As I Lay Dying

Through Cash's description of making his mother's coffin, the reader can tell that he is very meticulous and also has a difficult time dealing with her death. Instead of engaging directly with his...

In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Anse Bundren believes that the roads are the source of his family’s problems. Let’s look at what he says about roads. First, roads bring bad luck right to...

This particular quotation illustrates one of the book's main themes, that of the nature of mortality. In this part of the world, with its grinding poverty and chronic lack of opportunity, death can...

Although race is an overwhelmingly important theme on William Faulkner's work, it is more of a background issue in As I Lay Dying than in his other novels. However, racial inequality for Faulkner...

This is a very difficult question. The answer is not necessarily "out there" to be found, as Faulkner's use of italics in this novel are not entirely consistent. We can see some relationship...

In As I Lay Dying, Jewel’s biological father is Reverend Whitfield, the man who had an affair with Addie before the story begins. Jewel’s father is not Anse Bundren, the biological father of all...

An allusion is a term used by literary critics to describe an author referring to elements from literature, the arts, history, or popular culture within a text. Another term sometimes used to...

As I Lay Dying blends elements of tragedy and comedy. Tragically, the Bundren children are reared by their lazy and selfish father (Anse) and by their mother Addie. Addie loves only her son Jewel,...

In keeping with the air of Southern Gothic grotesquerie that pervades the book, Addie’s burial is a highly unusual affair, to say the least. As one would expect with the highly dysfunctional...

Jewel and Cash see themselves in very different ways; Cash is a responsible son who sacrifices himself for his mother, while Jewel is the prized son who always receives his mother's attention....

Addie calls Jewel her salvation because he seems to be the one thing in life she got to choose. He is the bastard child of Whitfield, the minister. Having the religious leader be the father of...

In Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Cora indicates that Darl has a different relationship to his mother Addie than his brothers and sisters do that she, for some reason, can sense: It was like he would...

One of Faulkner's themes in "As I Lay Dying" is that of identity. Vardamen, the baby of the family, seeks to identify himself in relation to other members of his family. He repeats these...

In As I Lay Dying, the buzzards represent the presence of death and the presence of those who prey on death. Jewel, for example, likens his siblings, such as Dewey Dell, to buzzards, waiting for...

In As I Lay Dying William Faulkner tells the tragic story of the Bundren family’s quest to bury their mother. The Bundrens are a poor family in the rural South, and there are a few details from the...

Several literary devices are used in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. The most obvious is the title’s allusion, or reference, to The Odyssey by Homer. The novel’s title alludes to Agamemnon’s...

As I Lay Dying is rife with selfish and senseless characters. However, Cash Bundren stands out as a character whose dedication, compassion, and sacrifices contrast with the rampant self-interest in...

Darl is probably the most dynamic character in the book, in the sense that he undergoes the greatest change. His defining characteristic is perceptiveness, and that characteristic does remain...

With fifteen different narratives in the form of stream of consciousness, the reader of As I Lay Dying understands that there are fifteen different realities--no absolutes. In this way, the reader...

I see the bananas as something longed for which shows the limitations of the Bundren's imagination and/or aspiration. Anse only longs for teeth and a new wife, Dewy Dell not to be pregnant and...

This is a challenging question because Modernism complicates how we define heroism, and Faulkner tends to be rather tricky in how he presents character. In a traditional sense in which the hero...

Dewey Dell and Darl share a trait: both have the ability to "talk without the words," although Darl possesses the trait more acutely than his sister. When he sees Dewey Dell, he knows she is...

William Faulkner is a writer who appreciated good writing. He wanted to be judged at least as much by the skill of his phrasing as by the themes or ideas dealt with in his works. He was, in fact, a...

I think that Darl deserves to be free of the burdens of his family, and it is touching that Cash is able to see that Darl deserves something better. However, I concur with #2 in that he does not...

In her only narration, Addie--already dead--narrates the following: And when I knew that I had Cash . . . That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they...

Darl is responsible for telling more of the story than anyone else, and we should sympathise with the burdens which he carries, as he is the character who has the most empathy for others. In this...

Addie's influence on the children is more toxic than Anse's because, while he is indifferent to them, she actively dislikes most of her children and has a preference only for Jewel. Cora notes that...

We can say that the two concepts that anchor this novel are family and psychology. These concepts are intertwined in some complex ways and we can see this exemplified in the chapter that depicts...

One of the main allusions to the Greek literary tradition comes when Darl burns down the barn to honor his mother's death. The Greeks believed in a quick and dignified burial. For example, in...

Just to add to the strong points of the above response: Addie is so perverse in her hatred of Anse that she dislikes all of her children but the "love child" that she has had with the minister,...

Reverend Whitfield is the man with whom Addie has an affair during her marriage to Anse, and he is also the father of Jewel. Whitfield gets to narrate one chapter, and, during this section, we...

This is an interesting question requiring us to engage in some conjecture. We can only surmise about what the reasons for this might be. Some evidence we might consider: Jewel and Addie are...

To some extent, the entire novel constitutes one huge paradox. Addie’s family members profess their loyalty and devotion to their mother and the ostensible purpose of their trip is to bury her, but...

Vardaman Bundren in William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying is a six-year-old child, brought up in an eccentric family living in the rural south, who has just been traumatized by the death of his...

William Faulkner’s decision to use the “stream of consciousness” technique in his novel titled As I Lay Dying gives the novel a number of different tones, since the separate consciousness of each...

Jewel is given the name Jewel because his birth is the product of an affair between Addie, our main character, and the town clergyman, Whitfield. He is Addie's Jewel because he was a byproduct of...

Dewey Dell rationalizes that her pregnancy was not her fault. She and Lafe were picking cotton near the woods "and the secret shade," and she said, "will I or wont I [have sex] when...

Despite being described as useless and ineffectual, Addie Bundren’s husband, Anse, fulfills his promise to bury her among her own family members in Jefferson. This was a moral action, as he could...

At the end of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Darl Bundren is sent to an insane asylum, but this is ironic and even tragic as he may be the sanest member of his family. Let's explore this in...

Jefferson's modernity is startling because the Bundrens have been depicted as living such pre-modern lives that much of the story seems as if it were actually set in the nineteenth century. The...

Whitfield in As I Lay Dying is a failed minister and the epitome of religious hypocrisy. Faulkner utilizes the character as a veiled criticism of organized religion and those who are leaders within...

In addition to what the other educators have shared, I'll argue that Anse's complete helplessness and uselessness as a person make him need other people—and for those people, such as his neighbor,...

The bulk of the novel concerns the journey the Bundrens take to Jefferson to bury their dead matriarch Addie. The family is ignorant and grotesque. However, the term "grotesque" in literature...

A thesis statement needs to introduce your main idea and a "controlling" idea to give body and contrast to your essay. Your topic appears to be to find and explain examples of existential themes in...

Modernist literature often concentrates on a “personal relationship with the past”. The overwhelming subtext of As I Lay Dying deals directly with this concept, focusing thematically and...

Cora and Addie are discussing the relative challenges of womanhood, and it is here that we think Cora realises that Addie has a secret she will not reveal. Cora grumbles about Addie that- You’d...