"Cliff Notes - As I Lay Dying" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

25. DARL

Darl gives another view of what Vardaman reported in the earlier section. He studies Jewel, who is approaching the barn, and then he shifts his attention to Dewey Dell. Peabody is there; Darl can see his reflection in Dewey Dell's eyes.

The wagon moves, and as it does the buzzards disappear. Anse thinks he has convinced Jewel to leave his horse home.

NOTE: DESCRIPTION OF DEWEY DELL Darl describes Dewey Dell's leg in a way that may reveal more about Faulkner's view of her. Darl speaks of "that lever which moves the world; one of that caliper which measures the length and breadth of life." What do you think Faulkner is saying about women with these two metaphors, one of a lever and the other of a caliper (an instrument that measures diameters)? Is he identifying her as a life force, someone literally capable of moving the world? How could her two legs, spreading and closing like a caliper, take the measure of life?

26. ANSE

Anse bemoans his luck throughout the monologue. He feels that Jewel is showing disrespect for his mother by bringing the horse. And he feels Darl is showing disrespect, too, sitting on the plank seat above his mother, laughing. Clearly there is something odd about Darl. Cora called him "queer," and now Anse says that his behavior has made him a figure of gossip.

The laughter appears to have been triggered by Jewel's appearance on horseback. What could be so funny about that? Perhaps Darl is laughing at his father's impotent anger. Maybe, as some readers have suggested, he is laughing at the absurdity of the whole scene.

Through Anse's eyes, the Darl who sits laughing on the wagon seems to be a personality in the process of disintegration. Scour the next section for clues that might persuade you to accept or reject this view.

27. DARL

In this section, you get Darl's description of Jewel's arrival on horseback. As the Bundrens pass Tull's place four miles from home, the wagon maintains a "dreamlike" pace. In contrast, Jewel is all motion, "the horse driving, its hooves hissing in the mud."

Cash realizes that the body is decaying and says that "in a couple of days now it'll be smelling." Darl bares his hostility toward Jewel with his response. He suggests that Cash share his thoughts about decay with Jewel. When Cash worries about the coffin's "balance," Darl suggests he tell that to Jewel, too.

As Jewel's horse passes the wagon its hoof splatters a "gout of mud" onto the coffin. Patiently, as he does everything, Cash wipes away this insult with a leaf.

NOTE: DARL'S ELEVATED LANGUAGE Some readers have criticized the book on the grounds that Darl doesn't sound like an uneducated hill farmer in his monologues. "We go on," he says in this section, "with a motion so soporific, so dreamlike as to be uninferant of progress, as though time and not space were decreasing between us and it."

When he speaks aloud, however, he sounds more like a creature of his environment. "I haven't got ere one," he says in section 24. To many readers, the disparity between the way he speaks and the way he thinks is perfectly acceptable. To others, the elevated, poetic style of his thoughts makes him somewhat unbelievable.

28. ANSE

In this brief section, Anse sums up his view of life, of the hard times that "the hardworking man, the farmer" has to endure. He appears to put himself in that category--a piece of comic irony that may make you laugh.

The family makes it to the Samsons' house at "dusk-dark" and learns that the bridge they had hoped to cross has been washed out. Somewhat like Cora, Anse shrouds himself in the Scriptures for solace and protection. But what truly revives his enthusiasm is the thought that "now I can get them teeth. That will be a comfort. It will." Since this book is filled with symbolism, what could Anse's teeth stand for, in your opinion?

29. SAMSON

Samson is one of eight characters whose interior monologues Faulkner produces to give you "outsiders' views" of the Bundrens. Thus, this section gives you something to measure the Bundrens' perceptions against.

The men sitting on Samson's porch around sundown are surprised to see the Bundrens come into view. They don't realize at first that the wagon is carrying Addie's coffin. The younger Lon Quick goes down to the road to tell them that the bridge is out. He returns to the house leading the wagon, his face looking "funny, around the nostrils."

Samson invites the Bundrens to stay for the night. He tries to persuade Anse to take Addie back to New Hope in the morning and bury her there. Apparently he nearly succeeds, because when he returns to the barn, he discovers Dewey Dell insisting that Anse take the body to Jefferson. "If you dont do it, it will be a curse on you," she tells Anse.

NOTE: DRAMATIC IRONY Samson doesn't understand the real reason behind Dewey Dell's insistence. From earlier clues, you are well aware of her reasons. This episode offers one of the novel's many instances of dramatic irony (when the audience understands the implications or meaning of an action or statement, and the characters do not).

Dewey Dell's argument works. Anse refuses to hear any more talk from Samson about burying Addie in New Hope.

NOTE: THE SAMSONS' NEIGHBORLINESS The values that bind the Bundrens and their neighbors into a community are very much evident in this chapter. Like the Tulls, the Samsons look after the Bundrens, even though they don't think highly of them. The Samsons' sense of obligation to their neighbors is so great that Samson considers the Bundrens' refusal to accept his wife Rachel's food as an insult.

And yet, despite all this concern and sense of community, Faulkner makes clear in a number of ways that the Samsons understand the Bundrens no more than the Bundrens understand each other. The two families' sleeping arrangements symbolize the gap between them. This is one more example of the book's theme that even people who are united in a common purpose live in isolation from one another.