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 one’s door, Anse thinks. They also bring higher taxes and more trouble from the law. The state can follow those roads right onto family property, bringing all kinds of impositions from pesky taxes to the draft notice Darl receives.

Furthermore, Anse believes that roads take people away from their families. Roads make people want to move around, and according to Anse, God meant for people to “stay put like a tree or a stand of corn.” People ought to stay in one place with their families rather than traveling all over creation to chase dreams.

Anse does have to use the roads when he takes his wife’s body to Jefferson for burial. Along the way they encounter a flood that washes out the road and almost sweeps away Addie’s casket. One son breaks his leg. The family is followed by birds and cats as Addie decomposes and starts to smell. They are chased out of towns. Yet eventually, even with those horrible roads, Addie is finally buried, and perhaps Anse has conquered the roads after a fashion.