The Bundren Family: Hero or Zero?

 

The Bundren Family: Hero or Zero?

In this blog, I will be answering the question: are the As I Lay Dying protagonists heroes or clownish goobers? Spoiler: I think they’re neither. In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner creates a story with shifting narratives all focusing on one journey. Because of this, us readers are able to see into the minds of almost all the characters, and understand just how each of them think. While this technique is commonly used, we don’t really see it in the way Faulkner uses it: where each character isn’t really representing the truth of the situation at hand. All of the characters have their own beliefs and flaws, and in my opinion Faulkner is really good at showing how each character’s thoughts and beliefs affect their portrayal of the story. For example, Vardaman, a young boy, becomes obsessed with the idea that his dead mother is a fish (Faulkner 53). While not actually true, his belief of his mom being a fish shows up in the story so much that even in other characters’ storylines, Vardaman’s adamancy takes over other people’s thoughts. Because there’s such a moldable quality to the writing, it’s hard to truly understand what’s going on.

    In fact, a lot of these characters have some sort of obsession with something, in one way or another, and the way they react to these obsessions tells a lot about their character. For example, Dewey Dell becomes wrapped up in the metaphor of people being a “tub of guts,” and while she can’t stop thinking about it, she still helps the rest of her family and keeps the house going after Addie has died (Faulkner 58). Jewel has a prize horse that he rides while refusing to ride in the family wagon with his mother’s coffin (Faulkner 105-106). It’s understandable that he’s so connected to the horse because Addie helped him work for it, albeit unknowingly. To everyone else however, he’s being incredibly rude by not respecting Addie in the way that they think she should be respected. Both of these examples show moments where the characters aren’t necessarily doing bad things, but instead choosing to react to their own griefs in a respectable way. This doesn’t make them heroes though. All of these actions are what makes the characters human, what makes them have flaws, although focusing on those objects makes them seem self-absorbed and heartless for not focusing on their mother the same way.

To play the angel’s advocate (or whatever that’s called), most of them are trying to help Anse get Addie where she wanted to be buried, which in some sense would make the characters heroes to Addie. They’re at least heroes to themselves because they believe they are doing something good, but the motives behind this aren’t as good, which I would say cancel out the positive outcome. See, Anse really wants a new set of teeth and all of the other characters are too preoccupied with their own misfortunes and desires to truly bring Addie to her resting place for the sole purpose of fulfilling her promise (Faulkner 37). Speaking of the promise, Anse’s relative determination makes him a hero in some sense, but there is also the fact that he doesn’t really work so as to not sweat, which contradicts this aspect of him being a hero (Faulkner 17). Starting on page 141, they cross Tull’s river, which leads them to endanger Addie and lose a ton of their supplies. During this, most of the Bundrens are standing to the side, not helping. Cora hates this as she thinks Anse should be helping instead of risking his children's lives. He risks his sons’ lives, which I would argue does not make him a hero.

For a good amount of the book, the Bundrens do have good intentions and they help each other. However, the rest of the book is them doing some bad stuff. Taking all that into account, I don’t think they deserve to be called “heroes” because they aren’t, at least not in the sense of a traditional hero. Regarding the Hero’s Journey, maybe you could say they are the heroes of the story, but they really only deserve to be called that because they are the main characters, so… not really heroes. However, I do think they aren’t inherently the worst people, especially the young Bundrens (Youngdrens??), as they fulfill the most important promise in the book for their deceased mom. So, to answer the question, they are not heroes, not goobers, but a secret third option.

Works Cited

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage International, October 1990.