As I Lay Dying Essay

Thus, there was no conflict between Addie and Cash.But soon after Cash's birth, Addie realized that words are not connected with violence and are useless.

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Anse Bundren, the patriarch of the family, is perhaps the most pivotal and effective character in his representation and reflection of the family's flaws and weak bond.

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.

Addie felt that during her whole life she had been neglected, and when she married Anse, she hoped that through the violence of birth she could achieve an awareness of life and force her presence upon others.

She is dreadfully afraid of aloneness and through committing or participating in some type of violence feels less alone.

Thus she decides to close herself to Anse, who represents only the ineffectuality of words.

Only through violence, and not through words, can Addie feel that she is living.

After the affair with Whitfield, Addie began to prepare for her own death.

She admits that she gave birth to Dewey Dell "to negative Jewel" and to Vardaman to "replace the child I robbed him of." Thus Dewey Dell, born only as a replacement for, or to negate, Jewel, is the child who most resembles Anse.

Thus in later life, Darl, through his intricate thought-process, was able to sense that he was the unwanted and "motherless" child.

In view of Addie's rejection of words and her subsequent rejection of Darl, it is ironic that Darl became the one character who depended the most on the value of words. She said that Anse was dead even though he did not know that he was dead.