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

A blend of inarticulateness and action, Jewel personifies Addie's preference for experience over words. He is always in motion. He expresses himself best through actions. When he verbalizes his love for Addie--in his single monologue--he does so with a violent fantasy about hurling down stones on outsiders. Elsewhere, he expresses his love for her through deeds, not words.

His relationship with his horse is equally intense. Like the Greek god Dionysus, with whom some readers associate him, Jewel is both virile and cruel. (See the Note in Chapter 1 of The Story section for further discussion of Jewel as Dionysus.)

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: DEWEY DELL BUNDREN [7, 14, 30, 58]

Dewey Dell, Addie's fourth child, is 17. Unable to complete a thought, she seems at times like a mindless animal. By her name and actions, Faulkner identifies her with the earth and with fertility--a "wet seed wild in the hot blind earth." Perhaps because of her mother's indifference to her, she seems unmoved by Addie's death. She is pregnant and eager to go to Jefferson because she hopes to buy abortion pills there.

Dewey Dell has a vindictive side. She hates Darl for knowing that she is pregnant and seeks revenge by betraying him. With Vardaman, however, she shows maternal feelings.

Some readers associate Dewey Dell with Persephone, the goddess of spring and queen of the underworld in Greek myth. They point out, however, that once again Faulkner may be turning the Demeter-Persephone myth on its head. By seeking an abortion, this goddess of fertility is denying her own powers.

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: VARDAMAN BUNDREN [13, 15, 19, 24, 35, 44, 47]

Eight or nine years old, Vardaman is the son Addie gave Anse to "replace the child I robbed him of." She is looking at him when she dies. He is so traumatized by her death, he at first blames Doc Peabody for it, then confuses Addie in his mind with a huge fish he caught the afternoon she died.


^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: WHITFIELD [41]

Addie's lover and Jewel's father, Whitfield is the preacher who heads for the Bundrens' farm when he hears that Addie is dying. Perhaps fearing Addie will confess their brief affair on her deathbed, he intends to admit the transgression himself.

Addie dies before Whitfield arrives, and he decides that God will accept his intention to confess in place of the actual confession. His monologue, full of empty religiosity of the sort Addie detested, suggests that Addie may have misjudged him some nineteen years earlier.

He presides over her funeral. The impression he gives Tull--that his voice is not part of his body--calls attention to the disparity between his words and actions.

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: VERNON TULL [8, 16, 20, 31, 33, 36]

Vernon Tull--or just Tull--is a neighbor who lives four miles from the Bundrens. You can trust his observations because, unlike his wife Cora, he never judges what he sees, he merely reports.

Try as he might, he can't not help Anse. "I done holp him so much already I cant quit now," he says.

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: CORA TULL [2, 6, 39]

Cora, like Addie a former teacher, is a well-meaning woman who lectures Addie on the need to repent her sins. Despite her empty piety, some see Cora as a sympathetic character, one that Faulkner makes you care about. She doesn't have much use for the Bundrens but believes, as her religion teaches, that it is her duty to help her fellow mortals.

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: DOC PEABODY [11, 51]

Seventy years old and weighing more than 200 pounds, Lucius Quintus Peabody (Faulkner gives the full name in his novel Sartoris) is, like Tull, a reliable narrator. Early in the novel, he makes a house call to the Bundrens' to see Addie. He introduces one of the novel's themes--that death is felt not by those who die but by their survivors. Toward the end of the novel, in Jefferson, he treats Cash's broken leg.

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: SAMSON [29]

Samson owns a farm eight miles from the Bundrens'. When Anse and his family are unable to cross the river by bridge, they stay at Samson's overnight. His firmness tempered by understanding, Samson suggests that they bury Addie in nearby New Hope. But Anse, prodded by Dewey Dell, ignores the advice. Samson's wife, Rachel--an emotional and, to Samson, unpredictable woman--is outraged by Addie's treatment.

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: ARMSTID [43]

Armstid, a farmer on the north side of the Yoknapatawpha River, lends Jewel his mules so that the Bundrens can move their wagon away from the river. The Bundrens stay at Armstid's farm one night, and down the road from it a second night. One of the most generous people the Bundrens meet, Armstid offers them more aid--food, lodging, and the extended use of his team--than they are willing to accept.

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: MOSELEY [45]

Moseley runs the drugstore in Mottson. A righteous man, he refuses to sell Dewey Dell anything to abort her child. He reports the townspeople's view of the rest of the Bundren clan, who were waiting outside a hardware store while Darl bought cement for Cash's cast.