As I Lay Dying Gender Roles Essay

William Faulkner accentuates the significance of the different perspectives in As I Lay Dying by utilizing the novel to hear all the characters views. A majority of the views of the characters are built by where they conform into society. Society's effect on the characters is displayed through gender influence and how they are perceived based on their gender. By correlating the women’s outlook on sexuality and male’s perspective on women sexuality, Faulkner discloses his impressions of gender in his era. Faulkner highlights the restricted roles women are unwilling to complete and the contrasting principles for sexuality they confront indicates the difficulties of women and in proper sequence, signifies that the gender roles need a sense of equality. In the novel, women seem to live lives that are not only harder, but also subordinate and limited because of women’s specific roles, Dewey Dell’s abortion response and Anse’s method and thoughts of a relationship.

As Anse proposes, women were identified as having two jobs: have children and tend to their husbands. Women were classified to be inferior to men and envisioned to live a life of a generic wife. Although Cora Tull complies to the societal anticipations of a genuine and spiritual wife, Addie Bundren and Dewey Dell disregard them. Cora gives her belief on women’s roles by stating, “A woman’s place is with her husband and children, alive or dead. Would you expect me to want to go back to Alabama and leave you and the girls when my time comes, that I left of my own will to cast my lot with yours for better and worse, until death and after?” (Faulkner 23). As a result, Addie and Dewey Dell are unhappy and have yet to notice the meaning in her life. In this situation, women's advocacy for change created something they have always wanted to