As I Lay Dying

424 Words2 Pages
In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying the reader is taken threw many different narrations that each hold different points of views, opinions, life experiences, and relationships then each of the other characters. Betty Alldredge’s criticisms focus mainly on Addie Bundren, the mother of the family that the book is about, and how she’s affected her family members and their character and continues to do so even after she’s passed on. While some may think Darl’s craziness is an act, his bitterness isn’t a contributing characteristic, and Addie raises her kids the way she does because she’s simply a mean person I would have to disagree. I agree with Betty Aldredge with two key points that she discusses about Addie’s favoritism to Jewel and how it’s made Darl become bitter and eventually succumb to madness and how her want to live life to the fullest has affected her marriage and the way she raised her children. In Alldredge’s criticism of Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying one of the prominent things she discusses and give a valid, and strong point on is Addie Bundren’s favoritism to her illegitimate son Jewel and how it made Darl become bitter and eventually undoes him. When Alldredge states that Addie’s “relationships, or lack of them, with [her]… family is essential to any understanding of the inner conflicts in her children” (Alldredge) this is especially true with Darl. She hardly paid attention to her other children besides Jewel and it really struck home with Darl. Darl is so bitter by his mother and Jewel’s relationship that he keeps him from her death bed and his excuse is that “[He] wants [Jewel] to help [him] load” (Faulkner 7.6-10) knowing full well that his mother would want Jewel there more than anything. Does Darl care? No, he doesn’t because Addie has denied him from so much love and attention that he takes it out on the one child she did give that love
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