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As I Lay Dying Death Analysis

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The novel As I Lay Dying merges life and death into one long journey of the mind and of the foot. Faulkner aligns each of the character’s word choice with the theme that death is the most powerful force on life in that when people are immediately confronted with it, it forces them to reason with existence. The tone of the novel is representative of this reflection of life in terms of death- some hopeful that the afterlife is a better place, some sure of themselves in seemingly logical thinking, and some utterly confused and lost. In addition, the imagery and metaphors within much of the character’s narration serve as a platform for the characters to enhance their thoughts. Addie Bundren’s death takes a toll on everyone depicted in the novel; …show more content…

Cora Tull often puts herself in a state of mind that is higher than other people simply because of her connection with God. It is concluded through her that one must live their lives well to be in a better place after death. Upon Addie’s death, she claims the death and the children’s strange reactions are a “judgement on Anse Bundren,” and that it may be God recognizing his sin. This only makes Cora comfort herself further. Her belief in the afterlife as a reward to her good-doings on earth dictates her existence. She speaks with a tone of higher-being, attributing everything to God and in a way looking down on those who do not. This rationale is contradicted through Addie’s extremely powerful monologue about the life simply being a process to prepare for staying dead. Her chapter is written with a depressed and hopeless tone, contributing to her isolated thoughts. “And then I could get ready to die,” Addie says after having two more children just to “give” to her husband. The emotional and life changing event of childbirth is materialized in her stream of consciousness, and so are words of love and

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With the exception of Anse, the end of As I Lay Dying leaves all of the Bundrens worse for wear. Darl has been exiled because he is believed to be insane. Similarly, the skin has to be removed from Cash’s leg, Jewel has lost his horse and his last connection to the family, Vardaman is more confused than ever, and Dewey Dell remains pregnant. Despite all of this, Anse’s condition is better than it has ever been. He has purchased teeth, has visited a barbershop, and has come out of all of this with a new wife.

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680 Words | 3 Pages

He is the only child who has all of Addie Bundren’s affection, as a result of this; he is envied by Darl and pushed away by Anse. Addie Bundren adored Jewel because he was the only child who did not belong to her wretched husband Anse. Jewel was her love child, she cared for him more than she did for her other children and even breast-fed him longer than she did with Cash and Darl. However, Addie’s love was not enough to shroud Jewel from Anse’s hate and Darl’s envy, and eventually Jewel becomes a hardened, distant

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860 Words | 4 Pages

Ahmed 1 Abulasrar Ahmed Professor Schnur Eng 170W 26 May 2018 Relationship in Salvage the Bone sand As I Lay Dying In Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Salvage the Bones, depicts the Batiste family, a poor, black family in southern Mississippi living in a place called the pit by the family members. The pit is reflective of the Batiste family’s life which is dysfunctional and deplorable. In addition, William Faulker’s novel, As I Lay Dying , he also manifests a dysfunctional family.

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754 Words | 4 Pages

The constant death that encircles Janie is a persistent reminder that no one can defend against their finite lifespan, so instead, death should not be feared, or fought in order for new beginnings to arise. The motif of death relates to the book as a whole because both Tea Cake and Jody fear death and try to avoid it, often emotionally and physically harming Janie to their dying breath. A fear of death causes a person to live a life void of true freedom and peace. As Janie’s grandmother nears death she states, “[The] angel [with the] sword is [going to] stop by here”(15).

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305 Words | 2 Pages

Unlike most novels, identifying a single main character in As I Lay Dying is difficult, since the novel does not have a single narrator and follows an entire family’s journey. The novel surrounds mainly seven characters: Addie, Anse, Cash, Jewel, Dewey Dell, Darl and Vardaman Bundren. Each of these character narrates several sections in the novel, and all show important information and accounts of what happens. The entire family not only advances the main plot of burying Addie, but has their own subplots that are equally if not more important to them. For example, Dewey Dell not only travels with the family to bury Addie, but along the way seeks out a doctor to help her get an abortion.

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418 Words | 2 Pages

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is about the Bundren family of six on their journey to Jackson to bury the matriarch of the family, Addie Bundren. The family consists of Anse Bundren, the patriarch of the family, Cash, the oldest son who makes Addie’s coffin, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. Faulkner writes this novel with fifteen different viewpoints, each chapter narrated by one character, including Addie, who expresses her thoughts after her death. The characters’ chapters, except for Darl’s, are all jumbled and hard to read due to the absence of an objective narrator. Instead of being presented with a framework of events, the jumble of images, memories, and unexplained allusions by the alternating narrators, force the readers to take the pieces each character gives

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1616 Words | 7 Pages

Addie, the deathly ill mother, takes part in many ironic situations which accentuate the novel's dark humor. For example, she looks forward to dying instead of reflecting on good memories or thinking about her family. This is seen when she

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560 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel, As I lay dying by William Faulkner, the Bundren family go through a mental journey of loss and death of their mother later to go on a physical journey to bury their mother. To the conclusion of any novel, many have an opinion on what is much happy or not a happy ending. In the case of the ending to As I lay dying, include no real burial of how the mother wanted, which was the point of the physical journey in the first place, secrets comes out, one of the five the siblings gets taken away, and many are left with unfinished business, was not a happy at all for most of the characters. The novel is narrated by 15 characters that are not all part of the Bundren family but in some way connected.

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713 Words | 3 Pages

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner In the excerpt from William Faulkner’s Southern novel, As I Lay Dying the author structures his novel through the use of literary features such as allusion, similes a belittling yet humorous tone, concrete imagery and a stream of consciousness style in the passage. Faulkner throughout the passage not only describes Cash’s reserved character and Darls perspective imagination but he also foreshadows the struggle the Bundren’s will go through as they prepare to go on the journey of burying Addie. First, Faulkner has the speaker Darl create a gloomy mood by using similes to display the ambiance in the room. Then Faulkner alludes to the bible and uses concrete imagery to illustrate both the surroundings and Cash’s concentration and determination as he makes his mother’s coffin.

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1216 Words | 5 Pages

Addie’s ideas are very raw, so that the reader understands that what Addie says is an accurate representation of how she feels. In this particular interior monologue, Addie explains the stress that other characters put on her, which contributes to the reason why she chooses to stay away from others. The interior monologue shows that Anse affected Addie’s self-image dramatically, because of Addie’s inability to remember life before him, “The shape of my body where I used to be a virgin is in the shape of a ” (173). The blank represents Addie “drawing a blank” or forgetting what life used to be like when she was still a

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764 Words | 4 Pages

William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying follows the Bundren family on a journey while it explores the subject of heroism and discusses its subjectivity. The family travels on an expedition to bury Addie, the deceased mother of the protagonist, Darl Bundren, and his siblings. As days continue to pass, however, the journey seemed interminable. During the adventure, the family takes a stop at Gillespie’s barn for the evening. While they rest Darl sets the barn, in which the coffin sits, ablaze.

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721 Words | 3 Pages

She is the one female character that challenges the standard of a southern, rural woman. Unlike Cora she isn’t obedient to her husband nor God. She cheated on her husband, Anse, with a minister and isn’t sexually satisfied by Anse. Addie isn’t happy with the traditional way of life of having a husband and kids, “So I took Anse. And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible…”

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690 Words | 3 Pages

Similarly, in As I Lay Dying, Addie’s death could have brought her family together to complete the task of bringing her body to Jefferson. In this way, this task distracted them from focusing solely on the death. While each member of the Bundren family already had their own issues to focus on (Anse had his new teeth to keep him going, Dewey Dell was focused on her unmarried pregnancy), the moving of Addie’s coffin to Jefferson caused a distraction from her death, the same kind of distraction Stevens urged readers to find after a

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817 Words | 4 Pages

The bystander effect is a concept in social psychology which refers to a phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to help a person in need, as the group of people present is greater. Throughout years of research, researchers found that other factors (in addition to the number of people present) are very influential in determining a person 's helping (such as: time constraints, different levels of emergencies, degree of responsibility felt, cultural background, fear of legal consequences and more). One famous case in 1968 garnered interest amongst psychologists which led to a series of social experiments and gave the bystander effect a second name- "the Genovese Syndrome".

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Accordingly to realist theory the judges are deciding cases on the facts of each particular case considering various psychological and sociological factors. The majority of lawyers now recognize that judges are taking into account also political implications of legal rules and decisions. In theory this means that the same profile cases can have various outcomes and be decided differently even when the judges are being not mistaken, reasonable and honest. This thus explains why legal realism theory concentrates so much on the indeterminacy of law.

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