So, besides Anse (and maybe Addie?), most of the Bundrens end their journey worse for the wear. Cash has got a septic leg. Jewel's got no horse. Darl's been shipped off to the insane asylum, and Vardaman has got to grow up without a mother (and he's got no train!). The story I'm most interested in, and which seems to end most tragically, is Dewey Dell's. She doesn't get much of a conclusion. Her story is about in the same place it was at the outset, except now there's not much chance her situation will change. Presumably, at some point her pregnancy will become more obvious and there will be some sort of confrontation, but this doesn't happen before the novel ends. So if her entire plot arc starts and ends known and discussed only by Dewey Dell, where does her story fit into the larger novel? Why is it even there?
First lets consider that, in a sense, As I Lay Dying is Addie's story. It is her request that instigates the journey, and her body that they're carrying everywhere. A women is both the call and the quest itself. So Dewey Dell's significance, as the only other primary woman character in a predominantly male cast, is going to at least partially be how she relates to Addie. There are certain similarities. Neither of them wanted to become pregnant. Both of them became pregnant via affairs with men to whom they were not married. In both these senses these women eschew the traditional moral matriarchal role we would expect them to have in this setting. Of course, there are important differences between Dewey Dell and her mother; Addie is depicted as calculating and devoid of normal emotions whereas Dewey Dell is depicted as an almost primal, sexual entity, especially in her own narration.
But both of their storylines end fairly inconclusively. Addie's mission to get revenge on her family concludes in her barely discussed burial and Anse's immediate remarriage. Dewey Dell's goal to get an abortion in town is unsuccessful, and she is taken advantage of sexually by MacGowen. What started as a novel in which women were making decisions on their own that would place them outside the only structure traditionally offered to them (family life), shaped up to be no such thing. Perhaps Faulkner is commenting on how no matter how hard women tried, they really had no other options than to exist in this social structure. They can't take over and define the story, as evidenced by their unsatisfactory endings.
I agree, Dewey Dell's storyline was the most intriguing. I was more curious about what would happen to her than Addie's burial. However, Faulkner never really discusses it beyond Dewey Dell searching for a way to have an abortion. Even then, she's not successful and still has the baby. The novel certainly did not hide the fact that the Bundrens are poor and this journey seems to have cost them more than they know. Jewel doesn't have his horse, Cash is out of work, and Darl is in an insane asylum. They can't afford to have another member apart of the household. I think Dewey Dell's story was left unfinished and would rather have read more about her than about Anse getting his teeth.
ReplyDeleteDewey Dell's failure to get the abortion reminds me of Samson's wife Rachel saying, "I just wish that you and him and all the men in the world that torture us alive and flout us dead, dragging us up and down the country--" (p 111 for my edition which is not the right one). Just like Addie in a way gave up her life to be with Anse, Dewey Dell has also been on this long trip, and in the end her money is taken away by Anse. Although it's hard to decide if she was forced to go on the trip by Anse or if it just a 'Bundren family thing,' it's not right for Anse to take her money and make her feel bad in the process.
ReplyDeleteWhen you put it like that, this story seems even more tragic than it did before! And that's saying something, considering that the nearly-universally hated Anse is the only one to get what he wants out of the journey. While Addie pretty much attains her goal, Dewey is just left in a hopeless and pitiful position by the end of the novel, despite the previously optimistic outlook for potential feminine control over the story.
ReplyDeleteI agree this story definitely comments on the plight of women during this period. It wasn't really an option for Addie not to get married in her mind, it wasn't an option not to have a child, her husband wouldn't allow her to have just a couple children, and eventually, she died at a fairly young age. Dewey Dell is younger, and has fewer problems in her life experience thus far, but still tells her own story. She isn't as passive, and actively tries repeatedly to get an abortion. She seems less confident in herself, but more assertive in her intentions, and keeps her secret pretty well (excluding the magical psychic powers of Darl). Dewey Dell ends up just as pregnant, and sexually abused after multiple attempts to get an abortion, and life doesn't look promising for her either. Faulkner's portrayal of the life of women really seems more like a defensive argument giving reasons for Addie to have wanted to die. Even her request for her family to bury her in Jefferson and all the horrible things which happened along the way seem justified in the hard life she lived. What seems unjust is that Anse is the real villain here, and isn't burdened by any hardship during the trip to Jefferson.
ReplyDeleteI was also intrigued by how Dewey Dell's story didn't really have an ending. The entire way through the book I was unsure of why Dewey Dell's story line was there, as she doesn't really fit into the journey the family was taking, but when she is viewed as another Bundren female, the story changes and she represents so much more about how her mother was treated.
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