Addie Bundren’s love holds great power in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, as it is essential to her sons’ sense of self. Withholding affection from Darl, her second oldest son, negatively impacts his self-worth to the point of existential crisis. Conversely, Addie loves Jewel, her middle son, which leaves him a man of action, certain in his state of being.
Jewel receives love from his mother, resulting in his self-assurance. The product of Addie’s affair with the local minister, Jewel is the apple of her eye. Cora Tull, the Bundren’s moralizing neighbor, recognizes Addie’s favoritism towards her illegitimate son— “Jewel, the one she labored so to bear and coddled and petted so” (21). Moreover, from Addie’s posthumous monologue, she reveals …show more content…
From Addie’s monologue, the reader learns of her negative feelings towards Darl. After discovering she is pregnant with Darl, she feels betrayed by her husband, Anse, “as though he had tricked” her (172). A biting tone saturates the monologue, suggesting Addie’s ager towards her husband and apathy for her unwanted son. Additionally, she refuses to acknowledge her relation to Darl when speaking of him and her two children following Jewel-- “[Anse] has three children that are his and not mine.” (176). Addie removes herself from the ownership of Darl, and therefore eliminates the responsibility of loving him as her son. Growing up without the affirmation of love, Darl develops an existential crisis. On the road with Jewel, Darl ponders the existence of an individual that is sleeping or that empties himself for sleep, leading him to question his own existence-- “I don’t know if I am or not.” (80). In the end, he momentarily resolves this enigma through his relationship to Jewel; he knows he is Jewel’s brother and that “Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be” (81). Through this logic, Darl exists because his mother does, and she exists because Jewel does. Darl’s shaky assurance of his being hinges on Jewel, because Addie affirmed Jewel’s being through her love. Without his mother’s love, Darl cannot be sure that he is, because this absence of love equates to the absence of a mother; without a mother, he cannot exist. William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying defines existence through the affirmation of others. The ultimate affirmation is that of a mother’s love, because it proves the mother exists, and therefore the child is. Faulkner uses Addie Bundren to show this relationship; she loves Jewel but not Darl, and her sons’ assurance of being relies on her