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"AS I LAY DYING".   Term Paper ID:18972 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Existentialist themes & characters. Pessimism, anguish, isolation in family context.... More...

10 Pages / 2250 Words 1 sources, 9 Citations, MLA Format $40.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Existentialist themes & characters. Pessimism, anguish, isolation in family context. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine themes associated with existentialism that arise in As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context of As I Lay Dying as one in which themes of pessimism, anguish, and isolation predominate, and then to discuss, with particular reference to the impossibility of familial communication, how the characters in the story may be said to symbolize or enact ideas that are consistent with an existential world view. To discuss As I Lay Dying in terms of existentialist concerns of alienation and isolation is to discuss the whole of Faulkner's opus in those terms. Set in the milieu of a journey to Jefferson to bury the mother of a family, As I Lay Dying describes a condition of man in turmoil, powerlessness, Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The novel repeatedlysuggests that existence, effort, or physical composition is bound to betrayor disappoint. This fact also partly explains Vardaman's naive andof course mad connection of Addie's death and Peabody's presence at thehouse. In the background of Darl's entire existence--and of the ironiesassociated with the journey to Jefferson and the burning of the barn--isthe fact that his mother hardly felt affinity for either him or for Cash,and that, indeed, for Addie, her first two sons were symbols of alienation,the more wearying because she had borne them by a man who "did not knowthat he was dead" (173). The misfortune of the characters in As I Lay Dying is thatthey cannot break out of the cycle of estrangement. The individual enacts one life but experiencesquite a different one, and the difference increases in intensity to thedegree that the physical enactment of life is perverse, unsatisfying,random, lacking in anything approaching fulfillment. It also explains the almost grotesque manner in which eventsbetray intentions. Instead, each of Addie's survivors experience griefprivately--or, in Anse's case, as something of an afterthought. To putit another way, Addie's death is happening to him, not to her. This equally explains Addie's awareness that Anse is dead,her affair with Whitfield, and her decision to remain in the marriageanyway. . Seeking to placate orovercome the furious confusion of the present, they hold to an illusion ofpersonal and social pasts. Cash is also rather tolerant of the randomness of the universe,inasmuch as negative experience provides him with information that he canapply to the next case. It also explains why Addie does not try tomake any meaningful connection with Anse; he is dead, as she puts it, andso there is no reason to extend herself. And Jewel is, soAddie Bundren must be. There is minimal joy in a universe like this, at least as long as thecharacters see no way of dealing with it. New York: Random House, 1985.----------------------- 11 The past--the peculiar mythos ofthe family on one hand and the overriding ethos of the Old South on theother--offers deceptive sustenance. Something, in other words, willalways go wrong with life. But the reader gets the picture. Further, Anse glides over Addie's loss by focusing onerrands to be done, journey to be made, teeth to be bought--the minutiae ofexistence and the universes conspiracy to delay his wish-fulfillment list.Small wonder that Peabody sees Addie's death as minimal transformation:"She has been dead these ten days. I suppose it's having been a part ofAnse for so long that she cannot even make that change, if change it be. Because it is private, it is highly subjective, and forthe existentialists, subjectivity of personal existence is decisive. Well, in a truly random universe,it makes just as much sense for Anse to get another chance as to descendinto madness. And so when Cora Tull would tell me I was not a true mother, I would think how words to straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless, and how terribly doing goes along the earth, clinging to it, so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other; and that sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words (173- 4).In other words, one's mental experience of the world is dissociative withone's physical experience of the same world. It is Jewel, her favorite because not a Bundren,who saves Addie's coffin from the rushing river and from the fire. This is her experience of an alienated universe, whichin turn gives substance to the existential view of the world. But if I were notalone, everybody would know it. It is Jewel who physically enacts a postmortemaffiliation with Addie that, ironically, prolongs the family's agonizingtrek to bury the body. She prophetically tells Cora, who thinks she is referring to God, "He[Jewel] is my cross and he will be my salvation. Foranother view of Anse's remarriage is that, having shuffled off the mortalcoil of a woman with whom he has been unable to make a connection, he makesa choice for life, experiencing a rebirth of a kind, and in the processgetting another opportunity to endure. What the reader discovers as the characterstravel through this space of time is not merely that life isn't what itwas, but that it never was what it was. But during the individuals time alive, he lives a life that isprecarious. He tries, anxiously, to get a reaction fromhis siblings while Addie is dying, to no avail: "Jewel," I say, "do youknow that Addie Bundren is going to die? Faulkner's is a pitilesslymodern world. To be sure, Anse feels compelled tohonor his promise to bury Addie in Jefferson; but the action of the novelshows that the way the promise is kept is a comedy of unplanned errors, thefinal joke of the plot being Anse's being fitted with false teeth and a newwife. The irony ofDewey Dell's situation is that, in the single human experience that unitesthe individual with the other, she feels isolated. Works CitedFaulkner, William. Set in the milieu of a journey to Jefferson to bury themother of a family, As I Lay Dying describes a condition of man in turmoil,powerlessness, isolation, increased and aggravated by the character oftheir human relationships--rarely simple and unaffected, often eccentric,sometimes depraved, nearly always compelling. Thus almost any strangerpassing along the road can look inside to see what's going on. Even though I have laid down my life, he willsave me" (168). He will save me from thewater and from the fire. Dr. Peabody suspects reflection forDr. Ican remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon ofthe body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind--and that ofthe minds of the ones who suffer the bereavement" (43-4). There is theobvious anguish within the family associated with the death of AddieBundren, but that anguish is never felt collectively, within the familyunit as such. If the Bundrens had any sense of what they were missing or that theirexperience of a bleak sense of vague despair were symptomatic of a problemthe existentialists say is universal, then As I Lay Dying might beconsidered as a novel with a tragic pattern. There is only the highlypersonal experience of it, the more personal because its authentic natureremains hidden from everyone else. And perhaps Addie should be overlooked. This, in turn, is a metaphor for the experience of all life. The doctor came to visit, and Addie died; therefore, the doctormust have killed Addie. The theme of alienation is summed up in Addie's chapter, where theexpression of psychic isolation, the more terrible for its beingexperienced in a family circle, is made in terms of the anguish of lifethat is felt, both independent of and dependent on the actions that definethe everyday experience of life. A sense of isolation is emphasized throughout the book. The purpose of this research is to examine themes associated withexistentialism that arise in As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner. Of the family, only Darl has anything approaching insight into thecondition of the Bundren family, and it is a vicious irony that it is he(and not the more deserving Vardaman) who is dubbed by society as theinsane member of the family. The planof the research will be to set forth the context of As I Lay Dying as onein which themes of pessimism, anguish, and isolation predominate, and thento discuss, with particular reference to the impossibility of familialcommunication, how the characters in the story may be said to symbolize orenact ideas that are consistent with an existential world view. Peabody, who arrives at Anse's badly located farm that Anse, behavingas the independent, misanthropic social loner, is only vaguely aware that aphysician is needed. Addie recalls, hearing that the whole of life is arehearsal for death. Yet there is a subtle irony at work here becausethe house is also located next to a public road. Jewelis Addie's single experience of joy in life, but it is not an unqualifiedjoy. 193 . On the other hand, Cash attempts toreconcile disparate psychological experience by some means; that his methodis to employ a super-rationality rather than a meaningful emotionalresponse is perhaps secondary to the fact that at least he is making aneffort to deal with his lot. The failure of the wagon wheel that delays the returnof Cash and Darl before Addie dies; the drifting of the coffin on thewater, Jewel's dramatic rescue of the coffin from the fire, the spectacleof the buzzards' following the increasingly stinking coffin, the abortionof Dewey Dell that turns into a sordid sexual adventure, the placing ofCash's infected leg in cement that hardens so much that it requires asledgehammer to break, the apparently prideful refusal of Anse to acceptany help from others where the burial is concerned--these incongruousevents and images would be savagely funny if they were not such patheticevidence of a group of people who are emotionally illiterate, if notdysfunctional, The ultimate lesson of experiences like these is that every lifelesson is penultimate and that reality itself is evanescent, passingunderstanding. Only when, in psychic desperation, he torches the barn of Mr.Gillespie does Darl get something like an acknowledgment from the rest ofthe family that Addie's death has taken on the attributes of significantlife-death experience for the family on one hand, and degenerated into aburlesque of burial ritual on the other. This makesthe Bundrens quite separate from the rest of the world but at the same timevulnerable to it; Anse experiences this fact as just one more piece of badluck that marks his life. Isolation in the midst of familial togetherness is of particular notein the circumstances of Addie's death. Cash and Darl were simplyunwanted sons. Such life lessons as are learned are also grotesqueand physically messy, as the smell of Addie's body, the undoubted uglinessof Anse's toothless face, the persistent rain, Dewey Dell's scummypregnancy, and Cash's gangrenous leg show. It isa radical freedom of individual will and of action, and this is reflectedthroughout As I Lay Dying. In consequence, theindividual who experiences such dissociation is alienated not only from theworld but from himself. But evasion and persistent denial ofauthentic self-hood of Faulkner's characters serve to increase their guiltand sense of isolation. And he could do so much for me, and then Iwould not be alone. Nor is anyone able to explain away Vardaman'sconfusion, for Vardaman is incapable of explaining that he is confused. It was not that I could think of myself as no longer unvirgin, because I was three now . It is abitter irony that the Bundrens for the most part have no sense of themeaning of isolation behind experience of it, only the experience itself.Anse, for example, experiences the knowledge of Addie's impending death asjust one more piece of ill-timed bad luck; if Addie weren't dying and Ansedidn't have to pay for the funeral or get a load of lumber to a customer,he could get his "mouth fixed where I could eat God's own victuals as a manshould, and her hale and well as ere a woman in the land until that day.Got to pay for being put to the need of that three dollars" (37). Addie has defined amiserably solitary psychic existence for herself. Similarly, when the Bundrens start the journeyto Jefferson, it becomes clear that they are back-country folk, lackingknowledge of town life or for that matter basic social skills. As I Lay Dying. The ironies for Darl multiply.For one thing, it is this act of psychic desperation, an attempt to cut thecord forever and go on to a new mode of life that causes Anse to have himcommitted to an asylum. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself forsleep in a strange room" (8 -1). Another theme of existentialism is that of anguish. Vardaman was an additionalatonement to make up the margin of deprivation that Addie has decided Anseexperienced in being deceived of her relationship with Whitfield. But the alienation isall that she feels. The same can be said of DeweyDell, whose grief for her mother is mixed with her dread of being an unwedmother who will have to cope with a baby alone: "If I could just feel it,it would be different, because I would not be alone. It is Addie's fate, finally, to be overlooked. His experience ofAddie's death is one of vague unease and alienation, an attribute that isconsistent with the existential world view. Theprivate experience of loss, however, is an aspect of the existential way oflooking at things. Or can they? Nor does she make a connectionwith any of her children, except perhaps Jewel. Anse'suniverse is in existential disarray, and if it's his not soon-to-be-latewife's fault, well, it's certainly not Anse's, either. He will be more careful in his balancing ofcoffins on a wagon in the river; he will pay more attention to the care ofhis limbs; he will pay more attention to the new experiences that arelikely to be available from the "graphophone." Despite Cash's apparent ability to come to terms with theunattractive elements of reality, however, alienation emerges as thedominant theme in As I Lay Dying because the only sure knowledge anycharacter has is of isolation and death. To discuss As I Lay Dying in terms of existentialist concerns ofalienation and isolation is to discuss the whole of Faulkner's opus inthose terms. In As I LayDying, it comes in several waves and on several levels. An obvious element of alienation arises from the fact that theBundrens live "in the country," isolated not only from townfolk but fromtheir nearest neighbors. She would like to feelindependent, which is solitude without alienation. The novelis not told in a linear narrative form but is revealed by means of whatmight be called multiple first-person accounts of incidents and feelings.Chapters are titled according as they reflect the point of view of thefirst-person narrator, and, from the point of view of the means by whichthe pattern of ideas emerges, the effect is that the first-person-limitedtechnique limits the insight of the narrator to that of personalidiosyncrasy. They arenever part of the world in which they live, experiencing only hostility andstrangeness from it. Death, indeed, acts as the final separation ofthe individual from the world and returns the individual to a unity withthe cosmos. All ofthis occurs, by the way, between Addie and the universe. . Dewey Dell was the daughter of Anse's that Addie had in aprivate atonement for the love child Jewel. In the days ofwaiting for Addie to die, knowing that Addie's coffin will be placed on thewagon for the trip to Jefferson, Darl reflects on the nature of hisexistence as a living being versus Addie's as a being no longer living.Meanwhile, the character of his reflection is that the quality of life,particularly in the face of death, is uncertain: "Yet the wagon is,because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. One obvious indicator of the sense of isolation that pervades As ILay Dying is the presence of so many different points of view. This explains why Addie does notchallenge Cora, who misreads the meaning behind the assertion that Addie isnot really a fit mother (174). There is inAddie's life no acknowledged significant other. But Faulkner's universe isanything but patterned and ordered. But in radical human freedom there is a paradox, a painful, chronicfeeling of fear, alienation, and dread that is rarely, if ever, conquered.Every moment of awareness is a moment of confrontation with terror.Believe, think, feel what he may, man will inevitably retreat into theawesome realization that life is meaningless, pointless, a betrayal of thenotion of life. Then I could be all right alone" (58-9). Addie Bundren is going to die?"(4 ). This is why he thinks in objective terms, interms of mathematical precision, balance, the details of the coffin, and soon. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.