As I Lay Dying Flashback Analysis

In Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying (1930), Faulkner’s use of flashbacks helps to better clarify the personalities and hypocrisies of the other characters, while also tying together the underlying theme of duty and suffering.
Through Darl’s flashback, the reader is able to better understand Addie and Jewel as passionate characters. For instance, Jewel is revealed to be a hard worker, but passionate not toward his work, but his goal: a horse. Jewel’s character really only finds sanctuary in this horse, as it serves as something he can connect to, albeit through beating, and also as a physical barrier from his family, acting as a symbol of Jewel’s freedom from the family. The horse even acts as a physical barrier, as he is described as riding

the horse while the rest of the Bundrens sit in the wagon: “Cash and I [Darl] sit in the wagon; Jewel sits the horse at the off rear wheel” (142). Jewel truly doesn’t want any association with the Bundren family, an idea that is further accentuated through his adamant promise that the horse won’t eat any of Anse’s hay, saying, “‘He wont never eat a mouthful of yours,’ he said. ‘Not a mouthful. I’ll kill him first. Dont you never think it. Dont you never’” (136). He doesn’t want to be beholden to his father in any fashion, and most importantly, doesn’t want to be a part of the Bundren family. Addie, on the other hand, is revealed to be trapped in her motherly duty and her duty as a wife. Through this dilemma, Darl notices her hypocrisy, saying, “And that may have been when I first found it out, that Addie Bundren should be hiding anything she did, who had tried to teach us that deceit was such that, in a world where it was, nothing else could be very bad or very important, not even poverty” (130). Darl paints Addie into a sketch of hypocrisy, telling the reader that Darl believes Jewel to be unfairly the object of Addie’s love, and at this moment in the novel, the reader can be led to believe the same thing. In this scene, Addie is trapped in her duty to remain honest and practice what she preaches about honesty as a wife, but she feels the need to protect her son as his mother. This created a paradox for women at the time, as both duties were meant to go hand in hand. Overall, Faulkner’s flashback reveals that Addie is perhaps not as genuine as she seems, and Jewel’s round character is divulged.
Additionally, this particular flashback further ties together the themes of suffering and personal duty into the novel.

For example, Jewel epitomizes this theme through the author’s descriptive diction: “He was losing flesh, and I have seen him go to sleep chopping; watched the hoe going slower and slower up and down, with less and less of an arc, until it stopped and he leaning on it motionless in the hot shimmer of the sun”(130). The words “losing flesh” is emblematic of death and decay, of the end of life, serving as an almost hyperbolic metaphor for a body that has lost its inner life, the person within, or the soul perhaps. The image of someone going to sleep chopping wood offers a dramatic contrast; the antithesis between an activity so active and vigorous as “chopping” wood, and the act of falling asleep. It is an incongruous type of contrast, emphasizing the loss of vigor and strength. The chapter continues with this theme; when Pa asks Jewel, “If you ain’t sick, what’s the matter with you?” Jewel replies, “Nothing. … I’m all right.” This evinces Jewel’s determination to continue, although it is becoming clear that he cannot do so. Jewel’s resolution foreshadows his determination throughout the journey that the Bundrens make to Jefferson, as Jewel, and arguably Darl, are the only ones who appear to actually care for Addie’s last request to be buried in

Jefferson.
Faulkner’s use of the literary device of a flashback to further extrapolate on the characters’ identities and personalities, while also tying together the themes of obligation and tribulation.