Character Analysis: As I Lay Dying

Can the resentment a person has for another person affect them psychologically? Throughout the book As I Lay Dying, Faulkner portrays how the grief caused by Addie Bundren’s death impacted both Cash and Darl on their trip to Jackson. Throughout the book, Faulkner explores psychological topics such as post traumatic stress disorder, dissociation, and repression. Darl’s resentment towards Addie rose and left him in the state of a psychotic break at the end of the trip. On the other side Cash is more of a quiet character and likes to think logically about his actions. After Addie’s death, he is still the same character, but he is speaking more than what he usually does. The contrast between Darl and Cash shows the reader that the person who we …show more content…
Addie loved Jewel with all her heart and she favored him over all her other sons and daughter. She felt like Jewel was the only son that belong to her because he was made with love. Darl knowing the story of Addie and Whitfield started feeling resentment towards Addie after she died. After Addie’s death,Vardaman was asking Darl who his mother was and Darl said , “ I haven’t got ere one, Darl said. Because if I had one, it is was” (101) . Clearly, Darl did not see Addie as his mother because instead of saying his mother was the same as Vardaman he said he did not have a mother. Darl felt like he felt he did not have a mother because Addie,his biological mother, was always looking out for Jewel and that made him feel like he did not have a mother due to that reason. While they were at the barn, Vardaman saw someone After Vardaman saw the figure, someone put the barn on fire and they were all trying to figure out who put the barn on fire. While the barn was on fire Vardaman asked everyone else, “Where is Darl ? Where did Darl go ?”(223) and this made Darl look like he was the person who put the barn on fire because he went missing for some minutes and then he was found crying at the bottom of the apple tree with Addie. After all, they found out who the real person who put the barn on fire was and it turns out to be it was Darl. Addie Bundren’s death left Darl in a psychotic break because he started acting differently from how he acted. Gillespie had already noticed Darl was acting strange than usual and that made him jump to the conclusion that it was Darl who actually turned the barn on fire. Darl felt resentment towards the lack of love and attention his mother gave him and how she cared for Jewel and Cash and that’s maybe why he wanted to burn the barn because Cash and Jewel were inside