as i lay dying

cash

  • 29, oldest son

  • carpenter

  • physical asymmetry

    • “the carpenter with a limp who can calculate within half an inch how far he fell” cnn

  • I vs bevel (slant) → carpenters put things together as he tries to fix his family → inability to comprehend

    • “neater job”

    • use of numbers vs 13 (unlucky, odd) numbers

    • nails, gripping, joints, seams → tidy connections

values

  • order

  • balance

  • symmetry

  • traditional roles

  • hand labor

pages 82-83 vs page 96

tool

  • chalk line

    • will crack if under pressure

    • always under constant alignment

jewel

horse & modernism

  • during 19th-20th century culture, animals/horses became symbols of pure motion & appreciated by the modern fascination w dynamism, movement, and change

  • broad emergence of philosophies of process & progress, even as animals disappear from modernity’s newly urbanized landscape

    • irony: tech was more advanced & horsepower not being used anymore but still respected

  • horse

    • modernism

    • animetaphor (central image)

    • process/change

    • jewel himself

tool

  • hammer

    • physical

    • driving force

    • people copy him

    • leaves an imprint

    • independent on its own

darl

use of baroque stream of consciousness

  • alienation from community

  • introspective, perceptive, thoughts into images

  • expression & progression of an idea

  • quality of reflections & advanced sentence structure

  • philosophical

character overall

  • what does he know?

    • knows dewey’s pregnancy

    • he is the I - identity, consciousness - eye (knowing & seeing everything)

      • his knowing leads to his not knowing as he dismantles his identity and cannot focus on himself, focuses on others (jewel & dewey)

        • obsession w jewel - he knows who he is & darl will never be able to know himself because he knows too much

    • knows absurdity of the journey to jefferson - why he laughs, personal motives > addie’s wishes

  • what does he wonder?

    • his own identity & isolation from others

  • why does he struggle w existence?

modernism

existentialism

tool

  • rule

    • guiding factor

    • repeated use → overthinking

dewey dell

new hope & stream of consciousness

  • goes from looping repetition to no syntax as her thoughts become more fragmented

  • new hope can maybe give her hope that she can abort the baby and have someone help her

her name

  • dewey

    • “do”

      • does the deed

    • “due”

      • baby

      • judgement/money

      • expectation/time

    • john dewey

      • psychological theorist

      • concept of knowing

      • perception & sensation

    • dewey system

      • complex system itself

      • organized, unlike her

    • morning dew

      • growing a baby → wet seedling

      • delicate/pure, unlike her

    • glistening sweat

      • opposite of anse

      • her tears at night

  • dell

    • dried stream

    • hollow, small valley covered by trees

    • secret shade

  • whole name

    • oxymoron for wet and dry

    • dew is filling dell → cotton filing sack

      • metaphor for intercourse

tool

  • plane

    • lumber sticking in machine → looping repetition & being stuck in her head/distracted

    • pressure must be exerted on plane - pressure of pregnancy

    • multiple parts of plane - fragmented mind struggles to connect thoughts, keeps her away from facing reality

    • action vs inaction

vardaman

the fish meanings

  • cooked fish

    • acceptance of her death

    • helps him understand the cease of existence

  • an is vs my is

    • his own difference in meaning & thinking process as he struggles with what used to exist and what does not anymore

animal magnetism

  • uses physical actions towards the cow & horses to make up for his lack of ability to properly understand & manage his emotions that are too complex

  • transfers his emotions to solace horse as he becomes unafraid of her death

  • mirrors jewel through violence, physicality, and isolation

  • most emotional & copies him

  • also darl - long sentence structure & introspective

tool

  • auger

    • drills holes→ drew holes in addie’s coffin so she can breathe while she’s dead

  • nails

    • driven by hammer (jewel)

    • not dependent by himself, but also does not go to family members after her death & beats peabody’s horses instead

    • young enough to be influenced or imprinted on by someone older

existentialism

  • their dilemma of existence, while kept to the notions of the self,,,??

  • fragmentation & alienation of I is a response to the “lurch towards modernity”

  • character’s choices & struggles w meaning

  • seeks meaning/absence of it in individual experience

lenses

  • marxist

    • connects characters to economic/class struggles & conditions

    • power dynamics shape the text

  • psychoanalytic

    • psychological complexity of characters → mask vs shadow (repressed emotions), desires, inner conflict

    • meaning in subconscious fears & desires, motives

  • feminist

    • critiques patriarchal systems & gender inequality

    • examines characters’ gender roles

    • ties meaning to gender dynamics

    • portrayal of female characters

  • deconstructionist

    • instability of meaning

    • rejects singular interpretations

    • breaks apart fixed meanings & examines contradictions

cubism

  • fragmented multi purpose storytelling to find meaning

  • disjointed/simultaneous perspectives