Analysis
With the introduction of several new voices, the narrative
becomes more complex and stylized, and we begin to see identical
events through the voices of various characters. Because Darl appears
so frequently as a narrator, and because his voice has the fewest
peculiarities, his story begins to overpower those of the other
narrators. Indeed, Darl’s mode of speech deviates the least from
Faulkner’s prose style in other novels, and it is tempting to consider
Darl’s point of view to be Faulkner’s. Further supporting this suggestion,
Darl is chosen to narrate Addie’s death even though he is not present
when it happens. Exactly how Darl knows what is going on back at
the house remains a mystery, but his omniscience does put the role
of narrator on his shoulders, at least temporarily.
Nonetheless, As I Lay Dying relies most
heavily on what its characters say, and how they express themselves,
to explain their thoughts and motivations. We do not need Darl,
or a narrator, to explain that Anse is selfish—this observation
is made obvious by the fact that Anse views his wife’s death as
merely another example of his rotten luck. Anse’s colloquial diction
tells us that he is rural and uneducated, which gives us a sufficient
idea of his background. Furthermore, we can compare disparate voices,
like the frantic thoughts of Dewey Dell and the calm reflectiveness
of Tull, to get a sense of how these characters differ from one
another; Dewey Dell is trapped by her problems, for example, while
Tull is so removed that he barely cares.
Ironically, there is an inverse relationship between
a character’s physical distance from the dying Addie and that character’s
emotional attachment to Addie. Darl and Jewel, the two characters
who care about Addie the most, are far from her when she dies, while those
who are preoccupied with other, relatively unimportant matters stand
clustered around her deathbed. Anse, for example, is rather flagrantly
absorbed in his own concerns at the moment of tragedy. “God’s will
be done. . . . Now I can get them teeth,” Anse says, thinking only
of his long-standing desire for false teeth. Dewey Dell throws herself
onto Addie’s deathbed with unexpected fury, but she seems more interested
in her role as her mother’s nurse, and her mind is still primarily
occupied by her growing problems with Lafe. Darl and Jewel are more
thoroughly and constantly preoccupied with the actual loss of their
mother than the other characters are. While the two brothers are
far from Addie when she dies, Darl’s mysterious knowledge of her
death arguably demonstrates that they are the most affected by the
event.
Jewel’s behavior and feelings toward his mother are particularly complex
and puzzling. From Cora’s point of view, Jewel is an insensitive,
spoiled child who displays no qualms about leaving his dying mother.
Indeed, although he appears to be Addie’s favorite child, Jewel,
unlike Darl, does not even say good-bye to his mother before he
leaves. Still, Jewel clearly cares about Addie, and grows deeply indignant
at what he considers to be the Tulls’ intrusive presence in the
household and the insensitivity of Cash’s working on Addie’s coffin
right beneath her window while she is still alive. Moreover, in his
interior monologue in the first part of the novel, Jewel expresses a
forceful wish to be alone with Addie as she dies. Faulkner is not attempting
to emphasize one view of Jewel over another. The difficulty in pinning
Jewel down to a single perspective demonstrates the multifaceted
nature of his character.
