As I Lay Dying Flashcards
How many different narrators are there in “As I Lay Dying”?
15
What is the county where this story takes place?
Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi
Who are the parents of the Bundren family?
Addie and Anse
Who are the sons of the Bundren family?
Cash, Jewel, Darl, and Vardaman
Who is the daughter in the Bundren family?
Dewey Dell
Who makes Addie’s coffin?
Cash
What is Jewel’s prized possession?
A horse
Who is Jewel’s father?
Whitfield, the minister
What was Addie’s profession?
Schoolteacher
Where does Addie want to be buried? Why?
Jefferson; that is where her family is from.
Who are the Bundren’s neighbors who narrate a few chapters?
Vernon and Cora Tull
Who sets fire to the Gillespie barn? Why?
Darl - he hopes to burn his mother’s coffin and end the farce of them trying to take her to Jefferson.
What two things does Anse acquire at the end of the novel?
A new wife and a set of false teeth.
What happens to Darl?
In order to avoid paying to replace the Gillespie barn, Anse has Darl declared insane and sent to an asylum in Jackson.
What 20th century thinker influenced Faulkner’s focus on cognition?
Sigmund Freud (the unconscious, dreams, and sublimation, where strong feelings like grief are masked by other concerns on the mind’s surface)
For what work did Faulkner win the 1950 Nobel Prize?
Intruder in the Dust
What are some of the despicable things Anse does to get money for the new set of mules after his drown in the river?
- Sells Jewel’s horse
- Takes the money Cash was saving for a phonograph
- Later, he takes the money Dewey Dell needs for her abortion to buy new teeth
Why aren’t Darl and Jewel there for their mother’s death?
They’ve taken a job hauling lumber that will cause them to be gone 3 days. They go even though they know it is likely Addie will be dead by the time they return.
From whose perspective is the book title?
Ostensibly, Addie’s. But there is an element of decay and inevitability that I think we could actually see it as coming collectively from the Bundren family.
What is the name of the man Dewey Dell slept with?
Lafe
Why is Addie put into her coffin upside down?
So there will be room for her wedding dress to spread out.
How did Cash break his leg the first time?
Falling off the roof of a church he was working on.
What two movements/styles could we fit “As I Lay Dying’ into?
- Southern Gothic
- Modernism
How does Jewel get his horse?
As a teenager, he secretly works nights to earn the money to buy it. For a while, his family thinks he has a disease.
What is Anse’s primary characteristic?
He is lazy (Addie describes him as “dead”) (inertia)
