Addie's Plan
♫ She said lay me away, I tell her alright okay, I only love my wife and some new teeth I'm sorry ♫
I don't really know what Anse was thinking when he promised Addie to bury her in Jefferson, but it was probably quite close to that. In all serious though, I want to talk about Addie's plan for making her family journey to Jefferson, and what Anse's stubbornness and attitude towards others reflects upon him in the role of paterfamilias.
Addie wanted to make the whole family suffer by forcing them go to Jefferson to bury her, and I think that is has worked out quite well so far (I have not finished the book yet so I don't know how it ends but I imagine with Faulkner everything is going to go extremely poorly). I'm really wondering why, though? Did she hate Anse and her kids so much that she wanted them to be miserable, or did she just not know how much they would have to endure to get her buried? I know that she did not seem quite fond of her children. She referred to them as a debt or duty to Anse when she described them, which makes them seem kind of sub-human. Like they were just another payment or responsibility to take care of.
I think what has made the family suffer more than Addie, though, is Anse. He is like the enforcer of the family's pain and misery. No matter what the predicament, Anse forces the other family members to undergo life-threatening trials (like crossing the river) even when the much more rational idea would be to bury Addie in New Hope. It is actually quite surprising that he's so bent on going to Jefferson with his disposition as an extreme couch potato and homebody. I guess he really wants those teeth.
It is Anse's completely oblivious nature, and kind of selfishness for not caring about how much the others are hurting (like Cash with his broken leg) that make me question his role as paterfamilias. Is Anse a good leader of the household? I don't think so. He rarely makes smart decisions and seems to approach everything with a lugubrious nature, only set on the idea of burying Addie in Jefferson and not caring about the consequences. What do you think? Is Anse's determination to fulfill his promise to Addie honorable or foolish? Can we even define Anse as a hero when he doesn't have many redeeming qualities, and if not are there alternative hero's in this hero's journey?
I don't really know what Anse was thinking when he promised Addie to bury her in Jefferson, but it was probably quite close to that. In all serious though, I want to talk about Addie's plan for making her family journey to Jefferson, and what Anse's stubbornness and attitude towards others reflects upon him in the role of paterfamilias.
Addie wanted to make the whole family suffer by forcing them go to Jefferson to bury her, and I think that is has worked out quite well so far (I have not finished the book yet so I don't know how it ends but I imagine with Faulkner everything is going to go extremely poorly). I'm really wondering why, though? Did she hate Anse and her kids so much that she wanted them to be miserable, or did she just not know how much they would have to endure to get her buried? I know that she did not seem quite fond of her children. She referred to them as a debt or duty to Anse when she described them, which makes them seem kind of sub-human. Like they were just another payment or responsibility to take care of.
I think what has made the family suffer more than Addie, though, is Anse. He is like the enforcer of the family's pain and misery. No matter what the predicament, Anse forces the other family members to undergo life-threatening trials (like crossing the river) even when the much more rational idea would be to bury Addie in New Hope. It is actually quite surprising that he's so bent on going to Jefferson with his disposition as an extreme couch potato and homebody. I guess he really wants those teeth.
It is Anse's completely oblivious nature, and kind of selfishness for not caring about how much the others are hurting (like Cash with his broken leg) that make me question his role as paterfamilias. Is Anse a good leader of the household? I don't think so. He rarely makes smart decisions and seems to approach everything with a lugubrious nature, only set on the idea of burying Addie in Jefferson and not caring about the consequences. What do you think? Is Anse's determination to fulfill his promise to Addie honorable or foolish? Can we even define Anse as a hero when he doesn't have many redeeming qualities, and if not are there alternative hero's in this hero's journey?
As someone who's finished the book, I must say I'm far less than impressed with Anse. He literally comes back with a new wife after returning the shovels. It hasn't even been two weeks since his wife (that he supposedly cared about so much that he went on an insane journey to bury her where she wanted) died, and he's already got another woman. Turns out all he really did care about was those teeth -- or should I say, the woman who would get them for him? As long as Anse has a wife to satisfy him, that's all he cares about. You're right there in that he doesn't care about the consequences to anyone else because all he wants is a new wife/teeth. It's almost as if he doesn't bury her in his family's lot because he's kicking her completely out of his life in order to make room for his new wife. Anse is the most garbage leader of this household there could ever be. I understand why Jewel is so mad at everyone in his family all the time now. Anse is not a hero. He has no redeeming qualities. He just screws over the rest of his family. He's almost a villain in that sense. But then, who's the hero? I would argue that the rest of the wagon is, but they don't succeed with their end goals. In terms of the hero's journey, though, Anse is definitely our hero. I kind of hate that, because he's the last person I believe should be getting any reward in this story -- he's spent the entire book taking advantage of various people and leaving behind destruction. Also, he's a jerk. As I Lay Dying definitely does not end with a sense of justice, I'll tell you that much.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. I think you sleep on Anse a little bit, because for all his faults he really is "trying his best". I don't think you can define Anse as selfish when he goes through as much hardship as the rest of them. He gives up his teeth money (just the fact that he's able to bargain with Snopes in the first place is impressive), he's able to borrow as shovel, and although he clearly needs help all the time, he's able to refuse it saying stuff like "I ain't gonna be beholdin to nobody" or something similar. You can look at that as foolishness, but also as nobleness, and I feel like there's a fine line in between those two. We can agree to disagree.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think this has a lot to do with the role of women and female agency in general during this time. It's possible that Addie never wanted to be a wife and mother, but that that role was pushed upon her by the dominant cultural norms- it certainly, as you point out, seems clear that she wasn't happy. I do agree that Anse tends to make some pretty poor decisions -- I mean, concrete on Cash's leg? -- but at the very least he does seem pretty committed to getting Addie's body to Jefferson, and I think that we can see that kind of faith to her final request as somewhat heroic.
ReplyDeleteI think Anse was a terrible leader. He put his goal to accomplish Addie's wish ahead of the rest of their family which caused so many problems. Not only that but he also took his family's money and property for his goal and yet he was the only one who got what he wanted in the end even though he hardly sacrificed anything.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Addie knows that her revenge is successful because she knows that Anse is flawed. Although there have been obstacles, such as the flood, that Addie (probably) couldn't have predicted, the journey to Jefferson wouldn't be problem-free. On Darl and Jewel's first trip to Jefferson, they broke a wheel which delayed their return. It's possible that Addie knew that something would go wrong on the trip to Jefferson, and as the father of the family, Anse would fail at solving the issue.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the journey, Anse has made some questionable decisions: refusing xenia and pouring cement on Cash's broken leg. As a result, when the gang comes to a town, the residents are highly repulsed. This disgust from society could be what Addie intended: to cause embarrassment and ruin the Bundren name.
Anse's determination to fulfill Addie's wish was really just a cover for getting his teeth. I think the only reason they actually made it to Jefferson was because there was no good reason to turn back once they crossed the river, and they only crossed the river because Dewey Dell guilt-tripped Anse into continuing to Jefferson. So I don't think Anse's determination was honorable or foolish, rather I think it was a fraud.
ReplyDeleteAnse is a terrible leader. He constantly place moral judgements on his kids (who have far better motivations than he does) and he never supports them or tries to lead his family at all. They all have to try and succeed on their own, and then he ruins all of them at the end. He doesn't care about his kids at all or how they end up, he just cares about himself.
ReplyDeleteHe might follow the heroic arc the best but that doesn't make him a heroic character by any other standard.
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ReplyDeleteI do have to say, if we're looking at As I Lay Dying as Campbell's Hero's Journey, I definitely don't see Anse as the hero. He's a pretty bad paterfamilias with the amount of suffering he puts his family through. His laziness is a pretty defining part of him (to his family's dismay). The greed he displayed by taking other people's money also doesn't benefit the argument that he's a good hero, father, or person.
ReplyDelete