Darl burns the barn to free his mother’s body from the injustice that Anse selfishly keeps going. Jewel refuses to give this to his mother because his love blinds him from the logic. He instead saves her reeking, decaying corpse. The Bundrens declare Darl insane. Not because any member of the family thinks him insane, but because of their own selfishness. The Bundrens send Darl to the Jackson Insane Asylum, because as Cash says, “It was either send him to Jackson, or have Gillespie sue us” (W. W. Norton & Company 782). Cash recognizes while waiting for the train to take Darl to the asylum that: “it is better for him because this world is not his world; this life is not his life” (W. W. Norton & Company 793). Darl is a man who cannot fit the life he was born into and so Cash rationalizes that the asylum is a better place for him. Darl recognized as odd by others. Sending him to the asylum is easy. Anse and Cash declare …show more content…
Walter J. Slatoff is quoted in “As I Lay Dying an Ironic Quest” by Elizabeth M. Kerr saying:
One is uncertain about the qualities of some of the important characters and about how to feel toward them; one is puzzled by the meanings of many of the events; one is far from sure what the book is chiefly about, and above all one is uncertain to what extent one has been watching an epic or tragedy or farce (Kerr).
The reader is left without meaning because there is no meaning to be found. Faulkner chose to write in stream of consciousness from different points of view. Because there is not one character who finds meaning or whose journey left the reader with finding any meaning. None of the family members learning anything from their journey and are not better people because of it. There is not meaning to what