Addie

Group Members: Lauren Cifelli; Terry Ely; Wakana Horiuchi


 * ADDIE*

Physical Description
 * "If we were deaf we could almost watch her face and hear him, see him. Her face is wasted away so that the bones draw just under the skin in white lines. Her eyes are like two candles when you watch them gutter down into the sockets of iron candle-sticks. But the eternal and the everlasting salvation and grace is not upon her"(Faulkner 8).
 * Due to her illness, Addie became frail and run-down, only able to watch and listen to what was going on because talking required too much energy.

Involvement in the Journey (chronological ordering of her role in the book)
 * Addie was a young, unhappy teacher who hated her students. It was at this time that she was courted by Anse Bundren. Although she did not love him, she settled and married him.
 * Addie had the first two of her 5 children, Cash and Darl, before beginning an affair with the local clergyman Whitfield. She was fascinated with this affair, thinking of herself as “dressed in sin” (Faulkner 174). She conceived her third son, Jewel, from this adulterous relationship. She then had Dewey Dell and Vardaman, the last of her children.
 * “I gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel. Then I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of. And now he has three children that are his and not mine. And then I could get ready to die” (Faulkner 176).
 * As her children grow, Addie shows the strongest displays of affection for Jewel. She stresses over his well-being, but does not show the same attention to her other children.
 * Addie becomes ill and lies on her deathbed. She does not have the strength to speak. Her son, Cash, builds her coffin outside her bedroom window, with Addie looking on all the while.
 * As Addie dies, she calls out for Cash and he shows her his craftsmanship on her coffin.
 * After Addie’s death, her family begins their journey to give Addie her dying wish: to be buried in Jefferson.
 * They place her body in the coffin and try to cross flooding waters to get to Jefferson. Addie's casket is beaten up in this ordeal, yet makes it. As time passes, Addie's decomposing corpse starts to smell. Darl tries to set it on fire because he just wants the ordeal to be over with, but Jewel saves it.
 * Addie's vindicitve request to be buried in Jefferson causes trouble and stress for her family and close friends. Why would she put her supposed loved ones through this?

Ulterior motives to the journey
 * Addie’s death is the cause of the journey since she is the one who had her family promise to take her to Jefferson.
 * Yet, her motive was not only just to be buried in her hometown with her family.


 * “Then I found that I had Darl. At first, I would not believe it. Then I believed I would kill Anse. It was as though he had tricked me, hidden within a word like within a paper screen and struck me in the back, through it. But then I realized that I have been tricked by words older than Anse or Love, and that the same word had tricked Anse too, and that my revenge would be that he would never know that I was taking revenge. And when Darl was born, I asked Anse to promise to take me back to Jefferson when I died, because I knew that father had been right, even when he couldn’t have known he was right anymore than I could have known I was wrong” (172).
 * Evidence of her sadistic characteristic and her desire to give her family trouble is evident in this passage. Through her wish to be carried back to Jefferson, Addie takes revenge on her family whom she blamed for her unhappiness.

Internal External Conflicts
 * She put herself in a perfect position to be unhappy and dissatisfied with her life.
 * For example, she married Anse even though she did not love him.
 * She hates children, but she decides to become a schoolteacher.
 * She has a hidden hatred for Anse, for putting her in a position as a wife and mother. She takes vengeance after her death by putting her family through an ordeal of carrying her body to her hometown.
 * Her relationship with Jewel is complicated. Although she shows affection for him, he does not return them while she is alive.
 * She has a hatred for words. She views words as meaningless, such as motherhood.
 * When her children were born, she was indifferent to their naming because she didn’t think it mattered what they were called.

Analysis of Relationship to the Rest of the Family
 * Anse
 * “And now I got to pay for it, me without a tooth in my head, hoping to get ahead enough so I could get my mouth fixed where I could eat God’s own victuals as a man should, and her hale and well as ere a woman in the land until that day. Got to pay for being put to the need of that three dollars. Got to pay for the way for them boys to have to go away and earn it”(Faulkner 37-38).
 * Anse and Addie have a relationship purely based on responsibility. Neither one of them feel as though they truly love the other, but they must go along with this because they have children to attend to. They are bound by their offspring rather than their love for their family.
 * They both feel obligated to stay together, although they both feel that the children are a burden and cause more problems around the house rather than help.
 * When Anse talks throughout the story, it seems as though he is so focused on getting Addie buried because he no longer wants her to be his responsibility. He plays it off to his sons as if he respects her, but he just wants the job done efficiently.
 * Darl
 * Throughout the novel, Darl, although the second oldest, becomes the mother figure for the family. He takes charge of what is going on, even though he and his mother did not have a close relationship while she was alive.
 * Darl holds the most respect for his mother, even though she did not allow their relationship to be anything special. He had always loved her but she gave nothing in return.
 * Darl is the one who pulls Jewel away from fighting the town folk who make fun of the smell from the wagon, he helps Cash out when he breaks his leg, and he is the father figure that Vardaman never had.
 * Yet, Darl also has an intellectual nature that creates this wall between himself and the mission that his family is on. He does not aid in getting the coffin back when it fell into the river, and he also set fire to the house in which the coffin was.
 * Jewel
 * Addie looks at her life and finds that the only time she was truly happy was during her short affair with Whitfield. The result, being Jewel, became something that she prized for the rest of her life because it represented her freedom from her normal life. She eventually substitutes death in order to achieve that freedom.
 * While she is alive, Jewel refuses to say goodbye to her while she is on her deathbed, and buys his independence from his family by buying the horse.
 * Jewel does not show his affection towards his mother until after she passes away. He ensures that her body is safely transported to the place of her choice. Also, he is the one who defends the family when the man makes remarks about the smell of the coffin.
 * Cash
 * He is the oldest boy in the family and he is the one who dedicates his mother’s last couple days to building her coffin. He works tirelessly to make it perfect for her.
 * He is a man of extreme patience and selflessness seen when he breaks his leg and never complains, allowing it to decompose to the point that he may never walk again.
 * Cash is obsessed with his coffin and he dedicates a whole chapter to how and why he made it on the bevel.
 * Dewey Dell
 * Although she is her only daughter, Addie never had a special relationship with Dewey Dell. Dewey Dell, along with Vardaman, were viewed as reparations for her affair and illegitimate child.
 * Even though they do not have a typical mother-daughter relationship, subconsciously Dewey Dell and Addie have a strong connection.
 * When Dewey Dell tries to get an abortion, she is trying to avoid the same fate as that of her mother. Motherhood signaled the end of Addie's life (in Addie's opinion) and Dewey Dell was not ready for that responsibility.
 * Vardaman
 * He relates his mother to a fish he had recently caught. The idea behind this is that his mother was alive one second and dead the next, which is something that his fish experienced also. He discusses the idea of existence and how precious it is.
 * After his mother dies, he has difficulty understanding why he is alive in the first place, when he could die at any moment.
 * Although people believe his discussions in the beginning of the novel to be very controversial, he proves in the end that he is just a young boy with little guidance in life.
 * Even when Addie was alive, there were not many rules and restrictions. There were few lessons taught on how to live life.

Quotes about Characters/Theme


 * Addie- "I gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel. Then I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of. And now he has three children that are his and not mine. And then I could get ready to die"(Faulkner 176).
 * Cora- "When the only sin she ever committed was being partial to Jewel that never loved her and was its own punishment, in preference to Darl that was touched by God Himself and considered queer by us mortals and that did love her" (Faulkner 167-168).