Dysfunction in the Bundren Family As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, is a story about a family who is dealing with the death of their mother and wife. The Bundren family goes through a lot of problems when it comes to the burial of Addie Bundren. This family is not a typical loving family. Some readers would consider the Bundren family to be dysfunctional. Dysfunction is shown in the Bundren family through Addie’s affair with Whitfield, Darl’s dislike for Jewel, and how Vardaman copes with Addie’s death. Dysfunction is shown in the Bundren family when Addie has an affair with Whitfield. Addie Bundren was not a kind person. She did not like children and had a pretty different childhood herself. Addie says, “ I could just remember how my father used to say that the only reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.” (169) Addie’s father basically scars her by putting that in her age at a young age. After that she would always hate her father for her existence. Addie also hates children. Not only does Addie hate children, she is a teacher. She cannot wait for one of her students to get in trouble,
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“But Mrs. Bundren, even if essentially unrevealable, is a bundle of contradictions, and her contradictions point to the novel’s dominant epistemological concerns.” (Urgo 15) When Addie gives birth to Cash, she says she felt more violated then, than she did when she was intimate with Anse. “I knew that it had been, not that my aloneness had to be violated over and over each day, but that it had never been violated until Cash came. Not even by Anse in the night.”(172) She compared being a mother to being violated. When Addie became pregnant with Darl, she was livid with Anse. She wanted to kill him because she believed that he had tricked her into getting pregnant again. She was okay with just having Cash but as soon as Addie had Darl she was really
“But Mrs. Bundren, even if essentially unrevealable, is a bundle of contradictions, and her contradictions point to the novel’s dominant epistemological concerns.” (Urgo 15) When Addie gives birth to Cash, she says she felt more violated then, than she did when she was intimate with Anse. “I knew that it had been, not that my aloneness had to be violated over and over each day, but that it had never been violated until Cash came. Not even by Anse in the night.”(172) She compared being a mother to being violated. When Addie became pregnant with Darl, she was livid with Anse. She wanted to kill him because she believed that he had tricked her into getting pregnant again. She was okay with just having Cash but as soon as Addie had Darl she was really