor landscape of Yoknapatawpha County, which is where As I Lay Dying takes place.
A mother who drinks while she is pregnant stands a high risk of harming their unborn child because the alcohol passes through her blood to her baby, and that can harm the development of the baby’s cells. This is most likely to harm the baby’s brain and spinal cord. Many of the common effects of a child suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is: distinctive facial features, growth problems making them smaller than the average child, and learning and behavior problems.
... self-worth. She believes that there is a chance for her to change her future. She had to make certain sacrifices in order to discover her strength, true friendships and her self-worth. She sacrifices her love to preserve her self-worth. After realizing her marriage to Rochester cannot be lawful and will mean surrendering her sense of dignity and virtue, she leaves him. When Jane leaves Thornfield she says “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” (Bronte 336). In the end, she finds her happiness, as she is now with the man she loves, she preserves her self-worth without sacrificing her integrity.
When it comes to pregnancy, expectant mothers usually have a lot of questions and concerns. One such concern is alcohol consumption. Some people feel that it is okay while others are against the consumption. However those who drink take a huge risk that can result in what is referred to as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). This umbrella term is used to describe the range of damage from alcohol exposure to a fetus. The characteristics, diagnosis, and the mother are all important factors to look at when trying to understand these birth defects.
Multiple studies have found that FAS is the single most common cause of mental retardation that is completely preventable. When alcohol is consumed during pregnancy it acts as a teratogen, which means it is a substance that interferes with growth and development, and is capable of causing birth defects such as hearing loss, vision loss, reduced cognitive ability, and motor skill deficiencies. Flattened mid-face, short nose and a thinner upper lip are also common physical abnormalities (Tangient LLC, 2014). When consumed, alcohol from the mother’s bloodstream crosses easily into the fetal bloodstream. Because of their size, the unborn baby has a lower capability to metabolize the alcohol, thus it remains in its system for a longer period of time and can result in...
In 2004, the term “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders” was agreed upon by a group of national experts to be used as an umbrella term to encompass all the disorders caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. When signs of brain damage appear following fetal alcohol exposure in the absence of other indications of FAS, the conditio...
Block, L. and T. Kramer. 2009. The effect of superstitious beliefs on performance expectations. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 37(2):161-169. SpringerLink. http://www.springerlink.com/ (assessed February 22, 2011).