The Impact of a Mother’s Death on the Family
Death ultimately brings individuals together and the Bundren family is no exception. Each member of this chaotic family dealt with their mother Addie’s death quite differently. Throughout the novel, Cash is the silent, hard-working type who says next to nothing about his family’s crazy nature and how he exactly feels about their current situations. I believe that Cash making his mother’s coffin outside the window was not cruel or disrespectful; it shows his loyalty and commitment to his mother. Of all the Bundren children, Cash dealt with his mother’s death through physical emotion. He worked diligently on constructing the coffin and making sure it would not slant or move during the journey to Jefferson, however, readers know that everything did not go as planned. Darl, the most rational of the group, “goes off the deep end”, so to speak because of his mother’s death. While Darl and Jewel are away getting Tull’s horses, Addie dies and Darl can see what is going on back at home. His omniscent nature makes him a wonderful narrator becau...
In my case study, I will be talking about a personal experience with a family I know very well. I will not be using their actual names; I’ll be using these names instead: the daughter, Cheyenne, the father, Jim, and the mother Lucy.
Early in the book, Faulkner Throughout the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, the reader views Jewel as the most aggressive of Addie Bundren’s children. He is constantly arguing with his brothers, sister and father as they make their journey to Jefferson to bury his mother Addie, and he nearly gets in a knife fight when they reach town. Because of his angry responses and bad language it can be hard to recognize the significant impact Jewel has on his family. Jewel is courageous and sacrifices for his family even if the other Bundrens do not acknowledge or honor him for his actions. Jewel may not the most balanced son in the world, but neither are his siblings, and he shows throughout the forty-mile trip to his mother’s hometown of Jefferson that he wants to honor his mother’s wishes. Addie wanted to be buried in Jefferson, and without Jewel this would not have happened. In terms of his actions, Jewel shows that he loved his mother the most out of all her children. Cora argues that Jewel is the worst of the Bundren children though Addie also treated him as her favorite:
2Volume 24, Number 1. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry [Internet]. Los Angeles, CA (USA): CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FOUNDATION; (fall) 2008 [cited 2014 Feb 16]. Available from: http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-24-1-b-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle-muckraking-the-meat-packing-industry.html
Breavement is handeled differently in different generations. Weather it is a kid that has a terminal illness or an elderly person who is diagnosed with a terminal illness, each breave differently. Breavement deals with not just someone clsoe dying but, someone themselvs who is diagnosed with a life threatening illness.
One of the purpose that the coffin serves is as a container to hold Addie Bundren. Cash builds the coffin right under Addie's window so that “it will give her confidence and comfort.” Before she passes away, she calls out to Cash to see the coffin since she wants to see it during her final moments.
When life turns into a living nightmare, a child may not know what is real nor what is fake, life may become confusing. In the excerpt A Death in the Family by James Agee, this is the unfortunate sequence of events. A Death in the Family follows the events and internal conflicts that are happening inside the 6 year old, Rufus when he finds out of the unfortunate and untimely death of his father. Rufus cannot believe that “My daddy is dead.” (Jewkes 88) and is seen in denial throughout; but the child is only thinking about his own feelings, and does not know how to cope. James Agee, the author of A Death in the Family also had the unfortunate series of events
"[M]otherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn 't care whether there was a word for it or not," Addie Bundren reflects from beyond the grave in As I Lay Dying (171). Though she can hardly be considered the paragon of motherhood, Addie 's words have a degree of truth to them which can be interpreted in more than one way. Perhaps mothers don 't need a word for motherhood because their experience is one that transcends language. Or perhaps it is only men and childless women who care about defining motherhood, because those who are mothers have realized "that living [is] terrible and that this [is] the answer to it," and thus have no desire to concern themselves with the definition of a meaningless term (As I Lay Dying 171). The latter appears to be the case for Addie, whose favoritism and passive aggressiveness lead to the horrible neglect of almost every one of her five children, but specifically of her only daughter, Dewey Dell. In contrast, Ellen Sutpen 's understanding of the terribleness of living and her own dysfunctional relationships lead her to seek happiness in an illusory world of wealth and status, to the neglect of her only daughter Judith. Both
In reading the novel As I Lay Dying, many questions arose in my mind. However, the one that plagued me was the question that I could not pin down. All of the characters in the book have a personality and play a certain role in the tale. However, the one character who fascinated me, yet I could not explain was Cash. Is Cash a bigger player in the novel than it appears on the surface? I believe he is. Cash is the cog in the family that keeps the others from spinning away. Cash becomes, throughout the course of the novel, the patriarchal figure in the novel. He is thrust in to this position through his words, actions, and Anse's total lack of leadership. Cash becomes that patriarch. Diligence. Definition: " Close application, perseverance." "We can hear the sawing on the board. It sounds like snoring," (9). This quotation is a summation of Cash working on the coffin. Quotations such as these are thick in the beginning of the story. In fact, his work provides a backdrop the turmoil of the action which precedes the Burdens' departure. His work is constant through Jewel and Darl going for wood, Addie's actual death, and the search for a wagon to name a few problems. We are constantly reminded of the droning saw in the back ground. Additionally, we are also told of Cash's attention to the details. He is totally focused on his work. The work on the coffin is a metaphor for Cash's diligence throughout the novel. It becomes a template for many of Cash's actions throughout the story. Cash is the one member of the family who has something to do and does it well. In his words, "It is better to build a tight chicken coop, than a shoddy courthouse," (234). By this he means that it is better to do a good job on all projects t...
In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes states “I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an extended and unthinking thing”. [1] The concept that the mind is an intangible, thinking entity while the body is a tangible entity not capable of thought is known as Cartesian Dualism. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Descartes tries to prove that the mind or soul is, in its essential nature, entirely distinct from the
The incident in which death occurs can play a crucial part in how the individual overcomes it. In some cases death can leave an individual traumatized and basically mentally paralyzed for a time being after the incident. The way of overcoming death in these individuals would be to accept it. Accepting death is a positive way of coping. Accepting death consist of understanding that death is a part of life, treasuring the moments and growing from the impact that individual had. However, this may become difficult based on how the incident occurs. The story, “My Mother’s Sin” is a prime example of overcoming death. In this story death plays a critical component. However, it is not death who defines a person; it is how the person fights back after death. The mother, Despinio, in this story had a tough time overcoming death. Despinio never accepted fault in her actions. She had smothered her baby
The world religions of Islam and Christianity may have their differences to the naked eye, but when you take a closer look into their histories similarities arise. They both went through transformations that had drastic impacts on the way they were controlled and the way that the religion was taught to the followers. Christianity and Islam have both experienced splits between their members due to the fact that followers thought that their beliefs were the correct way to practice the religion. While these transformations are long in the past, the splits that have occurred within each religion continue to have lasting effects on Islam and Christianity to this day.
Family dynamics are patterns in the relationships between family members. Every family has its own dynamics and there are very different from one another because of the many aspects that influence them such as the numbers of members in the family, the personalities of the individuals, the cultural background, the economic status, values, and personal family experiences. This paper will analyze the two different relationship patterns found in the poem “Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead,” by Andrew Hudgins and in the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. By interpreting those two sources through Freud’s concept of family, the family environment and the relationships between the members will be analyzed to illustrate the ways family dynamics
. Its most famous defender is Descartes, who argues that as a subject of conscious thought and experience, he cannot consist simply of spatially extended matter. His essential nature must be non-m...
Addie Bundren, the wife of Anse Bundren and the matriarch of a poor southern family, is very ill, and is expected to die soon. Her oldest son, Cash, puts all of his carpentry skills into preparing her coffin, which he builds right in front of Addie’s bedroom window. Although Addie’s health is failing rapidly, two of her other sons, Darl and Jewel, leave town to make a delivery for the Bundrens’ neighbor, Vernon Tull, whose wife and two daughters have been tending to Addie. Shortly after Darl and Jewel leave, Addie dies. The youngest Bundren child, Vardaman, associates his mother’s death with that of a fish he caught and cleaned earlier that day. With some help, Cash completes the coffin just before dawn. Vardaman is troubled by the fact that his mother is nailed shut inside a box, and while the others sleep, he bores holes in the lid, two of which go through his mother’s face. Addie and Anse’s daughter, Dewey Dell, whose recent sexual liaisons with a local farmhand named Lafe have left her pregnant, is so overwhelmed by anxiety over her condition that she barely mourns her mother’s death. A funeral service is held on the following day, where the women sing songs inside the Bundren house while the men stand outside on the porch talking to each other.
The assignment research objectives were (a) to gain insight into securing strategic partnerships in the information technology (IT) arena; (b) to understand the choices made to reduce information and security risks by exploring the different outsourcing techniques, and; (c) to understand how business process associated with outsourcing will stimulate awareness on how the process is interlinked with human behaviors. The topics covered include an evaluation of the specifications of information security consultants to become strategic partners assisting in the reduction of information or security risks, an examination of four factors that were omitted in the specifications that add value to the selection process, and an explanation of the value of the four factors.