Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: Part Two - Addie Speaks From Beyond Death

On page 165 of my 1980 paperback edition you can see the "blank" Faulkner inserted into the text to help accentuate Addie's nihilistic feelings about words - and just about everything else.  She is a pathetic character and this chapter reveals the almost shocking level of her lack of feeling and existential emptiness.  The various punctuation errors throughout the novel are intentional, reflecting the ignorance of the characters.

As I mentioned in Part One, with my latest reading I found As I Lay Dying to be one of the greatest novels ever written. Its intricate narrative structure, profound exploration of the human psyche, and masterful use of multiple perspectives create a narrative that rewards careful analysis. Here, I will focus on a surprising sequence of chapters that I consider a "transitory trilogy" within the novel, examining how these chapters, along with earlier revelations, provide deep insights into the characters and themes of the work.

The trilogy to which I refer consists of consecutive chapters narrated by Cora, Addie, and Reverend Whitfield, occurring approximately two-thirds of the way through the novel. These chapters, when considered alongside earlier insights provided by Cora, offer a important transition in the narrative, revealing hidden truths and challenging the reader's perceptions of the Bundren family dynamics.

To fully appreciate the significance of this trilogy, we must first consider Cora's earlier observations about Darl and Jewel. In one of her initial chapters, Cora reflects on Darl's desperate plea to stay with his dying mother instead of going with Jewel to a sell a load of lumber to a nearby mill. All quotes are from my Kindle edition.

"I always said Darl was different from those others. I always said he was the only one of them that had his mother's nature, had any natural affection. Not that Jewel, the one she labored so to bear and coddled and petted so and him flinging into tantrums or sulking spells, inventing devilment to devil her until I would have frailed him time and time. Not him to come and tell her goodbye. Not him to miss a chance to make that extra three dollars at the price of his mother's goodbye kiss. A Bundren through and through, loving nobody, caring for nothing except how to get something with the least amount of work." (page 18)

This passage establishes Cora's perception of Darl as the sensitive, loving son, contrasting sharply with her view of Jewel as cold and selfish. It also foreshadows the complex relationship between Addie and her children, particularly Jewel, which will be revealed in Addie's own chapter. Additionally, it introduces the theme of sacrifice and the tension between emotional needs and economic necessities that runs throughout the novel.

Cora's observation continues, referring to what she has heard from her husband:

"Mr Tull says Darl asked them to wait. He said Darl almost begged them on his knees not to force him to leave her in her condition. But nothing would do but Anse and Jewel must make that three dollars. Nobody that knows Anse could have expected different, but to think of that boy, that Jewel, selling all those years of self-denial and down-right partiality—they couldn't fool me: Mr Tull says Mrs Bundren liked Jewel the least of all, but I knew better. I knew she was partial to him, to the same quality in him that let her put up with Anse Bundren when Mr Tull said she ought to poisoned him—for three dollars, denying his dying mother the goodbye kiss." (page 18)

This passage further emphasizes the contrast between Darl and Jewel, while also hinting at the complex nature of Addie's relationship with Jewel. Cora's insistence that Addie was "partial" to Jewel, despite his apparent coldness, sets up the revelations to come in Addie's chapter.

Much later, the trilogy proper begins with Cora's chapter immediately preceding Addie's. Here, Cora recalls a conversation with Addie that reveals the depth of her misunderstanding of Addie's character:

"One day we were talking. She had never been pure religious, not even after that summer at the camp meeting when Brother Whitfield wrestled with her spirit, singled her out and strove with the vanity in her mortal heart...” (page 147)

Cora's interpretation of Addie is based on her own moral and stoutly religious framework. This sets the stage for the shocking revelations in Addie's chapter, which will shatter Cora's perceptions and challenge the reader's understanding of the Bundren family.

Addie tells Cora: ““He is my cross and he will be my salvation. He will save me from the water and from the fire. Even though I have laid down my life, he will save me.”

““How do you know, without you open your heart to Him and lift your voice in His praise?” I said. Then I realised that she did not mean God. I realised that out of the vanity of her heart she had spoken sacrilege. And I went down on my knees right there. I begged her to kneel and open her heart and cast from it the devil of vanity and cast herself upon the mercy of the Lord. But she wouldn’t. She just sat there, lost in her vanity and her pride, that had closed her heart to God and set that selfish mortal boy in His place. Kneeling there I prayed for her. I prayed for that poor blind woman as I had never prayed for me and mine.” (pp. 147 – 148)

This turns out to be an extraordinary exchange. It is only here in this private conversation between Cora and Addie, told to us by Cora, that we learn something absolutely critical to understanding the Bundrens and their dying/dead mother. On a rather mundane level it serves as another example of Addie's lack of religious faith contrasted with Cora's almost obsessive religiosity. More pertinently, however, we realize that Addie's reference to “he” is regarding Jewel, who ends up doing precisely what Addie prophetizes – literally saving her coffin from water and fire. The prior, almost casual, mention of “Brother Whitfield,” who is unknown to the reader at this point, quickly takes on gigantic proportions. This is why I consider this chapter by Cora, immediately preceding Addie, as introductory to it.

Addie's chapter is the centerpiece of this trilogy and one of the most crucial moments in the entire novel. Speaking from beyond death (one cannot say “from beyond the grave” because her body is absurdly not buried yet), Addie reveals her deep-seated nihilism, her disdain for words (that is, rational thought), and her complex feelings (mostly hatred) towards her marriage and her children. Her chapter delves deep into her disillusionment with life, language, and the concepts of love and motherhood. In a particularly revealing extended passage, she reflects on marrying Anse, her feeling of her “aloneness” being “violated,” and their sex life:

“So I took Anse. And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it. That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at. When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn’t care whether there was a word for it or not. I knew that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear; pride, who never had the pride. I knew that it had been, not that they had dirty noses, but that we had had to use one another by words like spiders dangling by their mouths from a beam, swinging and twisting and never touching, and that only through the blows of the switch could my blood and their blood flow as one stream. 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 nights.

“He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn’t need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear. Cash did not need to say it to me nor I to him, and I would say, Let Anse use it, if he wants to. So that it was Anse or love; love or Anse: it didn’t matter. I would think that even while I lay with him in the dark and Cash asleep in the cradle within the swing of my hand.

“I would think that if he were to wake and cry, I would suckle him, too. Anse or love: it didn’t matter. My aloneness had been violated and then made whole again by the violation: time, Anse, love, what you will, outside the circle.

“Then I found that I had Darl. At first I would not believe it. Then I believed that I would kill Anse. It was as though he had tricked me, hidden within a word like within a paper screen and struck me in the back through it. But then I realised that I had been tricked by words older than Anse or love, and that the same word had tricked Anse too, and that my revenge would be that he would never know I was taking revenge. And when Darl was born I asked Anse to promise to take me back to Jefferson when I died, because I knew that father had been right, even when he couldn’t have known he was right anymore than I could have known I was wrong.

““Nonsense,” Anse said; “you and me aint nigh done chapping yet, with just two.”

“He did not know that he was dead, then. Sometimes I would lie by him in the dark, hearing the land that was now of my blood and flesh, and I would think: Anse. Why Anse. Why are you Anse. I would think about his name until after a while I could see the word as a shape, a vessel, and I would watch him liquify and flow into it like cold molasses flowing out of the darkness into the vessel, until the jar stood full and motionless: a significant shape profoundly without life like an empty door frame; and then I would find that I had forgotten the name of the jar. I would think: The shape of my body where I used to be a virgin is in the shape of a [Faulkner inserts blank space here] and I couldn’t think Anse, couldn’t remember Anse. It was not that I could think of myself as no longer unvirgin, because I was three now. And when I would think Cash and Darl that way until their names would die and solidify into a shape and then fade away, I would say, All right. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what they call them.” (pp.152 – 154)

This powerful excerpt provides crucial insights into Addie's character and her relationships. Her assertion that "words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at" reinforces her disdain for language, a theme that runs throughout her monologue. This rejection of words as meaningful signifiers emphasizes her broader nihilistic outlook and her struggle to find genuine connection or purpose in her life. Of startling note, Faulkner intentionally leave a blank space on the printed page as indicated above. Addie is literally trying to express herself without the use of words. I don't know of another quote in all of literature that attempts to express itself with simply a blank space on the page. Remarkable! Again, Faulkner is pushing the limits of what can be communicated to the reader in innovative ways.

Addie's views on motherhood are particularly striking. By describing it as an invention "by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn't care whether there was a word for it or not," she challenges conventional notions of maternal love and family bonds. This cynical perspective stands in blunt contrast to Cora's idealized view of Addie as a loving mother, further highlighting the gap between appearance and reality in the novel.

The passage also illuminates Addie's complex relationships with her children and Anse. Her description of her "aloneness" being violated by the birth of Cash, and then "made whole again by the violation," suggests a deeply ambivalent attitude towards motherhood and family life. Her statement that "Anse or love: it didn't matter" reveals the emptiness she feels in her marriage and her rejection of romantic love as a meaningful concept.

Significantly, this passage contains the only direct reference in the novel to Addie's wish to be buried in Jefferson. The ambiguity surrounding this burial wish raises questions about the reliability of Addie as a narrator and the true motivations behind the Bundrens' journey. While Addie's monologue is characterized by brutal honesty, her deep cynicism and nihilism could be coloring her perceptions and memories. Moreover, her disdain for words and her belief in their inadequacy paradoxically undermines the very medium through which she's expressing herself (hence, Faulkner's purposeful insertion of a blank space in place of a word), adding another layer of complexity to her narrative.

This ambiguity extends to Anse's insistence on fulfilling this wish. Given Anse's characterization throughout the novel as selfish and manipulative, it's plausible that he might have exaggerated or even invented Addie's wish to serve his own purposes, such as obtaining new teeth. The fact that no other character seems aware of this wish, they just take it for granted because Anse says so, lends credence to this interpretation. However, it's equally possible that Addie did make this request, perhaps as a final act of defiance or a way to impose her will on her family one last time. I'll return to this in Part Five.

Then comes her confession, which is apparently the result of feeling disconnected from Anse, for reasons unknown, that transcend Faulkner's text. Perhaps, given her nihilism, she would have felt empty in any extended relationship. She is incapable of love, even for her children, except for Jewel, perhaps.

Addie tells us in an example of Faulkner's wonderful prose: "And then he died. He did not know he was dead. I would lie by him in the dark, hearing the dark land talking of God’s love and His beauty and His sin; hearing the dark voicelessness in which the words are the deeds, and the other words that are not deeds, that are just the gaps in people’s lacks, coming down like the cries of the geese out of the wild darkness in the old terrible nights, fumbling at the deeds like orphans to whom are pointed out in a crowd two faces and told, That is your father, your mother.” (pp. 154-155)

This leads to her affair. “I believed that I had found it. I believed that the reason was the duty to the alive, to the terrible blood, the red bitter flood boiling through the land. I would think of sin as I would think of the clothes we both wore in the world’s face, of the circumspection necessary because he was he and I was I; the sin the more utter and terrible since he was the instrument ordained by God who created the sin, to sanctify that sin He had created. While I waited for him in the woods, waiting for him before he saw me, I would think of him as dressed in sin. I would think of him as thinking of me as dressed also in sin, he the more beautiful since the garment which he had exchanged for sin was sanctified. I would think of the sin as garments which we would remove in order to shape and coerce the terrible blood to the forlorn echo of the dead word high in the air. Then I would lay with Anse again—I did not lie to him: I just refused, just as I refused my breast to Cash and Darl after their time was up—hearing the dark land talking the voiceless speech.” (page 155)

The reader does not know who “he/him” is yet. Addie only tells us, full of nihilism, that: “I gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel. Then I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of. And now he has three children that are his and not mine. And then I could get ready to die.” (page 156)

Following Addie's devastating revelations, we have Reverend Whitfield's one-off chapter. This serves as a counterpoint to Addie's raw confession, revealing Whitfield's moral cowardice and self-serving rationalization:

"I have sinned, O Lord. Thou knowest the extent of my remorse and the will of my spirit. But He is merciful; He will accept the will for the deed, Who knew that when I framed the words of my confession it was to Anse I spoke them, even though he was not there. It was He in His infinite wisdom that restrained the tale from her dying lips as she lay surrounded by those who loved and trusted her; mine the travail by water which I sustained by the strength of His hand.” (page 158)

Whitfield's internal struggle and ultimate failure to confess his sin to Anse or to anyone else contrasts with Addie's unflinching honesty (though I doubt she is as honest as it may seem, see Part Five). In addition to clarifying Addie's admission about Jewel's fathering, this chapter is a critique of empty religious platitudes and the hypocrisy of those who claim moral authority.

Taken together, all of this reveals the complexity of the characters' motivations, the possible unreliability of narrative, and the central role that language and its limitations play in the novel. It also reinforces the idea that this "trilogy" is a crucial turning point in the narrative. It shifts the narrative from the external journey of the Bundren family to a deeper, more introspective exploration of the characters' inner lives in prior times. The revelations in these chapters recontextualize much of what has come before, forcing the reader to reevaluate their understanding of the family dynamics and the motivations driving each character.

The power of this sequence lies not only in what it reveals about the characters but also in how it challenges the reader's perceptions. Faulkner masterfully uses multiple perspectives to create a complex, layered narrative that resists simple interpretation. The contrast between Cora's moralistic viewpoint, Addie's nihilistic confession, and Whitfield's self-serving rationalization highlights the novel's central themes of the unreliability of perception, the inadequacy of language, and the struggle for meaning in a world that often seems indifferent or hostile.

This trilogy is just one example of the wealth of puzzling yet fascinating details As I Lay Dying offers to the diligent reader. Faulkner's ability to weave together multiple voices, each with its own distinct perspective and style, creates a narrative that is both deeply human and profoundly philosophical. The novel challenges us to look beyond surface appearances, to question our assumptions, and to grapple with the complexities of human nature.

What I call the "transitory trilogy" of the consecutive chapters by Cora, Addie, and Whitfield, along with the earlier insights provided by Cora, form a fundamental nexus in As I Lay Dying. This sequence exemplifies Faulkner's mastery in crafting a narrative that is at once intimately and universally resonant. It is through such intricate narrative structures and profound character explorations that Faulkner transforms the story of a dysfunctional family into one of the greatest novels ever written, a work that continues to reward close reading and analysis with its depth, complexity, and enduring relevance to the human condition.

(to be continued)