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Characters · 10
Addie Bundren
Addie Bundren is the matriarch of the Bundren family in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, both dying and then dead, yet she remains the novel's moral and emotional center even though she appears alive in only a few scenes.
character
Anse Bundren
Anse Bundren is the patriarch of the Bundren family in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and stands out as the novel's most darkly comic character.
character
Cash Bundren
Cash Bundren is the eldest son of Addie and Anse in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
character
Cora Tull
Cora Tull is a neighboring farm wife and self-appointed moral judge in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
character
Darl Bundren
Darl Bundren is the second-eldest son and the novel's primary narrator, voicing seventeen of the fifty-nine interior monologues in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
character
Dewey Dell Bundren
Dewey Dell Bundren is the only daughter in the Bundren family and one of the novel's key interior voices in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
character
Jewel Bundren
Jewel Bundren is the third son of Addie Bundren and, as readers eventually discover, the illegitimate son of Reverend Whitfield—a secret that Addie reveals during her solitary inner thoughts.
character
Vardaman Bundren
Vardaman Bundren is the youngest member of the Bundren family and one of the most unique voices in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
character
Vernon Tull
Vernon Tull is a neighboring farmer and a key outside observer in the novel, providing a grounded and practical contrast to the Bundrens' increasingly chaotic journey.
character
Whitfield
Whitfield is the local minister in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).
character
Key quotes · 12
“And so I took Anse. And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it.”
This haunting line comes from Addie Bundren, the dying — and ultimately dead — matriarch of the Bundren family, in her unique interior monologue chapter in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).
Addie Bundren · Addie
“Cash is my brother. We would be together always, and he would never know that I knew.”
This line is spoken by Darl Bundren, the introspective second-eldest son in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).
Darl Bundren
“I would think about his name until after a while I could see the word as a shape, a vessel, and I would watch him liquefy and flow into it like cold molasses flowing out of the darkness into the vessel, until the jar stood full and motionless.”
This haunting passage is delivered by Darl Bundren, the second-eldest son of the Bundren family and the novel's most frequent and philosophically rich narrator.
Darl Bundren
“I could just remember how my father used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.”
This haunting line comes from Addie Bundren in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).
Addie Bundren · Addie
“I am not religious, I reckon. But peace is my heart: I know it is.”
This line is spoken by Dewey Dell Bundren in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930), a novel that presents a stream of consciousness through 59 interior monologues by 15 different narrators.
Dewey Dell Bundren
“My mother is a fish.”
This famous five-word chapter — the shortest in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930) — is voiced (or rather, thought) by Vardaman Bundren, the youngest and most emotionally vulnerable of the Bundren kids.
Vardaman Bundren · 19 (Vardaman's one-sentence chapter)
“It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That's how the world is going to end.”
This haunting line comes from Darl Bundren, the most introspective of the Bundren children, in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).
Darl Bundren
“He would not sell the horse. I told him that if he would sell the horse, I could get the money for the operation. But he would not sell it.”
This line is spoken by Dewey Dell Bundren in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930), a novel that uses stream-of-consciousness and multiple narrators.
Dewey Dell Bundren
“I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.”
This haunting line is spoken by Vardaman Bundren, but it actually originates from Darl Bundren, one of the most reflective narrators in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).
Darl Bundren
“Darl had a little spy-glass he got in France at the war. In it it had a woman and a pig with two backs and no face.”
This line is delivered by Vardaman Bundren, one of the youngest and most intriguing narrators in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).
Vardaman Bundren
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Then I found that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at.”
This quote comes from Addie Bundren in her unique interior monologue chapter in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930).
Addie Bundren · Addie (Chapter 40)
“Jewel's mother is a horse.”
This startling statement comes from As I Lay Dying (1930) by William Faulkner, voiced by Darl Bundren, who is the novel's most insightful and philosophically minded narrator.
Darl Bundren
Symbols · 6
Addie's Coffin
In William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Addie Bundren's coffin serves as a stark reflection of the family's fractured love, duty, and self-interest.
Cash's Carpentry Tools
In William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Cash Bundren's carpentry tools represent order, craftsmanship, and the human urge to bring rational structure to chaos and grief.
Jewel's Horse
In As I Lay Dying, Jewel's horse symbolizes his deep, unexpressed love for Addie Bundren and the fierce, tumultuous passion that characterizes him.
The Barn
In As I Lay Dying, the barn symbolizes the chaotic clash of obsession, duty, and self-destruction in the Bundren family's journey.
The Flooded River
In William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, the flooded Yoknapatawpha River represents the relentless forces of nature that ridicule human determination and highlight the futility of the Bundren family's mission.
Vardaman's Fish
In William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Vardaman's fish reflects his desperate, childlike struggle to grasp the concepts of death and identity.
Literary devices · 11
Dramatic Monologue
Each of the novel's fifty-nine sections is a distinct dramatic monologue where a single speaker talks without a clear listener, revealing character through the difference between what is said and what is understood.
Free Verse
Addie Bundren's sole section—the only moment the deceased woman has a voice—reads more like incantatory prose-poetry than traditional narration.
Imagery
Faulkner fills the novel with vivid sensory imagery that brings abstract emotions to life.
Symbolism
The coffin stands out as the novel's central symbol, gathering a mix of contradictory meanings along its journey: devotion, absurdity, stubbornness, love, and a sense of community all cling to this decaying box.
Juxtaposition
Faulkner often presents sharply contrasting viewpoints on the same event in nearby sections, compelling readers to sense the gap between different minds.
Irony
The novel's central irony lies in its structure: a funeral journey meant to honor Addie's wishes turns into an opportunity for each family member to chase their own desires—Anse's new teeth and wife, Dewey Dell's abortion, Cash's gramophone.
Metaphor
Addie's posthumous reflection on language presents the novel's clearest extended metaphor: words are 'just a shape to fill a lack,' serving as vessels that can never fully capture the reality they represent.
Motif
Eyes appear throughout the novel as a motif related to perception, judgment, and the unknown.
Paradox
Addie's section revolves around paradox: she expresses a philosophy about the limits of language entirely through words, and she speaks—posthumously—to emphasize that speech cannot convey truth.
Extended Metaphor
Darl's description of Addie's coffin as a 'long yellow box' floating down the flooded river serves as a powerful metaphor for how the body resists the meanings that the living try to impose on it.
Pathetic Fallacy
The natural world in the novel reflects and intensifies human crisis without being overly sentimental.
Vocabulary · 25
cottonhouse
A small outbuilding on a farm used to store picked cotton before it is ginned or sold. It serves as a landmark here, a fixed point from which someone could watch the path.
noun · Chapter 1
frayed
Worn down and unraveling at the edges, as cloth or straw does after long, hard use.
adjective · Chapter 1
emptied for sleep
A state of mental blankness that must come before you can fall asleep — the mind cleared of all thought and self-awareness.
phrase · Chapter 1
baking powder
A dry leavening agent mixed into batter to make baked goods rise; here it is a small household staple Cora carefully sets aside so it won't be wasted.
noun · Chapter 2
fortify
To strengthen someone's spirit or character so they can endure hardship; used here in a religious sense, meaning suffering builds inner strength.
verb · Chapter 2
rolling the rocks down
In Jewel's violent fantasy, hurling large stones down a hillside at a crowd of people to drive them away and protect his mother from them.
phrase · Chapter 3
outraged
Violently disturbed or churned up; used here to describe the earth itself as wild and agitated, not a human feeling of anger.
adjective · Chapter 5
wet seed wild in the hot blind earth
An image of something living but helpless, buried in darkness with no control over what happens to it — used to express a feeling of being trapped and overwhelmed by forces beyond one's understanding.
phrase · Chapter 5
usury
The practice of lending money and charging very high interest on it; Anse uses the word to condemn merchants and moneylenders he sees as profiting unfairly off honest working people.
noun · Chapter 7
chastiseth
An archaic third-person singular form of 'chastise,' meaning to punish or discipline; Anse quotes a biblical-sounding phrase suggesting God punishes those He loves.
verb · Chapter 7
I be durn
A rural Southern expression of mild oath or strong emphasis, a softened form of 'I'll be damned,' used to express surprise, frustration, or firm conviction.
phrase · Chapter 7
beveling
Cutting a board's edge at an angle rather than straight across, so that two boards meet at a slant; Cash does this to make the coffin joints fit more tightly and neatly.
verb · Chapter 8
grip
To hold firmly; here it means the nails have more wood surface to bite into and hold when the board edge is cut at a bevel rather than square.
verb · Chapter 8
conjure
To work a kind of spell or mysterious influence over someone; used here in a folk sense meaning Anse has an uncanny ability to persuade or manipulate people against their better judgment.
verb · Chapter 13
had ought to
A regional, nonstandard expression meaning 'should have' or 'ought to have'; used in Southern dialect to express something that was overdue or should already have happened.
phrase · Chapter 9
cocked
Tilted or tipped to one side at an angle; describes the way Jewel wears his hat pushed sideways on his head.
adjective · Chapter 12
ford
A shallow place in a river or stream where people and vehicles can cross by driving or wading through the water rather than using a bridge.
noun · Chapter 11
makeshift
Roughly put together from whatever is available as a temporary substitute for the proper thing; used to describe improvised solutions the family uses on their journey.
adjective
sinful
Morally corrupt and full of wrongdoing; Anse uses it as a sweeping condemnation of the wider world outside his own hardship, implying honest men like himself are victims of a corrupt society.
adjective · Chapter 7
speculation
Making or buying something in advance on the chance that someone will want to purchase it, without a firm order; Cora baked the cakes hoping to sell them but had no guaranteed buyer.
noun · Chapter 2
pious
Deeply and demonstratively religious; used to describe Cora's habit of framing every event, even a failed cake sale, as part of God's plan or a test of faith.
adjective · Chapter 2
monologue
A long speech or passage of thought delivered by one person; in this novel each chapter is a single character's uninterrupted first-person narration of their own thoughts.
noun
tub full of guts
Dewey Dell's image for the overwhelming, tangled mess of feelings and physical sensations pressing in on her — everything crowded together with no room left for anything else.
phrase · Chapter 5
curious
Strange or odd; in Southern dialect use here it means puzzling or hard to understand, not simply interesting.
adjective · Chapter 7
neater
More precise, clean, and well-finished in craftsmanship; Cash's final point on his list, showing that good carpentry is also a matter of pride in appearance.
adjective · Chapter 8