A Feminist Perspective of Addie Bundren of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying Addie Bundren of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying has often been characterized as an unnatural, loveless, cold mother whose demands drive her family on a miserable trek to bury her body in Jefferson. For a feminist understanding of Addie, we have to move outside the traditional patriarchal definitions of "womanhood" or "motherhood" that demand selflessness from others, blame mothers for all familial dysfunction, and only lead to negative readings of Addie. She also has been characterized as yet another Faulkner character who is unable to express herself using language. This modernist view of the inexpressiblility of the creative spirit does not apply to Addie simply because she is not an artist; she is a woman and a mother, a person who feminist theorists would desribe as "traditionally mute." To characterize her using universalizing, humanist terms erases the way that her character is marked by her biological sex and by the gender roles she is forced to play. Addie is not a representative of humankind, or even of womankind, but an individual woman trapped in a partriarchal world that represses her desires and silences her; a woman who longs to find an identity of her own that is outside patriarchal constructions and not always definable in relation to the men and the children in her life. Most importantly, Addie is a character who is acutely aware of the linguistic and social oppression that traps her into a life she does not want. Many feminist/post-modern theorists see language as a patriarchal construct that excludes women. As Jeanie Forte writes, this characterization of language is informed by Lacanian theory, which, in turn, is influenc... ... middle of paper ... ...'s Performance Art: Feminism and Postmodernism." Theatre Journal. May 1988. Irigaray, Luce. "This Sex Which Is Not One." Feminism: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndle. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1991. Kristeva, Julia. "A Question of Subjectivity--an Interview." Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. Ed. Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh. New York: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 1989. Minh-ha, Trinh T. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989. Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. New York: Routledge, 1993. Wadlington, Warwick. As I Lay Dying: Stories out of Stories. New York: Maxwell MacMillan International, 1992. Williams, David. Faulkner's Women: The Myth and the Muse. Montreal: McGill-Queens UP, 1977.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature 's Ancestral House: Another Look At 'The Yellow Wallpaper '." Women 's Studies 12.2 (1986): 113. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
In the histories of Colonial Latin America there is one common aspect and that is the importation of slaves as a labor force. The resulting consequences for the territory are vital if we are to understand the development of the society. In Puerto Rico these consequences deal mainly with African influence on the peasantry, the corrective measures taken thereafter to negate the African influence, and the results of these corrective measures.
Guerra Lillian. Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The Struggle for self, community and nation. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998. PP 45-121
In William Faulkner’s acclaimed novel, As I Lay Dying, three very different female characters: Dewy, Cora and Addie, show us the misogynistic culture and lack of opportunities for women in this place and time. Set in the fictional town of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi in the 1920s, the novel shows that women’s basic role in life during was to bear children. They are shamed for having any sexual desires that seem to accompany any of the mention of the female anatomy and sexuality. Traditionally, the role of a woman in Southern society was to have the children, tend the house (cook, clean, take care of children) and cater to her husband's needs. This was justified as a trade for her husband’s financial security.
Emilio Pantojas-García. “The Puerto Rican Paradox: Colonialism Revisited, 2005.” University of Texas Press Latin American Research Review 40.3 (2005) 163-176
In As I Lay Dying (1930), Faulkner creates the deceitful, insensitive character, Anse Bundren, who will do anything to get what he wants, even if it means stealing and injuring his own children, symbolizing the avarice and apathy that can result from a world of non education, poverty, and overall suffering.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" Women's Studies 12:2 (1986): 113-128.
Valle Antiles, Francisco del, "The Spiritual Life of the Jibaro, " from: Iris M. Zavala and Rafael Rodrigues (eds.) The Intellectual Roots of Independence, An Anthology of Puerto Rican Political Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980), 95-103
Nussbaum, Felicity. “Risky Business: Feminism Now and Then.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 26.1 (Spring 2007): 81-86. JSTOR. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
...rms of power and source of pride in society. Emphasizing sexism in language and rising the concern with words can be a vital feminist strategy to provoke social change (Weatherall, 2002). Language can produce a false imagination and represents women and men unequally, as if members of one sex were somehow less wholly human, less complex, and has fewer rights than members of the other sex. Sexist language also characterizes serotypes of women and men, sometimes to the disadvantage of both, but more often to the disadvantage of women. (Wareing & Thomas, 2012). As a result, it is necessary that individuals have the right to define, and to redefine as their lives unfold, their own gender identities, without regard to genitalia, assigned birth sex, or initial gender role. Language about women is not a nonaligned or an insignificant issue but profoundly a political one.
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Literature. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, xi-xxiv. Print.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" Women's Studies. 12 (1986): 113-128.
Yousef, Nancy. "The monster in a dark room: Frankenstein, feminism, and philosophy." Modern Language Quarterly 63.2 (2002): 197+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 24 Jan. 2012
Many mothers, regardless of age or situation, share sympathetic life ideals. They all share the common goal of raising their children wholesome; they want to create an environment of love, nurture, and support for their children as well. A mother’s effort to implant good values in her children is perpetual; they remain optimistic and hope that their children would eventually become prosperous. However, some women were not fit to be mothers. Thus, two different roles of a mother are portrayed in As I Lay Dying written by William Faulkner. Faulkner uses the literary technique of first person narrative with alternating perspectives. By doing so, Faulkner adds authenticity and the ability to relate (for some) to the two characters Addie Bundren and Cora Tull. The first person narrative acts as an important literary technique because it allows the reader to experience the opposing views of Addie and Cora; they are both mothers who act as foils to each other because of their diverse opinions and outlooks on motherhood, religion and life.