Character Analysis: Addie

"As I Lay Dying"
By William Faulkner

In William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying”, the actions in the novel revolve around one of the most important characters, Addie Bundren. Addie Bundren is the wife of Anse and the mother of Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. In the beginning of the book Addie is gravely ill and dies early in the novel. Under Addie’s request, her husband and children are traveling across the countryside of Mississippi to Jefferson so Addie can be buried upon her birth/blood family rather than with her own family. For this Addie is characterized as an unnatural, loveless, cold, and selfish individual who causes pain and misery upon her family as they travel through harsh conditions in order to bury her body where she had wished. Through the structure of the book, each character’s monologues seems to give us a deeper understanding of who Addie truly is as her character contains only one monologue throughout the entire novel in which Addie’s voice reappears after her death where she is able to explain herself.

One character that seems to define Addie in depth is Cora Tull who relives memories of the late Addie. Cora suggests that Addie lived “a lonely woman, lonely with her pride, trying to make folks believe different, hiding the fact that they just suffered her” (22). This plays into the idea that Addie is a loveless human being as she despises her family and pretends as though their being has caused a burden upon her. Addie did not truly love or care for her child, nor her husband, which contrast’s Cora’s thought that “A woman’s place is with her husband and children, alive or dead” (23). In that sense it seems as though she was prepared and ready to die, to rid herself of the presence of her family and her negative past she had, having had an affair with Reverend Whitfield, which resulted in the birth of Jewel, who evidently was favored by Addie. Cora also suggests that the reason Addie acted this way was because she was never pure religious. Cora says, “God gave you children to comfort your hard lot and for a token of His own suffering and love, for in love you conceived and bore them” (166), but Addie lacks this characteristic.

Addie is truly a character that is unable to express herself in words/ language, which is evident in her single monologue. Addie suggests “the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time” (169), which is an excuse she falls back on in the novel for treating the people in her life the way she did. Addie suggests that living was terrible, which taught her that words were no good as they are unable to explain what was trying to be said. This is also influenced in the text when Addie says, “That was when I learned words were no good; that words don’t ever fit even what they are trying to say” (171). Throughout the entire novel it seems that the actions speak louder than word. Though the novel is written and built of words, the characters’, like Addie, inability to speak with words are overpowered by the actions that are taking place.

Addie suggests that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear and pride for those who never had pride. Addie recognizes that language is constructed, that someone “invented it.” Addie’s philosophy on life makes her one of the most important and interesting characters in the novel. Her character centers around the title, “As I lay Dying”. Her willingness to die causes conflict within the family she is leaving behind, however she looks to her death as a place to better her own life as is determined to die, making her selfish. The rest of the family looks to her death as a great tragedy, though they never really express their love towards her, and in a sense they do not let her die. Addie is unlike any of the other characters. Overall, Addie exemplifies one of Faulkner's characters who is unable to express herself using language, which is key in understanding her character and actions in the novel.