Characters In As I Lay Dying By William Faulkner

“As I Lay Dying”, is a well known novel, written by William Faulkner, who tells a story about a dying mother and her one last dying wish. The Bundren family tries to attempt to grant the mother’s, Addie Bundren, last wish but each character had his or her selfish reasons for actually traveling to where Addie Bundren wished to be buried at. The journey to Jefferson burial grounds had the Bundren’s helping one another through the different situations that occurred, but also the Bundren family had many differences between each character that caused betrayal to one another.

Addie Bundren, was the mother to the Bundren kids and wife to Anse Bundren. Addie appeared sick in the beginning of the novel and progressed quickly than expected too and

Anse only really cared about himself and only did things to benefit himself. “God’s will be done,” he says.”Now I can get me them teeth”(52). Anse’s main reason for going along with the rest of the family was not to help them or respect Addie’s last wish, but to benefit himself with getting new teeth. Anse’s biggest betrayal to his family and Addie was remarrying. “Kind of hangdog and proud too, with his teeth and all, even if he wouldn’t look at us.”Meet Mrs. Bundren,” he says (261). Anse did not have enough respect to wait a few days after Addie’s death to get remarried instead he got remarried shortly after her death. This also shows his selfishness by not caring about how the rest of family might feel about it. Each family member gave up something along the trip to Jefferson , unlike Anse who just benefited from the journey not caring how anyone else felt or what he or she was going through.

Jewel Bundren’s character seemed to betray his family and mother by showing no affection to others and having a rigid and rude mind set, but Jewel was the only one who actually cared about getting his mother to Jefferson. Jewel showed his honor and bravery to his family by crossing his family through the river when it was unsafe but he knew he had to do it for his mother’s last dying wish to get accomplished. “Let Jewel take the end of the rope and cross upstream of us and brace it”(146). This states on how Jewel is being brave and taking the lead in the journey to Jefferson to get things