As I Lay Dying: Plot Summary

As I Lay Dying: Plot Summary

Addie Bundren,the wife and mother of a poor southern family, is very ill and expected to die soon. According to her wish, Cash, Addie's oldest son makes a coffin for her in front of her window so she can see it. Though knowing she is dying, her two sons, Jewel and Darl, go to the town for a delivery that will earn them three dollars. Addie dies before they return.

Addie has asked her husband Anse to bury her with her family in the town of Jefferson; Anse decides to fulfill this promise, so the family starts the journey with a rickety wagon. When they pass the bridge, it is washed away by heavy rain so they almost lose the coffin, and the mules are drown. Cashes breaks his leg again, and the rest of the family, alng with their neighber Tull, searches for Cash's carpentry tool in the river.

Addie speaks as a dead, recalling her loveless marriage to Anse and her affair with the local minister, Whitfield, which led to Jewel’s conception. Explanation for her attitudes toward different children and the wish to be buried in Jefferson is revealed.

With the pain of a broken leg, Cash still moves on with his family. Anse takes his saving for false teeth, Cash's saving for a gramophone, and Jewel's horse to purchase a new team of mules. In the town of Mottson, residents react with horror to the stench coming from the wagon. Dewey Dell tries to buy a drug in town that will abort her unwanted pregnancy, but the pharmacist refuses to sell her. They buy cement in town to make a makeshift cast for Cash’s broken leg, which only makes Cash's situation worse. The Bundrens then spend the night at a local farm owned by a man named Gillespie. The barn on the farm burns in the night, but Jewel risks his life to drag out the coffin. Darl lies on his mother’s coffin and cries.

The family arrive in Jefferson and bury Addie the next day. They find Darl is the one who sets the fire and Gillespie may sue them, so they claim Darl insane and give him to a pair of men who commit him to a Jackson mental institution. Dewey Dell tries again to buy an abortion drug at the local pharmacy but is tricked into exchanging sexual services. The father comes back to his children the following morning with a new set of false teeth and a new bride--a local woman with a gramophone, whom he borrows shovels to bury Addie from.

source from:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/asilay/summary.html

As I Lay Dying: Theme of Religion

Theme of religion in As I Lay Dying

Divine justice is not just in the story; who is rewarded with good luck is not upright. Also, the minister, while preaching chastity and morality, is a hypocritical adulterer who illegitimately fathers a son. However, characters in the story often back up their own ideas with religion beliefs. The following quotes are as examples:

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“Riches is nothing in the face of the Lord, for He can see into the heart.” (2.5)

Here Cora is reminded of her religion belief as her daughter Kate speaks of the rich town ladies changing minds. The statement can be referred to Biblical text, Proverbs 11.4: “Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.” And John 3.20: “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knowest all things.”(King James Version)

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“Now and then a fellow gets to thinking. About all the sorrow and afflictions in this world; how it’s liable to strike anywhere, like lightning. I reckon it does take a powerful trust in the Lord to guard a fellow, though sometimes I think that Cora’s a mite over-cautious, like she was trying to crowd the other folks away and get in closer than anybody else. But then, when something like this happens, I reckon she is right and you got to keep after it and I reckon I am blessed in having a wife that ever strives for sanctity and well-doing like she says I am.” (16.21)

Tull ponders on the importance of faith.

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“One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.” (40.30)

Cora believes Addie’s only sin to be loving Jewel more than other children, and the punishment is the favorite child does not love her. Cora thinks Addie closes her heart to God; Addie views Jewel, the child she has from adultery, as the salvation and she knows more about sin.

Sources from:

http://www.shmoop.com/as-i-lay-dying/religion-theme.html

http://www.bookrags.com/notes/aild/TOP3.html

As I Lay Dying: What Reality Is

What reality is

The novel is narrated by 15 characters for 59 chapters, and each chapter consists of a monologue. When the narrators recount their experiences, the present and the past are mixed. Sometimes the readers are told of the past, but sometimes the readers participate in the novel’s immediate present. “Frequently, the monologues are simple descriptive reports of events and situations, supplemented with comments and emotional reactions. The occasional excursions into the past function as illustrations to the present state of affairs, and point up complete events, which are meaningful as themselves.”

Besides the family members and neighbors, some narrators are outsiders of the story that enable the readers to follow viewpoints without emotional attachment. All characters comment on the same external reality, and readers are always addressed to directly. Narrators are not aware of each others’ opinion as in interrupted monologue, but they are interrupted by the arrangement of text. Readers do not know what will happen next but always have a chance to compare the different perspectives and balance them. Readers decide the source as reliable or unreliable, and it is closer to the way we attain information in daily life if compared to traditional narration.

“The transmissions of reality in personal experiences are not made explicit, but are implicit in the difference between reality and experience of it.” It provides a sense that even though we know there may be misjudgment in appearance, still we can only approach to the appearance.

Source from:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/k6315x2716776u14/

Video Clip: A Southern World View

A Southern World View of The Old South and Pro-slavery Ideology

Source from:

http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRfByLRO5xs&feature=relmfu

Video Clip: A Clip of American Southern Literature

A clip with explicit explanation about American Southern Literature

Source from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryLOwDRSFCM

Video Clip: Brief Introduction of Southern Renaissance

Brief introduction of Southern Renaissance

Source from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXvaFqEqlauE

Southern Literature: Definition

Definition of American Southern Literature

    In order to understand the role of the Southern Gothic in American Literature, it is important to understand its background. American Southern literature is usually referred to as those American literature associated with the Southern United States or writers from this region. There are some characteristics of Southern literature, including the importance of family, the emphasis of community, how one is influenced by the two, and of course a focus on Southern history. In addition, the region's dominant religion plays a very important role in Southern literature; in many works the advantages and disadvantages religion brings are often discussed. Issues of racial tension, as well as conflict resulted from different social classes can also be referred in works of American Southern Literature

"The states in dark red are almost always included in modern day definitions of the South, while those in medium red are usually included. The striped states are sometimes/occasionally considered Southern" (Wikipedia).

picture & source from:

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_literature