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Character Analysis Of Darl In Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

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There are many reasons to support whether or not Darl is sane or insane, however there are more to support the fact that he is indeed sane. In fact, Darl may be the only sane member of the Bundren family. Through Darl’s actions and internal monologues readers are able to come to the conclusion that he is sane. He is the only character in the book that seems to have many different levels of consciousness which allows him to interpret the feelings and hidden agendas of the other family members. Darl uses his omniscience to poetically analyze everyone and everything around him and to taunt other members of the family for his own pleasure. In As I Lay Dying Faulkner uses a series of internal monologues to express the effectiveness or the lack of …show more content…

He started writing As I Lay Dying the day after the stock market crash of 1929. This story takes place in the southern part of the United States often referred to as “the south.” Faulkner was a poor man from the south. The south has consisted of poor farmers for years. The south has always had a strict moral code based on their beliefs. The poor people of the south generally were not very educated. Faulkner displays this in As I Lay Dying. The religion of the time was Christianity, more specifically Southern Baptist. They believed that sex was strictly for marriage. This is why Addie felt guilty for Jewel being from an affair and gave Anse two more children as she felt she owed him, but never told him the truth. Dewey Dell also gets pregnant without being married and is afraid of what her family will think of her, so she tries to secretly get an abortion before they find out. Abortions are also not accepted by society at this time. The economic standing of the southern farmers and religious views of the time play a part in Faulkner’s writing of this story. The modern film adaption of As I lay Dying by James Franco takes on the many challenges that making a movie on this unique novel brings. First of all, the story has no real narrator. There are 15 different narrators. This presents a difficult challenge in bringing a text to life. At times in the movie there is a split screen to represent the different viewpoints of the …show more content…

Sean K. Kelly in his article states that Walter Slatoff says "finished work becomes, in a sense, the record of a process, the record of the artist's struggle with his materials, rather than a record of his victory over materials." This is exactly what As I Lay Dying is. One of, if not the best example of this struggle with an artist’s medium is on page 88. Faulkner actually inserts a picture of a coffin to show the clock shape. This shows the ineffectiveness of words, because without that picture most readers would be unable to accurately picture the coffin in their head by just reading “clock-shape.” Faulkner realizes this and decides to include this picture. This is a common theme and problem in all literature. William Rodney Allen says “The problems of the function of language is a theme common to modern writers: T. S. Eliot's devotion to concreteness in poetry and Ernest Hemingway's attacks on the emptiness of abstract terms come readily to mind.” An example of Faulkner using a character to display their own inability to express their thoughts is the shortest chapter of the novel narrated by Vardaman. This chapter consists of one sentence, “My mother is a fish” (84). Vardaman caught a fish earlier in the story and it died. In his eyes the fish was now “not-fish.” When his

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With the greatest number of monologues, Darl acts as a surrogate for Faulkner. His intuitive ability to penetrate the minds of others and see through their facades enables him to provide the most objective, however blunt, commentary. His sanity becomes questioned more as the novel progresses, but he still labors as a reliable narrator in how he forces his family members to see real situations. Darl’s

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876 Words | 4 Pages

When Darl burned down the barn, the Bundrens were only asking themselves one question, “Why?”. Darl had his reasons, but nobody could see those reasons, so in their perspective there was no reason for Darl to burn down the barn, this leads to people believing that he has something else going on in his mind. It would also seem easy to let Darl be taken away, since he knew everyone's secrets that nobody else wanted them to know, taking Darl away would keep those secrets hidden. When the novel wraps up the story, the last we see of Darl is of him laughing, laughing at the situation he is in, when thinking about it at first you can see why people might also think this is a sign of a mental insanity. Though yet again his perception has only led him to believe that his situation was odd because he couldn’t see himself in this situation.

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Faulkner composites a family that is far away from perfect, instead the family members each face a tribulation that connects to the death their mother. With the supporting passages Faulkner demonstrates how the novel, As I Lay Dying fulfill his own vision of the writer’s duty, which is to express the problems by appealing to pathos, introducing relatable problems, and discussing family dynamics. Faulkner fulfills the writer’s duty by introducing problems the writers can relate to. Faulkner inspires readers to write about, “problems of the human heart... with itself which can make good writing...because that is only worth the sweat agony” (Faulkner 14-15).

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In Darl’s excerpt from As I Lay Dying, Darl’s description of the events and the people surrounding the death of Addie seem quite accurate. Darl chooses to include in his excerpt Jewel’s walk and his drinking from the gourd as well as Cash’s building of Addie’s coffin. Darl seems to the most reliable narrator simply because he describes the scene and what others are doing rather than focusing on his own thoughts or actions. From Darl’s excerpt, reader can tell that others are affected and involved in the passing of Addie. Unlike Darl, Cash’s excerpt is very a methodical list of how to make a coffin.

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Hawthorne once said, “Deception may give us what we want for the present, but will later take it away in the end.” Thus being said, it is inevitable to portray the actions of deception toward others. Many adolescents today seek pleasure in this particular behavior. The continuous cycle occurs in asking oneself, “Why do we put others down in order to put ourselves up?” In the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, selfishness and intentional dishonesty is intensely demonstrated throughout the characters.

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Furthermore, he begins to speak of a memory of his mother which turns out to be mostly about Jewel. Darl appears to have a jealousy issue regarding Jewel; and, in turn, is consumed by it so much so that he does not have the ability to mourn his mother’s death. By investigating the narrative by Darl, it is repeatedly seen that the subject matter is usually focused on Jewel. For example, Darl speaks of his mother bending the rules

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As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner follows the Bundren family on their arduous journey to fulfill their dying mother's wish: to be buried with her family. Faulkner utilizes fifteen narrators, including Vardaman, the confused child, Addie, the dying mother, and objective characters such as the Tull family, to recount the details of the family's quest. Although death is a meaningful and somber topic, Faulkner reveals his opinion that death is an escape from the difficulties of life. Despite this grim subject matter, Faulkner uses irony and humor to effectively turn the novel into a dark comedy. Faulkner illustrates this dark humor through Addie's anticipation of her death, Anse's blatant ignorance toward his dying wife, and Vardaman's amusing confusion about death.

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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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In the novel, As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner shapes the plot based on the looming presence of the absentee protagonist, Addie Bundren. The reader’s knowledge of Addie accumulates through the monologues of other characters, so the reader gains only bits and pieces of Addie’s character. However, after her death, the reader obtains a better understanding of Addie’s voice through her own monologue and as a result, is characterized as cold and selfish. Through the use of similes and interior monologue, Faulkner shows Addie’s tendency to detach herself from the people in her life, which relates to the novel’s overall theme of solitude as Addie adheres to her father’s philosophy that the reason for living is no more than “to get ready to stay dead a long time” (169).

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At a glance, Darl’s name appears as chapter titles with diminished frequency as the Bundrens’ Journey to Jefferson comes to an end. During said journey his family has suffered much: Starting from losing their mother, the Bundrens are in a confused and hurt mental state. His younger sister Dewey Dell, without the guidance of a mother, became pregnant. Not to mention how they have to travel extra miles on mule wagons trying to avoid a flooding river yet still fail, which resulted in Cash being seriously hurt. All these stressful events contributed to Darl’s internal pressure and lack of agency for there is nothing Darl can do to change his external reality.

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764 Words | 4 Pages

Darl’s actions, although a crime, were done for a heroic reason; to end the extensive quest. He endangers himself to allow Addie to rest peacefully after the plethora of merciless obstacles they have

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From the Suffragette movement of the early 20th century to modern day Women’s Marches, it is evident that women have continuously fought against the expectations and limitations placed on them by society. Throughout William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, female characters also grapple with gender standards, and either abide by or reject them. Characters such as Dewey Dell and Cora Tull follow female expectations since Dewey Dell allows men to control her and Cora fulfills the expected role of being a caretaker for her husband and children. Addie Bundren meanwhile does not obey societal expectations, which is apparent since she has her own desires and rejects the homemaker role given to women during this time.

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2627 Words | 11 Pages

Jewel can be seen as getting angry at the fact that Darl had already accepted the fact that Addie was dead and that he still cannot accept this fact. Throught the scene, Jewel’s dialogue is largely angry and directed at his family, as he says things like “‘Shut up, Darl’” and “‘Shut your

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436 Words | 2 Pages

This type of writing is Porter using the stream of consciousness to exploit Granny’s delusive state. Even more damning, Porter writes at the end that Granny prayed for a sign, but nothing came and then she died. This is another example of hopelessness. In comparison, Faulkner’s story also conveys the same theme. In his story “Rose for Emily,” he begins the story with Emily’s death.

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By using unconventional plot structure, Faulkner has created a complex method of storytelling to explore the moral shortcomings of Southern values and ethics during the American Civil War through the means of Emily, a character who is socially and mentally trapped in the old

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