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

Perhaps--a third interpretation--he is declaring his independence here, not just from Addie but from the entire family. When he says he'll kill his horse before giving him Anse's feed, he's quite convincing.

33. TULL

Faulkner uses this section to build tension before the crossing. To understand his technique, look for images and observations that make you fear for the fate of the wagon.

Crossing the bridge with Vardaman, Dewey Dell, and Anse, Tull lists the visible dangers and suggests some not seen. The bridge is "shaking and swaying," its center dipping down into the "molling" (muddily churning) water. Here Tull evokes an image of elemental forces emanating from inside the earth. Tull's group has to walk into the water before coming up on the other side. Those coming up on the other side, he suggests, look as if they "must come from the bottom of the earth."

Adding to the danger are logs floating down the river that bump against the sunken section of the bridge. The logs shoot "clean outen the water" and tumble on toward the ford--the point where the Bundrens hope to cross with the wagon.

From the far bank, Tull looks back at the wagon, which Cash is turning before bringing it down into the water. The wagon drops out of sight. For the life of him, Tull just can't figure out why the Bundrens would "risk the fire and the earth and the water" to get to Jefferson.

NOTE: ANSE'S MOTIVATION Faced with any obstacle, Anse is a jumble of weaknesses. Tull reminds you of them here. But what really seems to keep Anse going, more than the lure of new teeth, is his promise to Addie. "She is counting on it," he says. Anse's speaking of Addie as if she were alive calls attention to one of the novel's major themes: the ability of the dead to motivate the living.

34. DARL

Together, sections 34 to 36 will give you a complete picture of the crossing, which is the climax of the first portion of As I Lay Dying. Darl describes the crossing until the wagon begins to tip over halfway to the far bank.

His account is a dramatic one, although it builds slowly. They start across the river without any clear plan. Jewel takes the lead, a rope extended between the wagon and his saddle horn to brace the wagon against the current. His horse finds the ford--the old road beneath the river--and he beckons the others to come forward.

In the middle of the river, a huge log rises out of the water. The log is bearded with "a long gout of foam" and seems to walk on the water "like Christ." Compare this image with Cora's line in section 36: "Log, fiddlesticks. It was the hand of God." (See note, "Christian Imagery," in the discussion of section 36.)

As the log bears down on them, Cash does an odd thing. He reaches below the seat and unwinds the rope from its fastening, then tells Jewel to ride on and pull them ahead of the log. Jewel charges a good distance ahead before he realizes that the rope is free. Faulkner never explains this ruse on Cash's part. Can you?

The log strikes the wagon, tilting it. The mules lose their footing and drown. As the section ends, Jewel is turning his horse violently in an attempt to get back to the wagon. Cash is trying to brace the coffin and his tool box. Darl has jumped off, to be carried by the current to shore.

NOTE: IMAGES OF DESOLATION Darl describes the swollen river as a desolate place, a scene of barrenness and waste. Three times he refers to its "desolation." Its swiftness calls up an image of "the wasted world" accelerating "just before the final precipice." Such end-of-the-world imagery has led some readers to conclude that Faulkner is trying to evoke one of those mysterious rivers in Greek mythology that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. One of those rivers that the souls of the dead were ferried across was the hateful Styx, the sacred river by whose name the gods took their most solemn oaths.

Does Faulkner mean to say that the Bundrens are crossing to the underworld--to the land of the dead? Or that they are returning from the underworld, as Tull suggested in section 33 when he said that people crossing the bridge seem as if they "must come from the bottom of the earth"?

Before you answer, remember how Faulkner uses ancient myths. He doesn't rewrite the old myths using modern characters. Instead, he makes references to the old myths to suggest stories that lend meaning to his own.

So you don't have to assume that the Bundrens are crossing to or from Hades--although you are free to. However, the link between a river in Mississippi and a river in Greek myth should make a bell go off in your mind. It should make you sit up and realize that, for the Bundrens, this crossing is terribly significant and treacherous.

35. VARDAMAN

Vardaman picks up the story where Darl left it--with Darl in the water and Cash trying to keep the coffin dry. Notice how Faulkner catches a young boy's excitement by omitting commas until the very end.

Vardaman's understanding of the scene is somewhat bent by his peculiar perspective. He thinks that his mother is a fish--"in the water she could go faster than a man"--and that Darl is in the water chasing her. Vardaman rushes down to the riverbank and is horrified to see Darl emerge from the water empty-handed.

The section ends with Vardaman running frantically along the bank. Faulkner maintains the suspense into the next section, where you will learn the outcome of the disaster.

36. TULL

Faulkner takes his time revealing how Addie and the wagon were saved. Before you discover what happened--from Tull's point of view--Faulkner has his characters explore some of the Christian imagery that he suggested earlier.

NOTE: CHRISTIAN IMAGERY Readers who examined the original manuscript of As I Lay Dying discovered that Faulkner penciled in as an afterthought the sentence about the log's rising upright "like Christ." His biographer, Joseph Blotner, believes that Faulkner may have added the reference to Christ in order to prepare you for Cora's calling the log "the hand of God" in this section.

Why would he want to do that? There are at least two possibilities you might explore. First, Faulkner might share Cora's view--that, as Vernon says, the Bundrens "was daring the hand of God to try" the crossing. It's a perfectly acceptable interpretation of the event, and not just to someone who, like Cora, takes her religion literally. As has been noted, Faulkner alludes to several Biblical and Greek myths in which characters defy the gods.