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"As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner consists of strange happenings
throughout the story. One of the most awkward settings in the book is
the relationship between husband and wife that occurred between Anse
and Addie Bundren. What is seen in the beginning is that of a wife on
her deathbed and a caring husband who wants to make everything better
for his wife by making her wishes come true. I soon realized that this
was just a masking technique Faulkner used to give us the wrong
impression on how things were run.
The novel opens with Addie Bundren who is dying. She tells her
husband she wants to be buried in Jefferson, and as a normal loyal
husband would do, Anse felt it was his duty to fulfill his wife's
request. In reality, Anse is a poor farmer with five children to take
care of and a wife who is in charge of the house. Anse is begrudging of
everything. Even the cost of a doctor for his dying wife seems like his
money would be put to a better use if spent on false teeth. "I never
sent for you," Anse says, "I take you to witness I never sent for you,"
he repeats trying to avoid a doctor's fee. At twenty-two Anse becomes
sick from working in the sun after which he refuses to work claiming he
will die if he ever breaks a sweat again. Anse becomes lazy, and turns
Addie into a baby factory in order to have children to do all the work.
There is a need to tend to feel sorry for him because of his
laziness and his urge to talk about two measly topics, a farmer's life
and complete nonsense. His character seems weak, yet he makes the major
decisions around the house. Addie worked as a schoolteacher before
getting married to Anse. She hated her pupils and during her teaching
career she would sit and contemplate the hate she felt for the children
she taught. She simply did not like them and she had wished they would
just disappear.
The whole marriage with Anse was not a serious situation. An odd
courtship happened to occur, as Anse saw her, asked her to marry him,
she accepted and they were wed. That just proves why their relationship
ended up being the way it was. Anse did not spend time to get to know
her, nor did he even mention the thought of children to her. Their
connection seems distant and probably was from the time they met. They
knew nothing about each other at all. If he had known she did not want
children, he would not have married her and if she knew how lazy and
useless he was; she would not have married him. Addie knew that from
the beginning, it was not something she wanted, but she went through
with it anyway. Once she had her first child, Cash, she realized how
much she despised her life.
Addie spent her days working and pouring her sweat and blood into
the wellbeing of the family and the housework while Anse lazed around
doing completely nothing. Even as a farmer, he was not successful. His
laziness forbids him from getting up and doing anything. The only
significance Anse had in his wife's life was producing children. That
was the only time they bonded as people. She chooses to have children
not only, because Anse wanted children, but because Addie knew how he
could not survive by himself. She knew it was her duty to give him
these children so that they could take care of him if she had left or
died.
Anse spent his life with Addie for all the wrong reasons, he only he
married she happened to be a good look and well paid women. Anse
thought of her as a machine as a way of life. This is how Addie felt,
she worked long hours and got no love or appreciation from her husband,
who was supposed to be the one helping her out, her companion for life.
They were not a genuine couple; they could survive any situation
without each other, which just comes to show that Addie was better off
alone. If anything, Anse added burden to her busy and hectic life with
making her take care of the house and the children. Addie still went on
with her life doing the same things but she decided the children were
her duty being fulfilled to Anse.
In result of this, she ended up having an affair with the local
minister, Whitfield. She recalls the time when she and him would go and
meet secretly in the woods and it would make all the difference. All
the pain and hatred she felt at home were forgotten when she was with
him. The thought of confusion crossed her mind sometimes when she was
alone as well as times when she was with Anse. She wanted someone like
Whitfield. Why did Anse have to be the person she ended up marrying?
Addie’s cheating was a true sin and she admitted it as a sin, but a
sin of happiness to her, something she could be fulfilled with just as
her husband was being fulfilled with what she gave him for life. She
did not tell Anse about the affair because she refused to, although she
found what she was looking for and what was worth living for and that
certainly was not Anse. It was not a beginning for her and nor an end
when she was seeing Whitfield, it was just something she felt she owed
to herself.
Her rendezvous with Whitfield resulted in giving birth to Jewel. She
told no one because she felt it was no one's business to know. Although
Anse meant nothing to her just like him saying he loved her meant
anything, she still felt guilty for what had happened. She did not
regret her committed sins, but she felt guilty about Anse being
oblivious to everything that had happened. Because of this she gave him
what he wanted, what made him happy, another two children. Dewey Dell
and Vardaman were Addie's gift to Anse for compensation.
For people to survive they need to see results, they need to see
that there is someone there encouraging, caring and loving them for
them to be able to go on. When no one cares about someone, it is as if
that person is walking down a long road with the same patterns and
reaching no where. The marital relationship between Addie and Anse
Bundren can be best described as a synthetic one. Both characters want
different things in life and they both obviously end up with the wrong
way of life. Anse being the farmer who wants children cannot interact
with a woman like Addie who enjoys loneliness and despises children.
Is Anse sincere in wanting to fulfill his promise to Addie, or is he
driven by another motive? The whole time he was secretly thinking of
only of getting another wife in Jefferson. When it becomes necessary to
drive the wagon across the river, he proves himself to be undeniably
lazy as he makes Cash, Jewel, and Darl, (his children) drive the wagon
across while he walks over the bridge, as a spectator.
Anse is also stubborn; he could have borrowed a team of mules from
Mr. Armstid, but he insists that Addie would not have wanted it that
way. In truth though Anse uses this to justify trading Jewel's horse
for the mules to spare himself the expense. Numerous times in the book
he justifies his actions by an interpretation of Addie's will.
Anse not only trades Jewel's horse without asking, but he also
steals Cash's money. Later on he lies to his family saying that he
spent his savings and Cash's money in the trade.
The ending of the book is pretty humorous, when they reach town, the
putrescent corpse is buried, the daughter fails in her effort to get an
abortion, one son is badly injured, another has gone mad, and at the
very end, in a stroke of harsh comedy, and the father suddenly
remarries.
Last update : 07-10-2006 06:43
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