The journey is an epic journey, encompassing fire (Darl’s burning of Gillespie’s barn) and water (they try to cross the bridge and end up losing their mules, nearly losing the coffin and with Cash breaking his leg).

Cash wants a new”graphophone”, as he calls it.

Anse wants a new set of false teeth, Dewey Dell, pregnant by Lafe (whom we never meet) has ten dollars from him for an abortion. Nevertheless, the family sets out, not least because some of the others, as we later learn, have an ulterior motive for going to Jefferson. However, soon after Addie’s death, it starts to pour and very soon two key bridges are out and the only way is via a long detour. This indeed does happen, particularly as their cart loses a wheel when they are delivering.Īddie duly dies and Anse makes it clear that he is going to do one thing for Addie and that is keep his promise made many years ago to bury her in Jefferson County, where she originally came from. He therefore contrives to have Jewel be away delivering a load while their mother is dying so he will not be at her side when she dies. Darl, who is, according to others, peculiar, has figured out somehow that Jewel is not his father’s son and that he is their mother’s favourite. At the beginning of the book Addie is dying and Cash, the carpenter, is outside making her coffin, while Dewey Dell is fanning her. The family struggles as Anse is lazy and inefficient. Feeling guilty she then lets Anse have two more children, the only girl of the family, Dewey Dell, and, finally, Vardaman. She produces two sons – Cash and Darl – before becoming really tired of him and then has an affair with the Reverend Whitfield, which results in the birth of Jewel (a boy). He seems (to Addie) to drive out of his way to see her and one day he stops and proposes. Anse Bundren was a single man, apparently with no family but his own farm. We gradually learn the background to the family through the voices of these people. The Bundren family as well as others all have short pieces, some of them numerous times. Things are not easily explained and the normal logic of the world does not fully apply.Īs with other of his works, it tells a story from multiple points of view. Of course, that’s what makes it such a fine novel. Why does Vardaman think that his mother is a fish and why does Darl burn down Gillespie’s barn? While there are explanations for both of these and other mysteries, they are not fully satisfactory. Moreover, though many of her family repeatedly comment, she does so only once and then at a time when she is dead. Why, for example, is it called As I Lay Dying? Addie Bundren is dead for most of the novel. This is, in part, because I still have not fully grasped it. Home » USA » William Faulkner » As I Lay Dying William Faulkner: As I Lay Dyingįaulkner himself declared this to be a masterpiece and, I have to say, it is my favourite of his works and the one I am inclined to re-read first.

As i lay dying novel