Despite the fact that Addie Bundren in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying only has a short chapter in the novel her character proves to be very complex to understand. Regardless of the fact that she is the cause for the series of events that occur it is easy to overlook the corpse of a character that is hauled around for over half of the novel. Perhaps, Faulkner’s choice to grant his audience limited access to background information on the main character is because he actually shows us her past rather than tells us. He does so through Dewey Dell, who is also over shadowed by the presence of the male dominant characters. This offers a different perspective on the complicated life of Dewey Dell while shedding a new light on the thoughts of Addie …show more content…
In her single chapter we are introduced to Addie’s theory that words are a failed attempt to communicate because people who don’t completely understand what they mean created them. She says “When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn’t care” (Faulkner 171-2). Those who had to have a word are men, and because men have a long history of dominance in society they are the ones who created words, specifically motherhood, because they needed a way of understanding what it was. Annette Wannamaker further discusses the inequality of language saying “language is a phallocentic system created by men that represents males as subjects and females as objects” (Wannamaker 1). This Addie is aware of. Not only does the gender difference create a gap of understanding, Addie also feels that language is unreliable because every humans experience is so unique that there is no system that can do justice. Thus explaining her struggle for connection. Dewey Dell however, does not express this idea; her circumstances show it. She more or less lives what her mother feels. Throughout the story we see a girl that is so consumed with trying to find words to describe …show more content…
Through the story we see Dewey Dells thoughts develop from a young girl seeking affirmation of her existence through her sexuality to finding a solution with Lafe. This solution, as we lean in Addie’s chapter is a temporary source of happiness. As Addie describes the cycle of emotions she experienced while becoming a mother saying, “My aloneness had been violated and then made whole again by the violation: time, Anse, love, what you will, outside the circle” (Faulkner 172). This suffering was the product of the belief that the only relief to loneliness was to have children. An expectation society placed on every woman in that time, however, Dewey Dell comes to the same conclusion describing “the process of coming unalone” as “terrible” (Faulkner 62). The problem is how do you tell society you aren’t ready or willing to fulfill your roll? You don’t. As seen in Addie’s and Dewey Dells circumstance this is cause for a very unhappy life. In the article “Faulkner on Feminine Hygiene, or, how Margaret Sanger Sold Dewey Dell a Bad Abortion” Heather Holcombe further explores the burden of these standards saying, “The grotesque maternal body, as it appears in As I Lay dying, makes just such a demand. Addie, Cora, and Dewey Dell are each embattled in protest against the enforced maternal status they share with the women in