William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (AILD) is
a modernist experiment in psychoanalytical literature that exemplifies how a
family grieves. Through Faulkner’s descriptions of the Bundrens, a rural
southern family, of the lowest social status dealing with the death of their
matriarch, he successfully, even if unintentionally, portrays the five steps of
grief: denial/isolation, anger, bargaining/power struggle, depression, and
finally acceptance.[??1] We do
not all go through every stage of grief with each bereavement we experience nor
do we all experience each stage in the same manner. It is common for members of
a family to experience grief in an archetypal fashion: each person
subconsciously taking on a specific role through which they facilitate each
others’ grief by experiencing the different phases simultaneously. We see
process come to fruition in AILD as
each character experiences grief differently, therefore sharing in one
another’s experience until the end when they have all reached acceptance. Anse
is in a state of denial, he knows that he promised to bury Addie in Jeferson
and must take her there, but in he continues to fantasize about getting new
teeth and finding a bride. These are distractions from his grief and finding a
bride so soon after Addie’s death is a way for him to replace her without
having to experience what his life would be like without a wife. Early in the
novel Cash is introverted, an artistic and experienced carpenter, who grieves for
his mother by building her coffin therefore bypassing denial and anger. Through
the chaos of their journey he emerges
Anse,
who is to take the place of patriarch, is in such denial that he makes the
focus of his narrative his search for new teeth and a bride to replace Addie
Bundren, thereby isolating himself from the rest of his family.[??2] Anse,
prior to Addie’s death and before getting new teeth, was not a proud man. He
was a stooping, unintelligent, mooch of a neighbor, cotton-picking, uninvolved
father eager to order his children around, but hesitant to take responsibility
for them in any other way. Because of this, and the chaotic funeral procession,
his children have little respect for him and he has isolated himself from the
rest of his family.[??3] Anse’s
isolation is beautifully illustrated at the end when he and his bride are
walking down the street, he cannot look at his children because of the
isolation he feels for having dragged them through hell to bury Addie. His
children waiting in the wagon, staring back and Anse and his bride:[??4] “‘It’s
Cash and Jewel and Vardaman and Dewey Dell,’ pa says, kind of hangdog and proud
too, with his teeth and all, even if he wouldn’t look at us. ‘Meet Mrs.
Bundren,’ he says” (149)[??5]. The
image of his children on the wagon waiting and watching while he approaches, unable
to make eye contact, is a perfect example of the dichotomy that has emerged
from the funeral procession: Cash is now the patriarch, his siblings respond to
and respect him; Anse, though still their father, no longer has their respect.
The characters are now, more or less, in acceptance of Addie’s death, but now
they have a whole new journey to experience.[??6]
Prior
to Addie’s death Darl is the most intelligent and poetic of all of the
characters, but he slips into a great depression upon her death and as their
journey gains distance he slips further into severe psychosis, resulting in
institutionalization. Jewel and Dewey Dell represent anger, though each
presents it in a different way. Dewey Dell, never appearing to react to her
mother’s death, can also be classified as in denial because her main focus is
to get an abortion in Jefferson, which also isolates her character as she
strives for secrecy. Vardaman has the most shocking combination of denial and
bargaining in that he believes his mother has become a fish (49) and easily
accepts that a new hierarchy is to result from her transition. The new
hierarchy is actually led by Cash, previously the controllable introvert in the
family eager to lend a hand to all. Cash emerges, through an interesting power
play between he and Anse, as the patriarch commanding his siblings in the last
scenes.
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