As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is a novel about how the conflicting agendas
within a family tear it apart. Every member of the family is to a degree
responsible for what goes wrong, but none more than Anse. Anse's laziness and
selfishness are the underlying factors to every disaster in the book.

As the critic Andre Bleikasten agrees, "there is scarcely a character in
Faulkner so loaded with faults and vices" (84).

At twenty-two Anse becomes sick from working in the sun after which he refuses
to work claiming he will die if he ever breaks a sweat again. Anse becomes lazy,
and turns Addie into a baby factory in order to have children to do all the work.
Addie is inbittered by this, and is never the same. Anse is begrudging of
everything. Even the cost of a doctor for his dying wife seems money better
spent on false teeth to him. "I never sent for you" Anse says "I take you to
witness I never sent for you" (37) he repeats trying to avoid a doctor's fee.

Before she......

Join Now to view the rest of this term paper!
Members: Login to view this research paper.

Title: As I Lay Dying
Approximate Word Count: 608
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

With the Term Papers Lab Membership Pass, you get instant access to every essay on this site, including this essay on As I Lay Dying, for as long as you remain a member.

Other essays sites charge almost $100 for a single term paper. At Term Papers Lab, you can get instant access to over 100,000 research papers for as little as $29.95!