Dewey Dell Character Analysis In As I Lay Dying

Authors are criticized constantly; chastised for their employment of literary elements such as allusions, motifs, and word choices. Ernest Gaines has been castigated for the utilization of passive characters in his famous novel, A Lesson Before Dying. His castigation is wrongful simply as a result of the fact that I do not believe his main characters are passive for the entirety of the book. His characters are accused of refusing to fight the injustices surrounding them. While this refusal is apparent throughout his work, Gaines does a commendable job developing a form of aggression in his more passive characters.

Sasha Stephens 2-5-15 English Mrs.o The Bundren family is full with many personalities similar to most families. As I Lay Dying is the story of the Bundrens, a poor, Southern, agrarian family. The “dying” in the title refers to Addie, the matron of the family. The book opens with her vigil and ends just after her interment in the ground. Her husband and five children undertake an arduous trek from their hilltop farm to a burial plot in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi.

Characters: (Select 3 Characters- Please do not use ANY quotations in this section) Write a profile applying insight for 3 major characters in the work. For each character, review the text and consider the following information on characterization: How is the character directly described (physically, mentally, emotionally)? What does the character say or do that shows the reader the character’s role in the story? How do other characters react to this character and why is it significant to the story?

In the novel As I Lay Dying by WIlliam Faulkner, Darl Bundren is considered to be the protagonist. However, this title is subjective, as the Bundren family would consider Darl as the antagonist of the novel. Darl’s abilities to be completely lucid and to acquire information telepathically help the reader understand what is going on. On the other hand, the Bundren family despises Darl for being knowledgeable of things that they do not want to know, for example, Dewey Dell’s pregnancy and Jewel’s illegitimacy. The Bundren family prizes treachery and secrecy rather than facing the truth, making Darl a traitor.

The differences that arise between older and younger generations are often lifelong and tragic. In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Anse’s unorthodox views are at odds with almost everyone else’s views, including the views of his family members, such as Darl’s, Jewel’s, and Dewey Dell’s. Throughout the entire book, Anse’s main goal is to travel to Jefferson, Mississippi, in order to bury his wife there, as this was his wife’s wish.

William Faulkner’s, As I Lay Dying, recounts the tale of Addie Bundren’s childrens’ journey across Mississippi in order to bury her deceased body. Though all of the family members are experiencing similar events during the excursion, Darl Bundren narrates these situations and how he perceives them differently. Thus, one is able to analyze Darl’s actions as he exercises his own individual prose and emotion.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Americans developed an inflated view of their own greatness. Vitalized by its military success and growing economic prosperity, the young nation grew enamored by the apparent eminence of its own democratic civilization. America established its own set of ideals, but the nation’s exceptionalism allowed little toleration of those who fell outside such norms. Authors across the normal literary canon have actively explored this phenomenon of the “other,” illuminating the struggles of abnormality in the American system. In Linden Hills, Gloria Naylor depicts a young man who must suppress his homosexuality in order to be successful in his community.

In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Faulkner shows how quickly a person's identity can change depending on the circumstances each person is confronted with through Jewel’s cold and reserved behavior that greatly opposes his significant love for his mother. Jewel is seen as insensitive and heartless but when he shows his resentment toward Cash’s insistence on constructing Addie’s coffin right outside her window, he felt as if Cash “want[ed] to see her in it”(14) and shows a sense of concern for his mothers well being. Jewel had “taken and gone”(42) without even saying goodbye to his mother and rejecting her love shows that the difficulty in pinning Jewel down to a single perspective demonstrates the multifaceted nature of his character. Jewel,

As a whole, those awarded with elevated monetary assets and possessions live a far easier life than their impoverished counterparts, often characterized by gross excess and indulgence. It is often expected that such privileged individuals work for the improvement of the general human condition, whether that be through philanthropy or activism. Specifically, these expectations have been long instilled in the wealthy American South, of which William Faulkner was a part. Born into an affluent family raised to the song of southern virtue, Faulkner hummed with charm and generosity, and he marched to the strict cadence of Christianity, his beliefs marking every step in his life. Coming of age in the new century, he released his work As I Lay Dying

Just like Faulkner speaks of the way that the writer can remind man of the meaningful abstractions honor, hope, pride, compassion, pity, sacrifice, he can show to the reader to remind them of the glory of their past (Faulkner 872). A writer can create a character that withstands great odds, and shows fluently his ability to exercise the abstractions Faulkner speaks

The family's treacherous journey to Jefferson is filled with danger and excitement, yet Faulkner gives many doses of humor throughout the novel. The characters employ themselves in outrageous acts of irony, from Addie's rejection of her most devoted son, to Anse's concern with his false teeth instead of Addie's death, to Vardaman's calling his mother a fish. This irony would not have been evident if it were not for Faulkner's use of multiple narrators. Faulkner was enchanted by Freudian theories of psychology when he wrote this novel, and recounting the story through various perspectives allows the reader to understand each character's reaction. This enhanced the dark humor throughout the novel because the reader can see into each family member's thoughts on her death.

As I Lay Dying, I gained a deeper understanding of Faulkner’s true identity, which manifests itself in his writing style. In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner uses many different literary techniques in order to effectively communicate his message to the audience. The most prominent artistic style

Walter J. Slatoff is quoted in “As I Lay Dying an Ironic Quest” by Elizabeth M. Kerr saying: One is uncertain about the qualities of some of the important characters and about how to feel toward them; one is puzzled by the meanings of many of the events; one is far from sure what the book is chiefly about, and above all one is uncertain to what extent one has been watching an epic or tragedy or farce (Kerr). The reader is left without meaning because there is no meaning to be found. Faulkner chose to write in stream of consciousness from different points of view. Because there is not one character who finds meaning or whose journey left the reader with finding any meaning.

Robert Cohn, Jake’s friend from tennis, embodies feminine traits. Cohn’s effeminate behavior demonstrated by his following Brett around, helplessly in love. In the text, Mike Campbell, Brett’s fiancé, points this failure and weakness out by saying, “’Tell me, Robert. Why do you follow Brett around like a poor bloody steer?’” (146).

The well-known circumstance of young Sam Clemens ' witnessing his father 's post- mortem through a keyhole sheds further light on the significance to Mark Twain of the painful question of the physical destruction of the father 's body after death.22 The symbolic transformation of Twain 's own profoundly dis- turbing experience of a distant, judgmental father into a mythic trinity of fathers can perhaps help us to understand one of the signal failures of Twain 's fiction: his inability to imagine convinc- ing, complex women characters. Yonge.8 The conflict between social circumstances and the inner lives and aspirations of his characters is a theme that appears in Huck Finn and in The Prince and the Pauper.9 Twain 's version of European customs,