Darl

Young Kim, Rachel Kaufman, Bianca Minuto, Samantha Brown  **Summary of the character's involvement in the journey: ** At the family farm: On the trip with Jewel: On the way to Jefferson: In Jefferson **Ulterior Motive for Embarking on the Journey** **Analysis of Internal and External Conflicts** Act of burning down a barn- fighting the corpse or fighting himself? **Quotations **
 * Darl Bundren **
 * Physical Description**
 * Shorter than Jewel
 * Approximate age- 16-18, of marrying age
 * Darl and Jewel walk through a cotton field to their home. They pass Cash making Addie’s coffin
 * Darl talks with his father, Anse, and a neighbor, Vernon Tull. Darl drinks some water and has a flashback recalling when he snuck out of his room at night to get a drink of water when he was a boy.
 * Darl and Jewel go on a trip to deliver a package for Tull, who will pay them three dollars. Darl, before leaving, roams his house and thinks about the voices he remembers in the hallways; he does this in hope that Addie will not die while is out journeying and to keep his memories of her alive.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">While on his trip with Jewel, Darl remembers his confrontation with his sister, Dewey Dell, about her sleeping with Lafe, a worker on the family farm. He also speaks with Jewel about how Addie’s death is unavoidable and likely.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Even though he is out with Jewel, Darl somehow knows what is going on back home. It seems as though he as an eerie sixth sense and feels when Addie dies.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl and Jewel both comment on what it means to be in existence. Darl questions his existence, exploring if he really “is” or “is not” apart of the world.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">After the trip with Jewel:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The two boys return home late due to an accident. As they approach home, Darl antagonizes Jewel by telling him the birds overhead are not there because his horse is dead; he then continues to tell Jewel that his “mother is a horse,” further separating himself from Jewel.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl narrates the majority of the family’s journey after commenting on moving Addie’s coffin out of the house.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The Bundrens are trying to cross the river, but Darl is observing the families glares towards one-another. He then remembers when Jewel was a teenager and would fall asleep during the day, which leads into Darl explaining how Addie loved Jewel more than her other children.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl helps Cash move the wagon across the river. All of the brothers fight about the best way to cross the river; they finally agree to have Darl stay inside the wagon to navigate, but Darl decides to jump out of the wagon and starts to move downstream. He causes the entire wagon to lose the load, which included Anse’s mules and Cash’s tools. Darl ultimately tried to “drown” the coffin, but failed.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl once again takes an observer position when the family tries to clean up the mess he caused. He describes Cash unconscious and the rest of the family searching for their belongings in the water. He then decides to move Cash to a more desirable location: on top of the coffin.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The family arrives at the Gillespie farm where Darl makes a cast for Cash’s broken leg, props the coffin up against a tree, and continues to antagonize Jewel about who his real father is.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The Gillespie farmhouse is set on fire, which Darl finds amusing.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The family decides that Darl should be sent to a mental institution after he caused the Gillespie fire.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">After the family buries Addie, the men from the institution take Darl away. At first he struggles, but then he enters a crazy state where he sits and is laughing uncontrollably
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The last from Darl is told from a mental institution in Jackson. At this point, he is talking in both the first and the third person, as if he is having an out-of-body experience like the one he had at the beginning of the novel.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl is grieving his mother’s death, and struggling to make sense of his life
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">By going on this journey, he is attempting bring his family back together
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">He fails, everyone else is too preoccupied in their own selfish pursuits (false teeth, abortion, gramophone etc.)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl vs. Corpse
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Jumped off of the wagon, burned down the barn
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Both examples of attempting to destroy the corpse, both failed
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Saw the corpse as something evil that was destroying his family
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Fighting with it the entire journey
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl vs. Self
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Battled against his grief for so long
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">He didn’t know how to express himself, wasn’t given an outlet
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">His feelings eventually isolated themselves from the real Darl, began referring to his madness and his sanity as separate people.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">“I don’t know what that is. Darl had a little spy-glass he got in France at the war” (254)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl vs. Jewel
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Sibling rivalry- Jewel is obviously Addie’s favorite, Darl loves Addie the most
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">After Addie dies, Darl begins to antagonize Jewel about not knowing who is father is
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">HOWEVER…does defend Jewel when he screams at the “town fellow” (230).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl vs. Dewey Dell
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">He knows Dewey Dell’s secret
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Although there is no obvious conflict, she is the first one to restrain him when he is arrested
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Is she afraid that he will tell her secret?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl’s own voice:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">“Jewel, I say, she is dead, Jewel. Addie Bundren is dead” (52).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Although Darl is not present at the time of Addie’s death, he recounts the entire event as if he were there. This is not the only time in the novel when Darl knows more than he should. He has some sort of connection between his family members and himself that allow for his “knowing.”
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The reader is dependent on Darl’s narration because he tells more than what he sees and he remains narrator for a good portion of the novel.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">“And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">was //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">, it is not. Yet the wagon //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">is //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">, because when the wagon is //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">was //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">, Addie Bundren will not be. Ad Jewel //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">is //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">is //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">” (81).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Darl questions his own existence, as well as the existence of other people and objects. He explains the correlation between “being” and “having been.” Although this is quite a confusing passage, Darl finds perfect logic in this reasoning.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">What another character says about Darl:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">“And so it was because I could not help it. It was then, and then I saw Darl and he knew. He said he knew without words like he told me that ma is going to die without words, and I knew he knew… And that’s why I can’t talk to him with knowing with hating because he knows” (27).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Once again, Darl’s “knowing” is brought up in question. In this quotation, Dewey Dell expresses her anxiety that Darl’s knowledge of her secret creates. This gives Darl the power to manipulate or provoke other characters. This same ability is evident in various conversations between Darl and Jewel.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> “It was the sweetest thing I ever saw. It was like he knew he would never see her again… 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” (21).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Cora explains that there was always something different about Darl. He, unlike the others, had a distinctive type of humanity. Cora is able to recognize that there is something unusual about Darl that has allowed him to have a particular connection between Addie and himself.


 * Analysis of Relationship with Family**

The Bundrens’ are a disjointed family unit, and they rarely communicate with one another. Darl’s relationships with his family members are colored by how truthful he perceives them to be. Darl is very perceptive, and he uses this to discern what the other characters’ true motives are. This affects how maliciously he behaves towards them.

//Cash// Darl seems very apathetic towards Cash. They interact very rarely throughout the book. Cash is a very simplistic character, and therefore, the most honest. He is selflessly focused on keeping his family together as they escort Addie Bundren’s body. The most significant interaction between Cash and Darl occurs when they exchange “long probing looks” that reveal their “unabashed…terror…and secret…shame” (Faulkner 142). These two normally stoic people are sharing how frightened they are, and this is one of the few times readers can see Darl explicitly state how scared he is. Because Darl has shared such a truthful moment with Cash, Darl feels it is unnecessary to develop a more intimate relationship with Cash since they have already revealed their greatest secrets to one another.

//Dewey Dell// Dewey Dell behaves very anxiously around Darl. She is unnerved that Darl seems to know that she is pregnant and is worried that he will tell her secret to Pa. Darl feeds her resentment towards him by revealing her true motives for travelling with the corpse is only so that she can get an abortion in town. He continually mocks Dewey Dell by toying with her secret, causing Dewey to be fearful and suspicious of him.

//Vardaman// Vardaman is one of the few people that Darl does not behave maliciously towards. Darl is the only person to answer any Vardaman’s questions, and they voice their questions of self-identity towards one another. In fact, Darl is a reassuring presence in Vardaman’s life by being the only person with whom he discusses their mother’s death.

//Pa// Darl’s perceptive mind and awareness contrast sharply with Pa’s selfishness, and this contributes towards Darl’s dismissive attitude towards his father. Despite Pa’s lack of interest towards his children, he does comprehend that Darl disrespects him. Although Darl humors his father’s antics and even laughs at him, he still calls him “Pa” while he calls his mother by her given name. Darl’s perception of his parents’ truthfulness creates this distinction between how he calls his parents. Anse Bundren never pretends to be anything but self-absorbed and lazy to the point where his family and neighbors are disgusted by him. Although Anse and Darl either ignore or insult one another throughout the book, Darl respects his lack of pretense enough to display a small sign of endearment by calling him “Pa”.

//Addie Bundren// Despite Cora Tull’s observation of how Darl’s “goodbye” was the “sweestest thing I ever saw”, Darl’s indifferent actions towards Addie at her deathbed and later towards her corpse suggest otherwise (Faulkner 21). Addie’ Bundren’s hypocrisy fuels Darl’s resentment towards her. Darl remembers how his mother taught that “nothing else could be bad… as… deceit” and is angered at how she blatantly violated her own morals by having an illegitimate child (Faulkner 130-131). In an effort to disconnect himself from her, Darl never calls his mother anything antying affectionate, as he does with his father. Instead, Darl indifferently refers to her as “Addie”. It is ironic that while Darl is so preoccupied by uncovering everyone’s true motives, Addie felt “tricked by… Anse…and love” while pregnant with Darl (Faulkner 172).

//Jewel// Although Darl hasn’t portrayed Jewel to be untruthful, he still treats his brother harshly. Darl’s antagonistic behavior towards Jewel is caused by his resentment for Jewel’s preferential treatment from Addie. Cora Tull describes Darl as a child who desired displays of affection. In his flashbacks, Darl initially seemed resigned and accepting of Addie’s obvious preference for Jewel over him. His cruel behavior towards Jewel starts only after he finds out that Jewel is an illegitimate child, and their sibling rivalry only exacerbates his treatment of Jewel. Darl even becomes vindictive by preventing Jewel from being at Addie’s death and constantly question his parentage even though he clearly sees how much Jewel cares for Addie.

Sources: Faulkner, William. __As I Lay Dying__. New York: Vintage International, 1990.

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