Darl Bundren Family In As I Lay Dying

Throughout As I Lay Dying, it is evident that Darl Bundren has an advanced understanding of the members of his family. Given Darl’s almost omniscient knowledge of matters his siblings and parents would rather keep hidden, the quote explains how fortunate it is that the Bundren family’s shameful secrets have been buried. Darl knows that the things he knows about his family members could potentially be very hurtful to them and those around them, which is why he never tells; because the truth is hidden, it cannot hurt anyone. The most potentially damaging thing that Darl knows is his father’s dishonesty. Darl knows that Anse’s intentions are self-serving, and that his goal was not to fulfill Addie’s wish to be buried in Jefferson, but rather to remarry and buy a new set of teeth. Darl having knowledge of his intentions would explain his multiple attempts to rid them of his mother’s body: the first, when he let her float away on the river (136), and the second, when he set fire to the barn and cried because Jewel saved the coffin (208). Darl knows that Anse

Darl knows that Jewel is not Anse’s son, but rather, the result of an affair between Addie and Whitfield. Darl refers to it in many ways, such as pointing out Jewel’s height difference: “He is a head taller than any of the rest of us, always was” (16). Darl also indicates more directly that his mother had something to hide regarding Jewel: “And that may have been when I first found it out, that Addie Bundren should be hiding anything she did” (115). Darl says that because she deceived her husband and family by having the affair, she had to “act the deceit” (115), by loving Jewel. Darl never reveals Jewel’s illegitimacy, because he knows how damning this could be to his mother’s memory. He also knows, despite their differences, that Jewel would be deeply hurt if he found out something so shameful about his beloved