As I Lay Dying Dal Bundren Character Analysis

In the novel As I Lay Dying by WIlliam Faulkner, Darl Bundren is considered to be the protagonist. However, this title is subjective, as the Bundren family would consider Darl as the antagonist of the novel. Darl’s abilities to be completely lucid and to acquire information telepathically help the reader understand what is going on. On the other hand, the Bundren family despises Darl for being knowledgeable of things that they do not want to know, for example, Dewey Dell’s pregnancy and Jewel’s illegitimacy. The Bundren family prizes treachery and secrecy rather than facing the truth, making Darl a traitor. As Darl progressively becomes lucid through his detachment, his family defies the principle they once held so high - family - and betray

In his final chapter, Darl desperately attempts to grasp for this frame of reference that has been denied to him but loses his lucidity in the attempt

Darl continues to desperately hold on to his family even after their betrayal. Family had always been an important theme to the Bundren family, but at this point in the novel, Darl is the only family member who has not abandoned their once shared values. When Darl looks at the men taking him to the insane asylum, he sees his brothers: “Their necks were shaved to a hairline, as though the recent and simultaneous barbers had a chalk-line like Cash’s” (pg. 253). After one learns of his or her family’s treachery, a typical reaction would be intense rage or sorrow. However, even as Darl travelling to an insane asylum, he is still trying to assert his family as a frame of

His family was the source of his lucidity, and ironically, his family betrayed him because of the abundant lucidity he once possessed. Without them, Darl’s clarity is taken away from him: “The wagon...looks no different from a hundred other wagons there; Jewel standing beside it and looking up the street like any other man in town that day…” (254). The wagon served as the scene of some of the most important events to ever occur in Darl’s life, yet it now has no relevance to him. His connection to the wagon, to his family, and to his world are gone because his frame of reference to understanding the world has been destroyed. He can no longer identify with these connections to his family anymore, and without this source of lucidity, he lacks clarity. As the monologue comes to a close, Darl says, “Our brother Darl in a cage in Jackson where, his grimed hands lying light in the quiet interstices, looking out he foams” (pg. 254). Darl’s use of the third person and the strange syntax emphasize his total detachment and loss of understanding of the world. He no longer has any clarity in any matter, not even in himself. He also attempts to channel Vardaman, who was constantly concerned about his relationships and his place in his family. Like Vardaman, Darl struggles to understand his own place in his family, but it is obvious there is no longer a place for