As I Lay Dying

Identify and try to understand one character who is pulled in conflicting directions. This pull may be the result of desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Does he/she have one side win over the other? Why/why not? What message might Faulkner have been giving through this character’s conflict?

In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Addie Bundren is pulled in two conflicting directions. Her main desire is to have her solitude and be a real person, not just what a woman represented. She is also pulled, by society, in becoming a wife and mother, which is evident because she stays with the family.

Addie’s desire for solitude is shown when she says, “I knew that it had been, not that my aloneness had to be violated over and over each day, but that it had never been violated until Cash came. Not even by Anse in the nights,” (Faulkner 172). Addie’s mentality would fit more into society today because she didn’t really desire a family, but back then women were supposed to be housewives and that was it. Addie was not okay with being a wife and mother. Addie even has an affair with Whitfield, considering it “revenge” on Anse. She also didn’t have any desire to be a mother which is proven when she says, “Then I found that I had Darl. At first I would not believe it. Then I believed that I would kill Anse,” (Faulkner 172). She was angry at Anse for getting her pregnant. She even says that she gave her kids to Anse. Addie also has an amazing idea in her chapter. She basically states that words are only words; this could also mean that words are only words because she can’t speak them since she is a woman in the 1920s with barely any say. She is also not like other women in this time period (1920-1930) because she wanted to be buried with her family in Jefferson, not with Anse’s family, when most wives would be buried with their husband’s family. She felt no connection to her family at all, only with Jewel. Jewel was only her child, not Anse’s, which made him all...