anse bundren essay

Enter Your Search Terms to Get Started! As I Lay Dying - Darl Bundren Character Study In Willam Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, the Bundren family has unique and memorable characters, but the most complex of these characters is Darl. An articulate and loving young man, his emotions and sanity are tested by the death of his mother and the plight of his family's burial journey. Unwanted by his mother, Darl showed signs throughout the novel of an ego at odds with itself; lacking a definitive way of identifying himself. He demonstrated this in his narratives by having detailed descriptions of events but rarely did he reveal any emotional attachment to his subjects. His awareness leads him to do some things that make him appear to the rest of his family, who already thought he was strange, as insane. But to himself, Darl believes he is doing the sanest thing he could do to end this burial journey. One may believe that Darl is crazy, but another may believe that Darl is sane. There is proof in both these views, but it is up to the reader’s discretion to decide which one is right. In order to understand the mind of Darl, the reader must also understand Darl’s place in the Bundren family. A majority of Darl’s family doesn’t like him, even before the death of Addie and the journey to Jefferson. Addie herself hates Darl’s very existence. She thinks of Darl as Anse’s child and not hers, “And now he has three children that are his and not mine” (102). Darl is also brings humiliation for Anse because other townsfolk are always talking about Darl and how strange he is. His parents aren’t the only ones who have a troubled relationship with Darl. Jewel absolutely hates his brother Darl. Darl frequently torments his younger brother giving reason for Jewel to shun Darl. Dewey Dell hates Darl because she can’t keep any secrets from him, because he can look at her and know what she’s.
HomeStudy GuidesAs I Lay DyingCharacter List As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner One of the fifteen narrators. The second oldest son of the Bundren family. Darl is the first and most important narrator of the novel. He is sensitive, intuitive, and intelligent, and his monologues are some of the most eloquent; they are also a more intricate representation of the process of thought. Some of the interior monologues are fairly straightforward, but Darl's passages are stream-of-consciousness narrative. For much of the novel, he acts as a kind of narrative anchor. One of the challenges of the novel is the complete absence of an objective third-person narrator. Everything we know about these characters is told to us through the lens of a subjective speaker; because of Darl's sensitivity and isolation from the other characters, most readers come to rely heavily on his version of events. He is eloquent, intelligent, and isolated. He ends up being put in an asylum. One of the fifteen narrators. The youngest son of the family, and the second most frequently used narrator of the novel. Vardaman seems to teeter on the brink of mental collapse early on. His mother's death is extremely traumatizing, and his sensitive and imaginative nature is thrown out of balance by the event. He is at an age where he is becoming conscious of his status as a country boy (as opposed to a town boy), and he wonders why it should be so. He has a special bond with Darl. One of the fifteen narrators. Mother of the family. Gravely ill at the start of the novel, she dies early on. She has always wanted to be buried among her birth family in Jefferson. Once a schoolteacher, she married Anse and gave birth to four children by him: Cash, Darl, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. She also had a secret affair with Whitfield, resulting in the birth of Jewel. The transport of her body is the main event of the novel. One of.
Character AnalysisAnse is Addie’s husband and father to Cash, Darl, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. He narrates sections 9, 26, and 28.Anse is a lazy man. We know as much because most of his neighbors tell us so and because time and time again we see him acting this way. It is Cash and Jewel who almost drown in the river trying to get the wagon and coffin across, NOT Anse. It is Jewel who risks his life saving the coffin from the burning barn, NOT Anse. What makes us dislike Anse even more is that he tries to justify his laziness – by using God. In the first section he narrates, he argues that God never intended man to move much. If he had, he would have built him differently.In fact, Anse uses God or the supernatural to justify just about everything he doesn’t want to deal with. Addie is dying in part because he was too cheap to send for the doctor; yet he claims he’s suffering unjust bad luck. Cash’s leg is in such bad shape for the same reason, but Anse would rather pour cement over it than spend the money to have it properly fixed. Time and time again he resorts to lamenting his own bad luck instead of admitting his own bad choices.Worst of all, however, is Anse’s selfishness. He repeatedly puts his children’s dreams or needs on hold for himself. Jewel’s horse, Cash’s graphophone, even Dewey Dell’s abortion are all sacrificed on behalf of Anse. Of course, according to Anse, the ends justify the means: they have to get Addie to Jefferson to honor her last wishes. Does this sound like the Anse Bundren we know and dislike? Exactly. Throughout the novel, we suspect that Anse has ulterior motives for traveling to Jefferson, starting with the moment that Addie dies and he’s all, At last! Now I can get my new teeth! This is arguably the reason that he travels to Jefferson at all. Far from respecting Addie and her wishes, the journey largely disrespects her body as it decays.
Anse Bundren is an uneducated farmer whose selfish tendencies in his personality result in poor parenting and relations with others. Anse is extremely selfish as well as stubborn and throughout the book he butts heads with the other characters. For Anse his wife's death is just bad luck and he seems only to feel bad for himself, not for the loss of her. Even his intentions for her burial are laced with selfishness because he will acquire a new set of false teeth. Anse’s exaggerated traits of selfishness distance him from the other characters and others tend to dislike him because of his self-centered personality. Anse is even too stubborn to call a doctor for his own wife until it is obvious that she is desperate. Peabody says, “I knew that nobody but a luckless man could ever need a doctor in the face of a cyclone. And I knew that if it had finally occurred to Anse himself that he needed one, it was already too late.” (42) Peabody highlights Anse’s stubbornness in this passage and shows just how unwilling to adapt and help others he is. The other characters are bothered and annoyed by the grievances of Anse, and his neighbors such as Tull view Addies death and Vardaman’s actions as “A judgment on them. I see the hand of the lord upon this boy for Anse Bundren’s judgment and warning.” (72) Tull thinks that Anse deserved what he got and that the way he acted warranted the “judgment” passed by god.   Anse’s dialect is another part of his personality that is very unique. It is obvious from his speech that he is uneducated and “country”. This lack of education could partly be an explanation for his selfishness, because he has never had the exposure to things other than what he knows in his own small world. When death rocks Anse’s small world he is unfazed and continues his selfish behavior, even going so far as to bury Addie in Jefferson simply for his own personal gain.