As I Lay Dying Darden Character Analysis
Brianna Morris
Ms. Amie Myers
AML 2020
29 April 2015
“Perspective of Sanity in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying” William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is a Modernist comedic tragedy about the Bundren family’s difficult journey to Jefferson to bury the matriarch of their family, Mrs. Addie Bundren. Mr. Faulkner separates this story into fifty-nine sections with fifteen different narrators in order to emphasize the characters’ relationships with one another, as well as each character’s perspective on their current circumstances. Darl, the second of Addie’s five children, narrates nineteen of these sections, making him a very important character. Towards the end of the story, he burns a barn, attempting to burn Addie’s body in the process, getting …show more content…
Compared to the other characters in As I Lay Dying, Darl seems to be the sanest. Insanity is defined as extreme folly or unreasonableness. Darl is not prone to folly or unreasonable behavior. In fact, Darl seems to be the most knowledgeable and reasonable throughout the whole story. In “The Man Who Suffers and The Mind Which Creates,” Martin J. Jacobi writes, “Darl suffers more than the other Bundrens because his mother never loved him and he knows it. He knows other things, too. More than Anse, he can see the power of Addie’s active and emotional plane, and more than Addie, he knows that words have power, that they create their own experiences” (Jacobi , np). From a reader’s perspective, Darl’s reality is reality. For example, Darl knows that Addie loves Jewel most of all. That is why he feels that he has to prove that he loves her more than Jewel does, so that she will love him, too. Cora says, “It was the sweetest thing I ever saw. It was like he knew he would never see her again… I always said Darl was different from those others” (Faulkner, 704). Little does Darl know, however, that saying goodbye to his mother means nothing to her, because words meant nothing to her. Then, when Darl burns the barn and tries to burn his mother’s body, he is just trying to get the hell they were going through over with. He did it when no one was looking so he did not hurt anyone’s feelings. Darl says, “He has seen me without even …show more content…
Not only do the perspectives in the book differ, but so do those around it. Darl’s family thinks he is crazy. Most of the readers see Darl as being perfectly sane. William Faulkner, himself, says Darl has been mad from the beginning, but Mr. Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in fifteen different points-of-view for a reason. Everyone has a different perspective on Darl’s
Ms. Amie Myers
AML 2020
29 April 2015
“Perspective of Sanity in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying” William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is a Modernist comedic tragedy about the Bundren family’s difficult journey to Jefferson to bury the matriarch of their family, Mrs. Addie Bundren. Mr. Faulkner separates this story into fifty-nine sections with fifteen different narrators in order to emphasize the characters’ relationships with one another, as well as each character’s perspective on their current circumstances. Darl, the second of Addie’s five children, narrates nineteen of these sections, making him a very important character. Towards the end of the story, he burns a barn, attempting to burn Addie’s body in the process, getting …show more content…
Compared to the other characters in As I Lay Dying, Darl seems to be the sanest. Insanity is defined as extreme folly or unreasonableness. Darl is not prone to folly or unreasonable behavior. In fact, Darl seems to be the most knowledgeable and reasonable throughout the whole story. In “The Man Who Suffers and The Mind Which Creates,” Martin J. Jacobi writes, “Darl suffers more than the other Bundrens because his mother never loved him and he knows it. He knows other things, too. More than Anse, he can see the power of Addie’s active and emotional plane, and more than Addie, he knows that words have power, that they create their own experiences” (Jacobi , np). From a reader’s perspective, Darl’s reality is reality. For example, Darl knows that Addie loves Jewel most of all. That is why he feels that he has to prove that he loves her more than Jewel does, so that she will love him, too. Cora says, “It was the sweetest thing I ever saw. It was like he knew he would never see her again… I always said Darl was different from those others” (Faulkner, 704). Little does Darl know, however, that saying goodbye to his mother means nothing to her, because words meant nothing to her. Then, when Darl burns the barn and tries to burn his mother’s body, he is just trying to get the hell they were going through over with. He did it when no one was looking so he did not hurt anyone’s feelings. Darl says, “He has seen me without even …show more content…
Not only do the perspectives in the book differ, but so do those around it. Darl’s family thinks he is crazy. Most of the readers see Darl as being perfectly sane. William Faulkner, himself, says Darl has been mad from the beginning, but Mr. Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in fifteen different points-of-view for a reason. Everyone has a different perspective on Darl’s