Darl In William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

Darl plays a major role in the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. He is the second oldest in the Burden family and he also appears to be the most logical of the family. Darl is a tortured yet intelligent young man and throughout the novel, his intelligence, ability, and relationship with his mother affected his relationship with the rest of the family as well as his goals throughout the novel. An important thing to mention about Darl is that he seems clairvoyant. There are two pieces of evidence to support this idea. One of these is that he can accurately depict what is going somewhere else. He was able to describe Addie’s death flawlessly even though he wasn’t actually present for her death. Darl also knows things that he shouldn’t know about without first being told. He

Addie only wanted to have one child which would have been Cash. However, she is unhappy about the fact that she had to have Darl too and she hates Anse for this. Jewel is not Anse’s son. Jewel’s real father is Minister Whitfield, who Addie had an affair with. She loved Jewel because it made her feel as if he was her own child while the other children belonged to Anse. The only reason Addie had the two other children is so that she could repay Anse for her cheating. Jewel doesn’t openly express his love for his mother. Instead, Jewel projects his love onto his own horse. Hence Darl’s statement “Jewel’s mother is a horse.” However, Darl constantly expresses his love for her. This doesn’t matter to Addie though. Jewel is her favorite child despite the affection she receives from Darl. After calling his own mother a fish and realizing that Jewel’s mother is a horse, Vardaman asks “Then what is your ma, Darl?” Darl responds with “I haven’t got ere one.” This correlates to the fact that Addie did not demonstrate her love onto Darl. So just as Darl teases Jewel for being fatherless, Darl is tormented by the fact that he is