Harrison Smith 11/10/17 Period 2 As I Lay Dying, Actions Versus Words Addie Bundren believes that words are not important, and that unless acted upon they are meaningless. Contrary to this, William Faulkner believes that words can carry a great meaning. Faulkner chooses his words very carefully in order to squeeze the most meaning out of them. For example the character Anse, Anse is the father of a majority of the bundren family (excluding Jewel), and is portrayed as a very selfish and lazy man. At some point, Anse had become very ill from too much heat. Anse uses his past illness as a scapegoat for his apparent laziness, Dewey dell says “Pa dassent sweat because he will catch his death from the sickness”. Within the quotes from Dewey Dell in particular we see a choice of words that not only matches the way the character speaks, but also how she feels and thinks. For example, the same quote could be written, father does not sweat because he will die from his sickness. Without Faulkner’s beautiful word choice the story would lose half its meaning. …show more content…
In Addie’s chapter she recounts her days as a schoolteacher, reinforcing the point that words simply cannot imitate the severity of actions. Faulkner shows us Addie giving up on language, resorting to physical punishment. Addie clearly likes the understanding she can achieve by using actions over words as she says, “I look forward to the times when they faulted, so I could whip them” or “now you are aware of me”. Addie continues to show her discontent with words by relating people talking to spiders dangling from their webs, never