Anse In William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

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William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is a unique novel centered around the Bundren family going on a perilous journey in order to bury their mother Addie. The family faces many ordeals to fulfill their mother’s dying wish. Some of which include a broken leg, trading valuables away, and being taken advantage of. Anse, the father of the family, paints himself as a victim even though he is a root cause of their misfortunes. In the chosen passage, Anse shyly announces the family’s valuables that must be traded away in recompense for his mistaken river crossing. Throughout the novel, Faulkner highlights the hypocrisy of Anse with his lack of piety and constant misguided judgement which leads to the the suffering and perpetual sacrifices of his children. …show more content…
Cash, who had already broken his leg and most likely would not be able to walk anymore, had saved to “buy that talking machine from Suratt with that money,” but Anse had to trade it away for another team of mules. (Faulkner 65) This is only necessary because they attempted to ford a flooded river rather than waiting another day, another costly mistake caused by Anse. This causes his children to sacrifice once again in order to correct his wrongs. In a similar vein, Jewel has to give up his beloved horse. This horse is special to him because he bought it on his own with his own hard work and dedication as he stated when his family first found out, “I earned it. You won’t need to worry about it.” (Faulkner 44) This is the epitome of sacrifice for this terrible journey. Jewel had worked on his own to provide for this horse and had given it much attention and love over the years. However, he had to give it up in order to satisfy the requirements of the deal in order to preserve the family’s increasingly arduous task. Vardaman, the youngest Bundren, witnessed all of these occurrences and more. His young mind realized “Darl went crazy” after his attempt to burn down the barn with his mother’s coffin in it. (Faulkner 87) Darl is eventually taken to a mental ward, further highlighting the suffering caused by this idiotic journey and influenced by the incredibly poor decision making his father employed. Darl suffers while his father complains of all the problems his children have caused him. In addition, Dewey Dell is taken advantage of by a drugstore employee named MacGowan. He states, “I'll give you the rest of it and perform the operation,” when the treatment is actually fake and the operation is sexual services. (Faulkner 84) Dewey Dell is clueless and paid for a false treatment that would not actually get
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