#dewey dell and jewel

[gr8gollygrace]

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner - Notes + Thoughts

Main Themes: death + grief, classism, individual agency, religion

Images + Symbolism: bananas, buzzards, cows/horses/steer, eggs, rain/water - change, "queer" in reference to Darl's behavior/demeanor

Classism:

Dewey Dell: "I had saved enough so that the flour and the sugar and the stove wood would not be costing anything." (pg. 7)

"'But those rich town ladies can change their minds. Poor folks cant."(pg. 7)

Dewey Dell experiences the class divide starkly after painstakingly saving for the ingredients for a cake - which she cannot sell because the customer, "change[d] their minds" which is privileged

Darl: " Without looking back the horse kicks at him, slamming a single hoof into the wall with a pistol-like report. Jewel kicks him in the stomach"(pg. 13)

Darl works his horse like he is worked, especially by Anse who believes he should own what his children own - violence seems to somehow communicate respect, maybe the respect of handling physical responsibilities

"I have never seen a sweat stain on his shirt. He was sick once from working in the sun when he was twenty-two years old, and he tells people that if he ever sweats we will die."(pg. 17)

Dewey Dell: "We are country people, not as good as town people."(pg. 60)

Anse: "It's because there is a reward for us above, where they cant take their autos and such. Every man will be equal there and it will be taken from them that have and give them that have not by the Lord."(pg. 110)

"But now I can get them teeth. That will be a comfort."(pg. 111)

Darl: "When Jewel comes up he has the saw."(pg. 162)

Darl and others go to retrieve Cash's tools from the water - risking their lives for material goods, those goods are worth significant money, and without them, it would be difficult to make money - the family seems reliant on Cash to produce income through carpentry

Cash: "Kind of hangdog and proud too, with [Anse's] teeth and all, even if he wouldn't look at us. 'Meet Mrs Bundren,' he says."(pg. 261)

the main characters of the story are all aware of the class division to some degree

Religion:

Dewey Dell: "If it is His will that some folks has different ideas of honesty from other folks, it is not my place to question His decree"(pg. 8)

Cora: ". . . coming sometimes when I shouldn't have, neglecting my own family and duties so that somebody would be with her in her last moments and she would not have to face the Great Unknown without one familiar face to give her courage."(pg. 22)

"I have tried to live right in the sight of God and man, for the honor and comfort of my Christian husband and the love and respect of my Christian children. So that when I lay me down . . . I will be surrounded by loving faces, carrying the farewell kiss of each of my loved ones into my reward."(pg. 23)

reminds me of the play EVERYMAN, wanted to take with him family and friendship, but neither would come with, but the symbol for Love did go with in the end

Tull: "The Lord giveth"(pg. 30)

'The lord giveth, and the lord taketh(but please lord don't take it all at once"

Anse: "When He aims for something to be always a-moving, He makes it long ways, like a road or a horse or a wagon, but when He aims for something to stay put, He makes it up-and-down ways, like a tree or a man."(pg. 36)

Tull: "Then [Cora] begun to sing again, working at the washtub, with that singing look in her face like she had done give up folks and all their foolishness and had done went on ahead of them, marching up the sky, singing."(pg. 153)

Addie: "[Cora] prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too."(pg. 176)

Cora seems to be practicing Christianity in preparation for death, almost waiting for the exalting that comes with being at peace with your loved ones and lord, however, she seems to ignore the strife and trials that come with living

Death + grief:

Peabody: "The nihilists say that it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town"(pg. 44)

death as change, not the end, just difference

Vardaman: "my mother is a fish"(pg. 84)

right before Addie passes, Vardaman catches a fish and guts it - this is the way he can contextualize his mother's death, which allows her to live on in certain ways

Darl: "Life was created in the valleys. It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That's why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down."(pg. 227)

Addie: "I could just remember how my father used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time."(pg. 169)

Individualism:

Vardaman: "an is different from my is."(pg. 56)

"He was there and he seen it, and with both of us it will be and then it will not be."(pg. 67)

Addie: "And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it. That was when I learned that words are no good; that words don't ever fit even what they are trying to say at."(pg. 171)

Ars Poetica

Cash: "It's like there was a fellow in every man that's done a-past the sanity or the insanity, that watches the sane and the insane doings of that man with the same horror and the same astonishment."(pg. 238)

Misc:

Tull: "Only it kind of lived. One part of you knowed it was just water, the same thing that had been running under this same bridge for a long time, yet when them logs would come up spewing up outen it, you were not surprised, like they was a part of water, of the waiting and the threat."(pg. 138)

Would love to hear other thoughts on this novel!

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage Books, 1900.

[mohanasilaydying]

Darl

Addie

Anse

Dewey Dell

Jewel

Cash

Vardaman

[shipcestuous]

The Sound and the Fury

I finally got a chance to see James Franco's adaption of The Sound and the Fury, which we talked about back in 2013 when it was in pre-production. I guess they had their reasons but this sure is a long time to wait.

James Franco adapted another Faulkner novel – As I Lay Dying. Both stories center on families with several grown children. They have a lot more in common but that's what relevant in terms of why I am discussing it. I read As I Lay Dying my senior year of high school and shipped the only sister, Dewey Dell, with her brother Darl. It was more of a case of there being a shippable moment here and there rather than anything significant in the larger picture. There's certainly nothing that might be called canon though I remember feeling that there was this and that that was a little suggestive. Anyway, there wasn't much that was remarkable for our purposes about that movie. I included all the moments that were worth anything in this photoset. It's actually her brother Jewel who pulls her back, which made me ship them a little in the movie.

I read The Sound and the Fury of my own volition, but I honestly can't remember if it was for what might be called the canon-adjacent subtext between Quentin and his sister Caddy or if it was during the period when I was trying to read the classics. In any case, it's frustratingly close to being canon while still hovering a little ways away from it. If you've read it, then you know, but basically the novel takes the POVs of the different Compson siblings – Jason, the eldest; Quentin; Caddy, the sister; and Benjy, who is severely mentally challenged. Benjy and Jason are both preoccupied with their sister. Caddy has sex out of wedlock and gets pregnant, which is very scandalous at the time, and even though their family and property are in decline they all have a certain obsession with the respectability of their family name. Jason is very upset by Caddy's pregnancy and for some reason wants to say that it's his? He thinks it'll be less shameful or sinful that way. I really need to read the cliff notes again because that makes as little sense to me now as it did when I read it. Eventually Quentin kills himself. Caddy names her baby daughter after him.

Here’s some older commentary: 1, 2

So it's suggestive, but my impression when I read it wasn't that Quentin's feelings were based on any kind of desire for her. Then again, I might have just been looking for something more explicit, but the narrative was being coy. Faulkner doesn't like to spell things out. There's more commentary here and here.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing all of this is because the movie did pretty well by us.

 It's still subtext, but it's a lot closer to the surface. We see Caddy and Quentin being cute and holding hands in the river when they are children in one of Benjy's flashbacks, and in another we see Quentin devastated at Caddy's wedding. He's watching the newlyweds dancing and it's clearly bothering him deeply. The interpretation in the movie of Quentin's section from the book emphasizes his relationship with Caddy and de-emphasizes everything else. He's thinking about her pretty much the whole time. They lie by the water at night and talk. He hates Caddy's boyfriends and tries to get rid of them. When he finds out she's pregnant, he says the two of them should run away with Benjy and raise the child together. One time when they are talking by the river he wants to kill her and then himself, and she tells him to do it, but then he starts crying and she pulls him into her arms. The best part and most significant in terms of incest – beyond the fact that I can't count the number of times I thought they were going to kiss – was when Caddy passed by and saw Quentin making out with her friend. She stormed off and he chased her down trying to get her to admit that it bothered her. Then they wrestled and he pinned her. There was a lot of sexual tension but nothing happened. Then they started laughing and talking.

This movie really dove into incestuous interpretation, though ironically it cut the most suggestive part in the book, which is when Quentin wants to claim that Caddy's baby is his.

I mentioned that in the book Quentin cared about the family's honor and ideas of purity vs. sin, and that was his purported reason for being so bothered by Caddy sleeping around and getting knocked up. The movie didn't suggest that at all. He seemed jealous, plain and simple. It was definitely a flaw of adaptation but that kind of thing doesn't bother me, especially when it works in our favor.

Lastly, Jason and Quentin II. I confess, I shipped Jason and Quentin II in the book the first time I read. He's a terrible person, and he's terrible to Quentin. But he came across as obsessed with her, and she hated him so much that it was an obsession for her too. And that really rang my bell. Of course, I only really like it with a few minor major tweaks to make Jason a better guardian and a better person all around.

I can't not mention the 1950's movie adaptation of The Sound and the Fury, which is probably the greatest thing to have ever happened to humanity. It took EXTREME liberties with the story and really only resembles the novel in a few superficial ways, and only the last section of it. Basically the makers of that movie turned Jason into a sort of hero figure, who is re-written as Quentin's step-uncle, and they have a canonical romance. I mean...I still can't believe it's real. An anon told me about it. (Anon, if you're still around and you see this, please know I have never forgotten the service you did for me. You are my sun and stars.) It was truly a grand fluke in history. Never has something so incomprehensible yet so wonderful happened as this wacky adaptation. I ship it a lot, obviously, but what's so delightful is just that a non-canon and unhealthy relationship from the book got turned into an incestuous romance with a happy-ish ending in a movie that was made in the 50's and clearly had no f—ks to give.

There’s more here about Jason and Quentin II.  

In the newest movie, sadly there's not much to report on the shipping front. It's like the novel, though it does focus on Jason and Quentin II's relationship even more than that section of the novel does, though you don't get to see quite so much of Quentin II's side of it. Originally I had heard that they were considering Jon Hamm for Jason, but apparently that didn't work out. It's too bad there wasn't more of a budget for this movie so that they could have had a few more familiar faces in the cast, though I thought that everyone who was in it did great. I guess what I'm getting at is that a hotter Jason would have done a lot for the shippability aspect, but I shouldn't even be thinking that because it's not a shippable relationship to begin with. There's a lot of “if only's” involved here.

The movie has a low rating on IMDB but I can't help but think that it's a mix of die hard book fans and people who saw that James Franco and Seth Rogen were in and then had no idea what they were actually in for. I'm not saying it's a perfect movie but I can't believe anybody actually thinks it's that bad.

[elpublico]

oh my fucking god i cannot get into as i lay dying

[escapelifethroughbooks-blog]

I read this book a few years ago for my Composition II class in college, though I don’t think I actually finished it. So, I re-read it, all the way through this time, since I saw it was part of the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge.

I gave this book four stars on Goodreads, mostly because it was still a little confusing for me at some parts (I don’t have any of my discussion notes from class) and because in some sections it was hard to tell what the reasoning was for the italics. I ended up looking up the meaning of the italics on Google while subbing yesterday because I honestly couldn’t remember and I really needed some sort of explanation before I continued reading.

However, the story itself was just as good as I remembered it being. Like all families struggling with the loss of a loved one, the Bundrens have their ups and their downs as they deal with the loss of their mother and wife (in Anse’s case), some to the point of going crazy (in Darl’s case). You can sense that there’s a lot of tension between the older siblings as they figure out how to deal with this loss in their own ways as well as trying to help their father get the coffin containing their mother to Jefferson where she asked Anse to bury her. But you can also see the confusion on Vardaman’s part as he doesn’t quite understand what’s happening around him which causes him to not quite know how to deal with the death of his mother.

One of the things that I liked was that this story was told from different perspectives. This something that can get confusing in some books, but in this one it worked. Faulkner was able to present the situations and goings-on in this book through the eyes of all the family members, including Addie Bundren (a section from her that takes place long before her death even though it’s in the middle of the book). But it also shows perspectives of friends of the family and a few other people that they encounter along the way to Jefferson, like the two pharmacists that Dewey Dell goes to see about having an abortion so her father and older brothers (other than the one that knows) doesn’t find out that she is pregnant. Those couple of sections give the reader a better understanding of what is going on, especially if they haven’t quite figured out what’s going on with Dewey Dell.

There was a time where I wasn’t a huge fan of this book, but I think that was due to the fact that it was required reading along with the fact that I was using an e-book for class (meaning it wasn’t as easy to flip back to check what I had previously read when I got confused about what was happening). Now, I’m a bit more of a fan of this book because it shows how well (or not so well) family members get along during a time of loss as they figure out how to deal with the death of a family member. It makes me stop and think and then pray that my sister and I won’t end up like some of the older Bundren siblings during our days of loss when our parents do eventually die.

[dubertdeeqbert]

I find this line to be really interesting. Especially when it comes to the children’s names and their roles in the family. A jewel is something cold and rigid. It is valuable only so much as it is seen by others to have value. You can go to the store and buy groceries with cash, but you can’t buy them with a jewel. Their usefulness is hard to see. A dell is a small valley, usually among trees. Vallies have had extremely important impacts on human civilizations. It was in river valleys that many civilizations started. Valleys are good for growing crops and sustaining life. Dewy can mean, besides to be wet with dew, an adjective describing something that’s young, fresh, and innocent.

Jewel is represented as this selfish character, partly because of the truth of his parentage. He’s cold and distant, with no obvious skillset or worth (unlike Cash and his carpentry). Given that the book is written during a patriarchal time, and given Jewel is not biologically Anse’s, he has (in theory) no right to live on that farm and eat the food provided him. And then there’s Dewey Dell, the sole daughter of the family, a seemingly young and innocent girl whose job is to be a giver and caretaker. When Jewel spends his nights helping another farm and sleeps through his days chores, Dewey Dell is one of the people that pick up the slack. When Addie is sick and dying then dead, Dewey Dell is in charge of food preparation and looking after her younger brother. Addie’s logic is sort of like ‘here, I may have taken a son but here’s a daughter to give in exchange for his taking.’ What’s interesting is that in the end, the father takes from both of them. Anse trades away Jewel’s horse, his prized possession, and steals the ten dollars Dewey Dell was lent for an abortion. Where the horse takes care of old business (getting mules to bury Addie), the money is used to benefit Anse in the form of teeth and a new wife.

The second instance of metaphysical weirdness I found interesting is at the bottom of the same paragraph. Addie says she gave Anse three kids (Cash, Darl, and Vardaman) that weren’t hers, and now could die. The time this book was written, children belonged to the father. The mother often had little influence and input, especially when it came to sons. Because Jewel is not Anse’s biological offspring, he is Addie’s where his brothers aren’t. Because Dewey Dell is the only daughter, Addie most likely had more influence on her and therefore she is not included in the ‘his not mine’ category with three of her brothers. Back then, a woman’s duty was seen as having children (preferably sons) and taking care of the house. She gave Anse three sons and Jewel to run the property and whatnot, and gave Anse Dewey Dell too, someone to take care of household stuff. In her eyes, she can be done now. She’s done her ‘duty’ and can die easily, leaving behind the life she didn’t enjoy and the family (barring Jewel) that for the most part she didn’t love. Cash and Darl are in their late 20s/early 30s and can get married, and Dewey Dell is (I think) 17 and old enough to control the house. Addie can be done.

[lightninglit]

THE MOST LONG AWAITED STARTER EVER FOR @andessence​

__________

It was hard to balance. Cash was used to balance. He knew how to build a table, a chair, a crib, a casket. But he could balance then. He hadn’t returned to his work station. He and Dewey Dell and Jewel and Vardaman had been keeping to themselves though in the work station. Not inside their sunken roofed house with their father with his new teeth and his new wife, already swollen with child. Same as Dewey Dell. Poor Dewey Dell. No balance.

He was alone that day though, leaning against the sawhorse he hadn’t used in God knows how long. Too long. Not long enough. He still needed to wait. The stump wasn’t perfectly healed yet.

A familiar face. It had been years.

“Caddy Compson? Back in town?” He knew what happened. Of course he did. He had seen her daughter around, during those old treks into Jefferson. But here was Caddy. He hated her brother. The younger one. The...steady one, though steady wasn’t the right word for him either. Cash was unsteady though.

“What in Hell’s name you back here for?”

[badcamus]

PSA

Darl from As I Lie Dying is a terrifying character. He knows everything and can see things happen in places where he is not. I’m pretty sure he can read people’s minds too. He fucking cries when his mother’s favorite son does something right because he’s a petty fuck. Then he burns the barn down with his mom’s corpse in it because he doesn’t want her wishes to be fulfilled because—ONCE AGAIN—he’s jealous of Jewel, the one who actually cares the most about his mother. He torments both Jewel and Dewey Dell about their secrets throughout the novel. DID I MENTION HE IS OMNISCIENT??????

So, yes. Darl Bundren scares the shit out of me. Thank you. That has been my TedTalk.

[my-commoplace-blog]

“And then I knew that I knew. I knew that as plain on that day as I knew about Dewey Dell on that day.” -William Faulkner, ‘As I Lay Dying’; pg. 45 (Darl - “He sits the horse...”)

Again, Darl’s supernatural sense of knowing. Here he’s talking about how he suddenly knows that Jewel is not Anse’s son. He doesn’t know the father, but he knows that Jewel was born of an affair Addie had.

[decadentjellyfishpaper-blog]

As i lay dying essay addie Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying

She worked as a schoolteacher and enjoyed whipping her students, whom she secretly hated. William Faulkner. Home / Literature / As I Lay Dying / Characters / Addie Bundren Characters / Addie Bundren. Cite This Source. Character Analysis. Addie is Anse’s wife and mother to Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman (in that order). She narrates section 40, though she dies in Section 12. Before we start a character analysis here, we recommend going back and sloooowly reading Section 40 again. Most of the interesting stuff regarding Addie is revealed in those 10-ish pages. Back already? Great. Then, first off, you know that Addie hated Anse; that’s why she wants to be buried in Jefferson, with her own family, rather than with Anse’s (to which she feels no connection). You also know that Addie wasn’t exactly an ideal candidate for motherhood to begin with. Oddly enough, what appealed to Addie most about this corporal punishment was the fact that it made her a part of the students’ lives. Now you are aware of me!" she used to think. But when she finally had her own children, what she resented most was that her "aloneness had been violated." What gives? Remember that this is the 1920s and Addie is a woman. She doesn’t really have much purpose to her life other than having babies. Her anger at her students probably has a lot to do with the hollowness she feels as a single woman.... View more ...

[itinycollectionreviewstuff-blog]

as i lay dying essay darl writing As I Lay Dying Darl Essay Writing - 468027 - 3D Goodness

The Definitive Analysis; A Closeread Of The Scene Where Darl nbsp; Symbolism in As I Lay Dying Research Paper – Paper Masters Symbolism is a book about a family 39;s journey to fulfill Addie 39;s dying Use this topic or order a custom research paper , written exactly how you nbsp; Inequality By Anna Khentov In As I Lay Dying , Addie and Dewey Dell , Addie and Dewey Dell Bundren have been forced to alter their . As I Lay Dying Darl Essay Writing – 468027. Home › Forums › Share Your Game › As I Lay Dying Darl Essay Writing – 468027. This topic contains 0 replies, has 1 voice, and was last updated by gawebsterheloo 5 days, 9 hours ago. If you need high-quality papers done quickly and with zero traces of plagiarism, PaperCoach is the way to go. Great rating and good reviews should tell you everything you need to know about this excellent writing service. PaperCoach can help you with all your papers, so check it out right now! Professional Academic Help. Starting at $7.99 per page. On Time delivery. As I Lay Dying Darl Essay Writing. As I Lay Dying Essays Bartleby , by William Faulkner, two characters , Darl and Jewel . Written as soon as the panic surrounding the stock market in 1929 started, nbsp; Free As I Lay Dying Essays and Papers – papers, essays , and research papers. In As I Lay Dying , William Faulkner uses the characters Anse and Cash, and a Modernist writer William Faulkner uses the Bundren family of his novel As I Lay Dying to exemplify nbsp; Darl in William Faulkner 39;s As I Lay Dying :: Literature, Character Study Preview. More . Darl Darl , the second child of Anse and Addie Bundren is the most prolific voice in the novel As I Lay Dying , by William Faulkner. Darl Bundren in As I Lay Dying – Shmoop Bundren in As I Lay Dying , written by masters of this stuff just for you. In William Faulkner 39;s As I Lay Dying , it shows how Darl has changed Bundren Sane or Insane In William Faulkner 39;s As I Lay Dying , it shows how Darl This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our nbsp; As I Lay Dying Critical Essays – and criticism on William Faulkner 39;s As I Lay Dying – Critical Essays . C. Anse 39;s view of the road in front of the Bundren house.... View more ...

[as-i-lay-dying-project]

Post #3:Darl, or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Spyglass.”(Part 2)

Pictured below:Darl’s greatest act of courage and ultimate downfall.

Darl is shown increasingly to suffer from a crisis of identity, like his mother and sister. He opines on this in a monologue to himself as he goes to bed, saying that “[i]n a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. ANd when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not,”[Faulkner, 80]. When left alone with his thoughts, Darl cannot help but wonder what the nature of himself as a person is. Despite all his intelligence, he cannot come up with an answer that satisfies him, and the question gnaws at him. In contrast, Jewel is shown to be utterly confident in that “he is,”, since he “does not know that he does not know what he is or not,”. Jewel doesn’t ask the same questions and think the same thoughts as Darl, so he comes out with the conviction and confidence that Darl seems to lack. This sets him apart from the rest of his family. Each of them pursues a goal throughout the book, Dewey Dell her abortion, Anse his teeth, and the rest the burial of Addie in Jefferson. In contrast, Darl is rather bereft of purpose. He is the only one who understands that the pilgrimage to Jefferson a petty act of vanity on the part of Addie, and a self-indulgent shopping trip for Anse, and tries desperately to put a stop to their ridiculous quest. However, Darl can only do so much, and his attempts to get rid of Addie’s coffin are repeatedly thwarted by Jewel. Eventually, Darl’s attempts to set his family on the right track are so thoroughly trounced that all he can do is laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Faulkner sets the scene for this sort of coping mechanism earlier in the novel, where Darl is described as “[s]etting back there on the plank seat with Cash, with his dead ma laying in her coffin at his feet, laughing,”[Faulkner, 105]. When the actions of his family get so insane and the world around him comes crashing down, all Darl can do is just laugh at the inanity of it all, and at his own inability to affect it. This is why, in his final chapter, he is put “on the train, laughing, down the long car laughing,”[Faulkner, 253], and why his narration style is split into two perspectives. While the outside of Darl can be shown to others, the thoughts inside of him, and the perceptions that lead him to act the way he does, will never be understood by them. He’ll always be the lone voice of reason, ever unheard. And when he realizes this, all that’s left to him is laughter.

Bibliography

Faulkner, William, and Noel Polk. As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text. New York: Vintage International, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, 2013.

Posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2017.

[alexandriaevans-blog1]

How Anse is not a father

He doesn’t seem to care about anyone in the family. He leaves Cash alone and doesn’t really speak to him until he is hurrying him up to finish Addie’s casket. He and Darl don’t really talk much it's more of an arguing thing every time those two are together. Jewel is not his son, and so they don’t really get along. Dewey Dell hates him for the way he treated her mother while she was alive. Vardaman is still too young to see how bad of a father Anse really is.

[shnazer]

Y la ojos de perro no es para cerrarme los ojos siquiera mientras muero y mi descenso al Hades se concreta

Bien. Hoy terminé de leer Mientras Agonizo. Biblia de muchos escritores. Verdadero manual de escritura. Aunque rijoso; lectura difícil de dominar en primeras y medianas instancias; un texto increíble. Siempre pasa lo mismo con los diferentes escritores. Uno tiene que tomarles el ritmo que exigen. Más cuando inscriben esa voluntad de estilo tan marcadamente. Por momentos, mientras leía este libro de Faulkner, me daba la impresión de que la lectura de Ulises resultaba incluso más transitable. Así como la superficie del agua y la tensión que la contiene, hay algo en el estilo de cada escritor que demanda ser atravesado. Pero una vez que se ha escindido esa tensión inicial de la prosa, se ha escindido en un mundo fabulado. Hay varias cosas que rescato del libro, que dicho sea de paso, es mi primer acercamiento a Faulkner. Tenía muchas ganas de leerlo desde hace tiempo y me ha parecido adecuado hacerlo precisamente posteriormente a haber terminado de leer a Juan Rulfo. Hasta donde entiendo, Faulkner era un referente preponderante para el mexicano, y que un poco de lo fragmentario en Pedro Páramo es heredado de la prosa de Faulkner. Pero no sólo en lo estilístico se conjugan estas dos interesantes producciones, sino que también en los entornos campiranos y un tanto en la vida austera lejos de las ciudades. El final de la novela de Faulkner me ha parecido especialmente sorprendente. De una sutileza pasmosa. Me ha parecido que As I lay diying es un tratado sobre el egoísmo. O bien, de la abnegación malograda. Digamos que se instala en una frontera muy indecisa entre el egoísmo y la abnegación. Es muy significativo para este postulado el hecho de que sea una novela narrada por múltiples voces, múltiples puntos de vista, múltiples monólogos, múltiples individuos. Es esa la base precisamente del egoísmo: reclamar una individualidad propia ante el mundo. Cada personaje, lo vamos descubriendo durante la trama, guarda motivaciones y recelos exclusivos en ese viaje pestilente. El capítulo en que Dewey Dell entra en una botica buscando un brebaje o solución de cualquier tipo para producirse un aborto, mientras el resto de la familia llama la atención por el olor del cadáver, y en general el cuadro que conforman los Bundren, con Cash mismo tendido sobre la caja con una pierna rota, es sin duda uno de los más memorables de toda la novela. Otro, de los más llamativos, y que no en balde es el epicentro de todo el relato es el capítulo del monólogo de la muerta. (Cuando no estaba muerta). Addie. De verdad increíble. Tengo sueño para entrar en pormenores. Y ya me apuro para acostarme de una vez. Mañana debo hacer todo lo posible por avanzar sobre el capítulo siete de mi novela. Lo titulé: Los sueños son el único tema posible. Pero antes de irme, regresando a Mientras agonizo quiero mencionar a los zopilotes. Esos recogedores de la basura. O más bien buitres como se les refirió durante la novela. Iban acompañando a la carreta de los Bundren durante todo su viaje. Se iban sumando conforme se sumaban los días. Los pasajes que los describen rondando el cielo en círculos me hizo pensar en el modo en que sobre los hospitales del ISSSTE y el IMSS aquí en Durango, sobrevuelan casi de manera permanente. Pero también fueron el vínculo definitivo que me hizo pensar en esa novela de la fascinación y el pasmo que es El luto humano de José Revueltas. Y es que hay muchos puntos que comparten estas dos historias. Además de los zopilotes. La muerte. El diluvio. La procesión bíblica. Hay tanto por decir, y las palabras no me vienen, como ahora. Será el sueño. Será la inteligencia adormilada. Será todo. La literatura me fascina. Me identifiqué mucho con Jewel. 

[qbertdeedubert]

Best question: Why does the last sentence dangle unfinished?

Best answer attempt: I think the reason the last sentence dangles unfinished is to imply an ongoing of Cash’s thoughts about the casket being unbalanced. Had the sentence ended properly with a period at the end, it would feel too final, like Cash no longer thought about it. But, given Cash’s constant and repetitive thoughts on the casket and it’s construction, it would make sense for his thoughts to go on past the end of the chapter, and I feel that leaving the last sentence unfinished best implies that.

The following words and phrases stick out the most to me in this passage:

Balance x5

“It wont balance” x2

“Pick up” x5

In this section, the word ‘balance’ is used five times by Cash. It could be that Cash is also referring to his family. Now that his mother is gone, his family won’t be balanced or stable. This can already be seen somewhat in the other chapters. Vardaman is struggling, Jewel angry, no one’s listening to Anse. In the time the book was written, it was the mother’s job to keep the family together. Now that she’s gone, Dewey Dell is expected to take that role but has little interest in it and is preoccupied with her own problems. When they try to pick up the coffin and Cash says “It won’t balance” he could mean his family. With every step closer to her burial her death becomes more real, and the more the instability of the family will show. He focuses on the coffin not only because it’s something he made but also because in a way, if the coffin isn’t buried to him she’s not really dead yet. His constant thought on the coffin and how he built it might be a coping mechanism for his mother’s death, or could also be him worrying about his family in a manner that makes sense to him. 

Class question: Why is Cash so preoccupied with the finished casket?

Faulkner question: Why does the last sentence dangle unfinished?

Narrator question: What’s so important about the balance of the casket?

[as-i-lay-dying-project]

Post #2:Darl, and the All-Seeing Eyes (Part 1)

Pictured below:A piercing gaze, not unlike Darl’s own.

Darl is a rather complex character. The first thing that sticks out about him is his startling intelligence. Far above each of the other characters, Darl has an almost clairvoyant understanding of the events occurring in the novel. He seems to know the details of his mother’s death without having even been there, and uncannily acquires knowledge of Dewey Dell’s pregnancy, as well. He “just knew”[Faulkner, 133] that Cash knew about Jewel’s secret from a single look, in the same way he “knew about Dewey Dell on the that day”[Faulkner, 133]. His knowledge often comes less as the product of long, hard deduction, but rather in flashes of genius-like inspiration. His powers of perception are even exercised in more mundane ways, like how he’s the first to recognize the buzzards circling his mother’s corpse. Like Sherlock Holmes or Virgil Tibbs, Darl is so far ahead of his compatriots, mentally speaking, that he seems almost mad. However, Darl is far from the redneck Sherlock one may expect. In many stories of men of Sherlock and Darl’s caliber, their intellect may isolate them, but ultimately they come to be admired because of it. This couldn’t be further from the truth for Darl. From the beginning of the novel, he is shown to be isolated and resented by his community. Tull discusses how uncomfortable it makes him when Darl “look[s] at [him] with them queer eyes hisn that make folk talk,”[Faulkner, 125], and says being looked at by Darl gives him a feeling that he has “got to the inside of you, somehow,”[Faulkner, 125]. This really reaches the crux of the issue:Darl is so uncannily perceptive he can pick up almost anything about a person just by looking, even their deepest-held secrets. This inspires resentment from others, especially Dewey Dell, who is constantly reminded of the secret shame she tried so hard to keep to herself by Darl’s constant, pointed looks. Her resentment is so great that she fantasizes about committing violence against him, and is the first to restrain him to be sent off to Jackson. While it’s left open to reader’s interpretation, it’s even possible that Dewey Dell is responsible for Darl’s unfortunate trip to Jackson. Vardaman saw Darl put the barn to the torch, but “swore he never told nobody but Dewey Dell,”[Faulkner, 232]. Dewey Dell’s resentment of Darl may have been so great that she was driven to sell him out to Gillespie, and have him sent off to Jackson Asylum.

Bibliography

Faulkner, William, and Noel Polk. As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text. New York: Vintage International, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, 2013.

Posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2017.