The Library Annex

Now you are aware of me! Now I am something in your secret and selfish life, who have marked your blood with my own for ever and ever.

Faulkner has a simple tale to tell about a family coping with a mother’s death. Yet he knows that the universal episode becomes sacred only when personally experienced. He unlocks this experience through the thoughtful construction of the novel around perspective.

Each character writes a chapter in which they convey their view of an event in the first-person. They have their own unique language and style to convey the their nature and the reader feels like a confidant listening to their views on their family members and events surrounding their mother’s passing.

The novel starts with Darl, the second-born son, who pens nineteen chapters; the most in the book. Of all the other characters, he has an impressive grasp on literary technique with an oftentimes astoudning use of imagery based on his skills of observation. He does not often depricate his family members and often describes their eyes, calling attention to the importance of perspective. His imaginitive descriptions can lead the reader to whose eyes to trust. Ironically, no one describes Darl’s eyes and near the end of the novel one might question whether or not they should have trusted him.

Vardaman is the youngest child and has the next most chapters with ten. At his young age, he wrestles with the loss of his mother, attempting to process a world in which she no longer exists. He has seen death, most recently of a fish, and makes the child-like connection between the fish and his mother and figures them to be one. His mother is a fish. She cannot be the rotting corpse in the wagon with them.

Vernon Tull, married to Cora, has six chapters. He is neighbor to the family and helps them on the first leg of their journey to Jefferson to bury Addie.

Cash, the oldest child, has five chapters. To begin the book, he labors intensely to construct his mother’s coffin. In retrospect, one might find this emotionally abusive but Cash only seeks to please. Cash suffers greatly with virtually no complaint as dutiful first-born sons do. Unfortunately, this has catastrophic impact on his phyiscal well-being. He strikes me as protective, reasonable and logical as well as a model older brother. However, as we hear from one other sibling in particular, he can be misunderstood based on jealousies or insecurities.

Dewey Dell, the lone daughter and eldest only to Vardaman, has four chapters. Her mother’s passing thrusts her into premature feminine duties at the age of 17. As the family travels and meets other families along the way, we hear other wives rave against the treatment of women by men with particular fury for the handling of Addie’s corpse, refusing to let her rest. Unfortunately, circumstances force Dewey Dell into this legacy but she refuses to abandon her fierce love and protection of her siblings.

Anse, the family father, and Cora, Vernon Tull’s wife, both have three chapters and these two…oh, these two. A poor, pathetic yet proud patriarch attempting to carry an image ill-suited to his nature at great peril to his family. And a wife who would as soon assess the hardships of a family based on her good “Christian virtues” than actually enact those good Christian virtues. They iritate, infuriate and think only of themselves.

Strangely, as the focal subjects of the novel, both the middle-child, Jewel, and Addie herself, have one chapter. Addie, for obvious reasons, and Jewel because he struggles to find his place within the family. I found Jewel the most interesting. He had a special favor with his mother and is perhaps the only free-thinking threat to his father’s dominion. This places him in a precarious situation between duty to his siblings against their idiot father and making a path for his own self-reliant individuality. And though the book centers around Addie and her corpse, we only get to hear her perspective once. I found it the most fascinating chapter.

People outside the family share the remaining chapters. Of course, their perspectives portray the family in a way that Faulkner could have employed throughout the book. But this would expose them to cliche, premature judgements and a shallow exploration of death. Yet that surface understanding helps sustain intrigue for certain pivotal instances that compel the story forward.

If not for this presentation, I feel the book would lack significance outside of a picturesque portrayal of poverty in the American south. But through this critically important use of perspective, Faulkner conveys a different story about death in a poverty-stricken family in the American south – the same events, the same characters, but a much different book with many more compelling questions and dimensions. And let us not forget the title. As I Lay Dying.