Moving+Forward

Has anyone noticed all the dwelling going on? Even from the start, when Cora bakes all those cakes with the eggs, Kate //will not// stop repeting how the woman should have taken the cakes instead of cancelling the order after they were all baked. Over and over. Pa keeps repeting how he "mislikes undecision" (starts 17) and continues to rub his knees. Dewey Dell repetes that she "could not help it" (starts 27) And most all the characters talk about how it is fixing to rain and how Cash is chopping wood and how great a carpenter he is. Is this just how isolated everyone is, that nothing new ever happens? Why do their minds run in loops? Is this the effect death has on a town? It makes it stale, and like the rain clouds, it's only a matter of time before it descends like darkness and dust?

And to go along with this idea of nobody being able to move forward, there is much focus on the eye so far in the book. The first movement towards the future is always "look to the future." A few times in the book, it mentions how the boys of the family don't look back. Vardaman isn't included, of course, because his eyes peer around his father as he watches the light leave his mother's eyes, which were always focused on Cash and her coffin. Except for one moment: "She looks at us. Only her eyes seem to move. It's like they touch us, not with sight or sense, but like the stream from a hose touches you...Beneath the quilt she is no more than a bundle of rotten sticks." (44) What do eyes represent? One could also consider that whole incident with the eye of the fish, and with that note that we read before we started the book about the woman with the dog's eyes not closing the narrator's eyes as death descended. Eyes are windows of our souls? Am I making this deeper than it is? 1202406725

Nope ... it's as deep as it seems. 1202499625

I noticed as well all this "dwelling." I think that it is happening mostly because Addie is dying. She's on everybody's mind, and they thus act in the way we see them. Except for Cash. He just works. Is he the "good guy" here? As for the eyes, yes, they are the windows to the soul. But now, those eyes are dead. They are blank and empty. They just look, and do not show any sort of emotion. That is why they touch "like the stream from a hose." This lack of emotion and spirit is confirmed by your quote, KLe: "Beneath the quilt she is no more than a bundles of rotten sticks."1202506419

I think that there is so much dwelling because people are so worried about what is going to happen when Addie dies. It seems that when Addie was well, she was in charge and everyone just did whatever she said. However, now that she is gone, the Bundrens will have to figure out some way to get along on their own. It seems that this will be difficult because all of the children except Dewey and Darl seem to be selfish. I think that the rest of the story will be a struggle within the Bundren family because a great deal of compromise will need to occur. I think the family does not know how to handle the death of Addie so they are all doing what first comes to mind for example cash just continues working, Vardamen blames Peabody, and Dewey is sad.1202763506

While everybody's theories make sense, I had a different perspective on how many phrases are repeated as if "their minds run in loops," as Kirsten put it. __As I Lay Dying__ is narrated in stream of consciousness for the most part. Yes, there is coherency, but since uneducated country folk are narrating the story, we get an account of whatever was passing through their minds at the time, not of an unbiased story that goes directly from point a to point b. It can be annoying to read and re-read characters saying the same lines over and over again, but those are lines that they say or think repeatedly. Nobody can deny that they do this at some point; I know that I have. Like when I'm hungry and it's only period c, I know I tell at least 10 people that "I'm soooo hungry." Or if someone keeps tapping their pencil on the desk during a test, I keep thinking to myself, "omg, that's so annoying. I can't concentrate." Those aren't the greatest examples because they are so trivial, but I hope you get my point. The characters in this novel have a lot of heavy stuff of their minds, like how Dewey Dell is pregnant, and the death of their mom/wife/neighbor isn't helping. Naturally, they will be thinking, and therefore writing, about the same things repeatedly. 1202954178