Analyzing Characterization In As I Lay Dying
In William Faulkner’s, As I Lay Dying, characters create themselves through their narrations of the event of their Addie’s death. The novel relies on characters for narration and own character development. In a way, the characters expose themselves in the novels and the novel becomes a form of “reflective characterization.” The narrations give insight to the characters personality by the syntax, imagery, stream of consciousness they employ. Often each narrative also offers a different perspective of another character or affirms the self-characterization of another character.
Darl, who narrates most of the story, seems to be the most cerebral character. Darl’s character is particularly interesting because he is indeed mad in some ways but yet he is also the healthiest and most realistic of all Bundrens. He has a strange sense of what’s going on like that of Benjamin Compsons in The Sound and the Fury. He senses Addie’s death even though he and Jewel were getting lumber at the time of her death. He also knew that Dewey Dell was pregnant and that Jewel was an illegitimate son. Dewey Dells narration also supports Darl’s psychic abilities. Like Benjamin, he has the ability to communicate without words. After going into the secret shade with Lafe, Dell realizes that Darl knows what she has done. “I saw Darl and he knew. He said he knew without the worlds like he told me that ma was going to die without words,” (page 26). In a moving scene (page 204) he tries to explain Addie’s death to little Verdamin. Through Vardaman’s narration we can see Darl’s calm, grounded approach to explaining death to Verdamin. His attitude to death is complemented by his sense of self-identity, clearest in the family. His affirmation of Addie’s death makes his relationship to her more meaningful than the others attempt to prolong their relationship through resorting to surrogates like the fish and the horse (1). Darl is realistic. However, although it seems as though Darl’s actions are driven by his power of perception which exceeds the rest of his family the other narratives suggest that they are rather driven by mental problems. Darls attempt to the burn the barn with his mother’s coffin is a good example of this. Through his narration it seems as though his attempt to burn the barn was just part of his quest to put his mother’s body to rest in an easy, natural way rather than trekking her to Jefferson. When his efforts are failed with Jewel finding the coffin, he lies upon her coffin and weeps. If Darl realizes that the journey is a farce and that his father’s motives aren’t noble, then burning the body as soon possible is a fairly logical attempt. It’s his attempt at burning away everything his family has built up on the course of this journey. At the end of the journey Cash contemplates the barn-burning and encourages the view that perhaps how mad Darl is he is perhaps the sanest of them all. “He did take her outen our hands and get shut of her in some clean way…I can almost believe he done right (223-224). Unfortunately, not everyone saw what Cash and Darl saw. Jewell and Dell give Darl away to men to take him to a mental institution. However, in his last passage, perhaps for a moment Darl even doubts his own sanity. When he refers to himself in the third person, he is merely reflecting to himself that he knows now what others have been thinking about him. He understands now all their hatred and envy of his superiority. One of the great ironies of the book, consequently, comes from the fact that Darl, the only person capable of reaching an awareness of the complexities of life, is sent to the insane asylum. Like Darl, Cash can think more logically then the rest of the Bundrens as seen through his narration. For one, he lists out all the reasons building the coffin on a bevel is advantageous. He cites reasons instead of delving into emotions. His Type- A perfectionist personality can be seen when he holds each board to the coffin up to the window for his mother to approve. Each son has their own way of showing their love to Addie and for Cash , creating her coffin was his final gift to her. Its only logical that her final resting place be as orderly as possible. His actions to silently bear the pain of his broken leg and not to harbor any jealousy over Jules’ horse makes him appear as a Jesus- figure in the book. Not to mention he is also a carpenter. Jewel is Addie’s third child and narrates Section 4. Biologically Jewel is not a part of the Bundren household. This is also shown in the novel through Darl who repeatedly describes him as pale, wooden, rigid, solid – words that both characterize and separate Jewel, physically, from the others. Jewel isolates himself from the rest of the Bundren family. However, when he has an opportunity to get away from the Bundrens, he decides to come back and give up the horse he loved so much because of his fierce love for his mother. His feelings are unique in that he wants to be alone with her for her death –he doesn’t want to share her with anyone else, and particularly not his siblings, who he feels are disrespecting her. Darl describes the sound of Cash’s adze as "Chuck," while Jewel hears "One lick less." He imagines that every swing of the adze means that the distance to Addie’s death is made one lick less; he is chipping away her life. In this way, we, perhaps for the first time, get the feeling that someone actually cares about Addie. Jewel’s detachment from the Bundren family can be also shown through the structure of this novel; Jewel only has one section that he narrates, coming of as someone who is just passing by the Bundren’s life. Lastly, Vardaman is Addie’s youngest son. His language is convoluted, using pronouns seemingly unassigned to any object. Vardaman sentence structures and narrative show that he is the little kid he is said to be. He deals with this trauma of Addie’s death in a variety of juvenile ways. Many of his actions and thoughts seem ridiculous and silly, however from Vardamans perspective they make sense.An example is the fish he caught and held.He cut it all up into little pieces; once it was cut up, it was no longer a fish. So it was a fish, and then it was not a fish. Or, as Vardaman sees it, it was a fish, and now it’s a not-fish. In Vardaman’s eyes, this is just like his mother. She was his mother…and then she was not his mother. She functions the same way the fish functions, so she must be a fish. He also drills holes through his mother’s face. Vardaman didn’t know he was drilling through her face; he was only trying to drill through the coffin. He thought his mother was still alive. If she’s still alive, then she needs air, and she can’t get air when the coffin is nailed close over her. So the answer is to put some holes in the box. In his own childish perspective, this is how he shows love for his mother. Contrasting his sons grieving for Addie death is Anse’s selfish behaviors. When Addie dies, he is only concerned with buying his new teeth in Jefferson. Following her death he says, “But now I can get them teeth. Now that will be a comfort.” He further shows his selfishness when he makes an arrangement with a kinsman to trade Cash’s eight dollars and Jewel’s beloved horse for a new team of mules. Furthermore, Anse views the flood and he fire as more crosses to bear before he gets his new teeth, He has no concern or regard with what the journey is doing to his children. His selfishness is also expressed when he says, “I don’t, won’t begrudge her.” Anse forgives Addie for all the problems that she caused throughout the journey in which he portrays himself as a nasty, self-centered man. At the end of the novel he appears before his family with his new teeth and a new Mrs. Bundren. Through his selfishness Faulkner completely shows the separation between him and his sons.

(!) Powers, Lyall Harris. "As I Lay Dying." Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha Comedy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1980.