As I Lay Dying

Uncle Bubba read the novel "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner many years ago and found it profoundly disturbing on many levels; he surmised that many people felt this way, but who knows? The story is written about Addie Bundren, the wife of Anse Bundren and the matriarch of a poor southern family, she is very ill, and is expected to die soon. Her four children wrestle with there individual perceptions of the event and the rather sizable questions of existence and identity. Addie's unorthodox wish to be buried near her blood relatives rather than with her own family is at the core of the story and sets of a tumult of actions by the family to honor her wish. In a critique of the story in Sparks Notes, Uncle Bubba would agree with the assertion the, "As I Lay Dying is, in its own way, a relentlessly cynical novel, and it robs even childbirth of its usual rehabilitative powers. Instead of functioning as an antidote to death, childbirth seems an introduction to it—for both Addie and Dewey Dell, giving birth is a phenomenon that kills the people closest to it, even if they are still physically alive. For Addie, the birth of her first child seems like a cruel trick, an infringement on her precious solitude, and it is Cash’s birth that first causes Addie to refer to Anse as dead. Birth becomes for Addie a final obligation, and she sees both Dewey Dell and Vardaman as reparations for the affair that led to Jewel’s conception, the last debts she must pay before preparing herself for death. Dewey Dell’s feelings about pregnancy are no more positive: her condition becomes a constant concern, causes her to view all men as potential sexual predators, and transforms her entire world, as she says in an early section, into a “tub full of guts.” Birth seems to spell out a prescribed death for women and, by proxy, the metaphorical deaths of their entire households."*

Not long after reading it, Bubbie put the novel out of his mind as anyone would an unpleasantry, but now it has resurfaced in the back of his mind as the matriarch of his own family, his mama is withering as he sits at her bedside. He is not only a witness to her ending from this life, but also a spiritually adept chronicler of the players in the Broadway show of her life. As he looks down at her and studies her features he can easily recall her best and beautiful youth. She was a petite, black haired beauty that could sing like an angel. Her enigmatic personality was complex and confusing to her children and much like the characters in the aforementioned novel, each had a vastly different experience and relationship with her. Uncle Bubba lovingly brushes back the hair on her forehead and considers himself blessed to be a Christian in these trying times; perhaps more devoutly Christian than his siblings as far as he can see, not to slight them for it but to grieve for them in their struggles to navigate life and this tense moment. Again Faulkner's cast of characters drift into his mind and he reckons that he's played each role in his mama's play. Cash Bundren, the eldest Bundren child and a skilled carpenter. Bubbie can sit in any corner of this ol' house and see his handy work. Cash is the paragon of patience and selflessness, almost to the point of absurdity. Darl Burden is the most sensitive and articulate. Jewel, the bastard child of Addie and Whitfield the minister. Jewel has a proud, fiercely independent nature that most of his family and neighbors confuse for selfishness. His passionate, brooding nature, however, reveals a real love and dedication to his mother, and he becomes a fierce protector. Vardaman is the youngest of the Bundren children. He has a lively imagination, and although his ramblings at the beginning of the novel border on the maniacal, Vardaman proves to be a thoughtful and innocent child. Bubbie has been all of these and none of them at one time or another, he feels that poignantly now at this tired time of transition.



Uncle Bubba can hear his mama's big clock in the other room: tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... tick... Time is all they have now. It may be short or tick on slowly and inscrutably. The players will enter and leave to play their narcissistic roles until the final scene, which we all know, like in the novel only sets off the beginning of a story. The will look upon her face but like Narcissus will only see their own reflection as when he caught sight of his own reflection in a pool, he sat gazing at it in fascination, wasting away without food or drink, unable to touch or kiss the image he saw. Uncle Bubba floats in and out of these early memories and false realities to reassure himself of the reason that he his here in the first place. In Bubbie's view, he is honored to share this time with his mama and be a good and faithful son until she decides that it is time for that chapter of his life is closed.




* SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on As I Lay Dying.” SparkNotes LLC. 2003. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/asilay/themes.html (accessed December 27, 2016).