As I Lay Dying Murphy's Law Character Analysis

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Murphy’s Law Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong in a given situation will go wrong. This law goes hand in hand with the Bundren’s journey. The Bundren’s start with a plan in mind and almost everything while following that plan goes wrong. The only character in the novel that made out well was Anse; every other character had something go wrong at some point in the novel. The theory that anything can go wrong will fits perfectly into the novel As I Lay Dying, because every character in the story other then Anse has something bad happen to them during the novel. Anse believes that he has horrible luck “A-laying there, right up to my door, where every bad luck that comes and goes is bound to find it”, but little does he realize that he makes out the best in the family. In the beginning of the book the one promise Anse made Addie before she passed away is that he would bury her in Jefferson next to her family. Anse is the only one who is forced to make this trip, everyone else goes because they are part of the family or they are willing to help. Not only that, but at the end of the novel Anse gets a new wife, and the one true thing he wants a new set of teeth “And now I got to pay for it…land until that day. In our first conversation of which character was the…show more content…
After the journey is done only one character ends up with everything they wanted. Murphy’s Law fits into this story so well because nothing ever works out for the Bundren family. The corpse has rotted, Cash has a broken leg, Dewey Dell can’t get an abortion, and Darl is off to an insane asylum. The Bundren’s just can’t catch a break. In every situation they find themselves in, something goes wrong. The entire journey is just one long run of bad luck. No one is able to escape the affect of Murphy’s Law, everyone loses something. Everyone but Anse who believes all he has is bad

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