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"AS I LAY DYING".   Term Paper ID:21776 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Character analysis of Addie as strong woman holding family together.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Character analysis of Addie as strong woman holding family together. Paper Introduction: In the novel As I Lay Dying, the central character is the dying matriarch of the Bundren clan, and she is presented as the center of the life of the family in a number of different ways. She represents Faulkner's view of how strong women hold a family together. Albert J. Guerard sees Faulkner as at least partially a misogynist (Guerard 69), but Faulkner's Addie, for instance, is not painted so darkly and is both appealing and repellant at the same time. The fragmented technique of the book, with multiple points of view represented, only emphasizes how central Addie is, since she is the primary issue for every member of her family. Her death and burial marks a turning point for the family as a group and for every member of the family as an individual, and they reflect on what she means to them. In addition, Faulkner includes a number of narrators who are not 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 family carries the mother from one town to the next even as shedecays and begins to offend passers-by, another evidence of her influenceon the external world after death as before. Always she had searched for a relation with people by which to impress her will; at no point did her energy find full release. Cash, the accepted son, . . Vickery finds that Faulkner's women often have much in commonwith other non-white-dominant-males in society: Women, children, and Negroes are not necessarily more limited in mental capacity than other people, but they are more interested, according to Faulkner, in practical affairs and in the non-verbal world of experience (Vickery 244).This is seen in Addie as she considers life after the birth of Cash: That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit what they are trying to say at. She is a teacher who hates herstudents, and her hatred of them shows a hatred of herself at the sametime. Indeed, Faulkner's novel shows that oneway of developing this broader sense is through literature, which isdedicated to taking the reader into minds other than his or her own. He does not influence the family as Addie didand does nothing to hold them together as was her goal throughout her life. It also occurs after Addiehas died, which again emphasizes her power as center of the family evenafter her death. New York: Oxford, 1976.Howe, Irving. . Her speech is full of the phrases and rhythms of rural Southern religion, her life is largely shaped according to its verbal formulas, and her response to both individuals and situations is automatically dictated by it (Tuck 39). Marriage is a way out of one type of life,but it offers a different sort of life with its own difficulties: So I took Anse. Addiewants people to know she is alive. William Faulkner. As she faces death, Addie remembers her youth and both the hope sheonce had and the loss of that hope as she faced the reality of her life: Dying, Addie remembers her youth. Her description of the actshows that she has taken action, that she has reached out and taken Anse asone would grab an opportunity. . The way Addie describes herself and her life shows her to be a womanof strength, and though she has been given a difficult lot in life, shedoes what she can to change her position. Hard, single-minded, intolerant, Addie is one of those Faulknerian characters concerning whom one finds little to admire except their utter insistence upon taking and struggling with life until the end (Howe 177).Only one section in the novel is actually narrated by Addie, and thissection occurs about halfway through the book. She looked forward towhen her students would misbehave so she could whip them: When the switch fell I could feel it upon my flesh; when it welted and ridged it was my blood that ran, and I would think with each blow of the switch: Now you are aware of me! learns the meaning of kinship. In the novel As I Lay Dying, the central character is the dyingmatriarch of the Bundren clan, and she is presented as the center of thelife of the family in a number of different ways. The fragmented technique of thebook, with multiple points of view represented, only emphasizes howcentral Addie is, since she is the primary issue for every member of herfamily. Olga W. Anse is seen almost entirely in terms of how he reflects themeaning of Addie to the rest of the family and the outside world. Works CitedFaulkner, William. The Triumph of the Novel: Dickens, Dostoevsky, Faulkner. She representsFaulkner's view of how strong women hold a family together. The Achievement of William Faulkner. . Crowell's Handbook of William Faulkner. while Anse is barely able toimpinge on the behavior of his family. The key to her character may come from what herfather told her: I could just remember how my gather used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time (Faulkner 169).At this point, she has finished that struggle and is now dead, adding ironyto the words. Albert J.Guerard sees Faulkner as at least partially a misogynist (Guerard 69), butFaulkner's Addie, for instance, is not painted so darkly and is bothappealing and repellant at the same time. Louisiana State University Press, 1959.----------------------- 3 She uses violence as one way of doingthis, and her children become another. . . There may be some real truth at the center of human life,but as human beings we can only recognize some portion of it and only fromour own experience. I knew that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear; pride, who never had the pride (Faulkner 171-172).In this sense, Addie contrasts with the male characters, and the fact thatshe has only one narrated section while they have many only emphasizes thatthey are given to being part of the world of verbal behavior and she isnot. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1975.Millgate, Michael. Addie represents a particular typeof woman seen by Faulkner as the center of the family group. She contrastswith Cora, as noted, and the existence of Cora in the story shows thatFaulkner is not claiming Addie represents every woman. . New York: Thomas Y, Crowell, 1964.Vickery, Olga W. Addie's powerful personality and the principle of family unity which she embodies have long held the family together and continue so to hold it at least until her body has been buried, and it is entirely natural that she should not only occupy the foreground of the novel throughout but become, in effect, the battlefield on which her husband and her children--especially Jewel and Darl- -fight out their personal rivalries and antagonisms (Millgate 1 7).The way the family members exist as adjuncts to their mother shows how evenafter her death, her will continues through her children: Tyrannical in its edict of love and rejection, the will of the mother triumphs through the fate of her children. New York: Vintage, 193 .Guerard, Albert J. Now I am something in your secret and selfish life, who have marked your blood with my own for ever and ever (Faulkner 17 ).When she decides to leave the school, she accomplishes this by marryingAnse: "And so I took Anse" (Faulkner 17 ). The single-mindedness of Addie is based not onlove,a word she does not recognize as valid, but on a sense of self and ofthe need for that self to have an effect on the external world. The multiple points of view are seen as confusing by some critics andas a self-defeating technique, but it actually strengthens the focus of thestory in several ways: A further focusing effect is achieved by the way in which the relationships within the Bundren family radiate about Addie, the mother, as both their physical and their symbolic core. An unwanted son, he seeks continually to find a place in the family (Howe 181).Anse is their father, but he is a figurehead in the family, while Addie isthe power. Her death and burial marks a turning point for the family as agroup and for every member of the family as an individual, and they reflecton what she means to them. In addition, Faulkner includes a number ofnarrators who are not Bundrens and who offer therefore a more objectiveview of Addie and the family. As I Lay Dying. He stealsfrom his own son to do this. Their actions will make Addie'spresence felt long after she is gone. Faulkner's use ofmultiple points of view in addition emphasizes that truth is subjective toa great degree. Addie's life is a reminder of the secondaryplace women hold in society at large and how they make up for it, for goodor ill, by taking a central place in the family. To the degree that we can see into the lives of otherpeople, of course, we can expand our own understanding of experience.Faulkner enables us to see other points of view in the different narratorsand so to see both the subjectivity of truth and the possibility ofascertaining what other people see and combining it with our own experienceto develop a more objective view. And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it (Faulkner 171). Darl is the family sacrifice. In Addie's case, she usesviolence and anger as a way of making people recognize that she is alive,though in the end she also sees the need to do something else to make itclear that she had existed. However, not all women follow this same approach to life, and Coracontrasts in that she is verbal where Addie is not: Conventional and righteous, as devoid of brains as her chickens- -yet withal kind and well-meaning--she is a comic figure, but not one that can be thereby ignored. He iscarrying out a promise he made to Addie by transporting her body, but he isa hypocrite who is actually using the journey to get his teeth. The Novels of William Faulkner. Faulkner shows women to be strong and dedicated to the unity of thefamily in this novel. New York: Random House, 1966.Tuck, Dorothy. It also makes her a real person instead of just someoneabout whom others speak, and in her own voice she both reflects much ofwhat has been said about her and counters some of it by explaining her ownattitude toward her life. . Violence is a way of making herself known. 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.