Life, Death and Afterlife
Christian existence in William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying.”
What does it mean to exist? To be living? To be dead? Can you be alive without living? Can you be dead without dying?
According to the Christian faith, physical death separates the span of one’s life on Earth from one’s presence in heaven. In the words of John Donne, after “One short sleep past, we wake eternally,” meaning that the event of death itself serves as a vessel in which every soul must travel from the tangible world to the spiritual world.
However, many people do not support the black and white separation of the steps in such spiritual processes. In the Depression-Era novel, As I Lay Dying, author William Faulkner explores traditional and revolutionary definitions of life and death through the three differing perspectives of Cora Tull, Darl Bundren, and Addie Bundren in order to challenge the readers’ philosophies of existence.
Cora Tull, an acquaintance of the Bundren family, has “tried to live right in the sight of God and man, for the honor and comfort of [her] Christian husband and the love and respect of [her] Christian children” (Faulkner 22). However, despite her claim to strong religious values, Cora expresses uncertainty of Addie’s fate when the Bundren family leaves her “to face the Great Unknown without one familiar face” (22).
Cora strongly disagrees with the family’s neglect of Addie, but more importantly, questions whether Addie will continue on to heaven. Cora’s concern highlights her doubts about the Christian afterlife, proving that she possesses a more secular view off death than she realizes. If Cora truly supported Christian ideology, the fate of Addie Bundren’s soul after her death would not be in question.
Cora Tull advocates for a traditional and simplistic ideal regarding burial location, naturally disagreeing with Addie’s wish to be buried in Jefferson. Cora believes that “a woman’s place is with her husband and children, alive or dead,” not only through physical life and death, but psychological and emotional life and death as well (23).
Mothers and wives in nuclear families are expected to be self-sacrificing individuals, prioritizing the needs of their husbands and children over themselves. When mothers become physically dead, Cora expects the women to be buried with their husband and family. When wives become emotionally dead and stop loving their husbands, Cora expects them to hide their shameful feelings and continue fulfilling their duties as caregivers.
When psychological impulses urge women to abandon their imposed duties in the home, Cora expects them to push away interior thought and reflect on their actions for the family. Ultimately, Cora Tull supports traditional definitions of death through her words because Christian society spoon-fed them to her, but questions the legitimacy of her religious beliefs concerning the result of death.
Darl Bundren, one of the main protagonists of the novel, battles continually with the meaning of life, death, and essentially, existence. In his philosophies, he does not directly associate existence with life or nonexistence with death. Darl views existence, as a state of being that must be verified through interaction with other individuals and the ability to think for oneself.
Darl’s largest introspective conflict occurs with the status of his existence, which he reflects in the nineteen monologues he narrates throughout the novel. Of all the characters in the book, Darl most closely associates his existence with that of his brother, Jewel, contemplating that if “Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be…” (81).
Darl links Jewel’s existence with his mother, Addie, even though she is deceased, implying that one’s existence does not end when one passes away. Jewel exists because his mother gave birth to him, but even though Darl was also birthed by Addie Bundren, he “cannot love [his] mother because [he] has no mother” (95).
Addie severed emotional ties to Darl at the time of his birth, therefore her existence does not confirm his. Rather, Darl’s existence is confirmed by his interaction, whether positive or negative, with Jewel. Throughout the novel, Darl frequently recounts events that involve both Jewel and himself to maintain the only tie that he has with the Bundren family.
In addition to interaction with Jewel, Darl’s existence is also established by his ability to philosophize on its meaning. The confirmation of existence through the ability to have conscious thought can be paralleled to the famous contemplation of Rene Descartes: “I think, therefore, I am.” Darl still exists in his own mind because “if I am not emptied [of thought] yet, I am is,” (81). In other words, if he is aware of his thought process, he exists.”
Faulkner disproves the notion that physical life defines existence by including a monologue detailing the deceased Addie Bundren’s view of the meaning of life and definition of being. At the beginning of the passage, the first interpretation Addie presents on the purpose of life comes from her father. He theorizes that “the reason for living [is] to get ready to stay dead a long time,” supporting the assertion that a person dies only after he/she has completed the duties they were placed on earth to fulfill (169).
Taking from the adage of her father, Addie believes that her duty on earth was to bear children for Anse, and since she has done so, she died. However, the physical death Addie Bundren experiences in the novel is only the second of three deaths.
Her first death, emotional death, occurs shortly after her marriage to Anse. She does not love or care for him, but only his farm and the little material wealth he possesses. “[Anse] did not know that he was dead, then” to Addie, but she was well aware of her own emotional death.
Addie’s physical death is the second death she experiences in the novel, but psychologically, she is still alive. Her psychological life is present in her personal monologue, and thus, her existence. The fact that Addie’s psychological life is still intact verifies her existence beyond her physical and emotional departure from the tangible world. She can still think because she exists, and she can still exist because one of her three lives continues to live.
The traditional and concrete divisions of life and death supported by Christians and other contemporary individuals of William Faulkner are challenged by several separate viewpoints in As I Lay Dying. Faulkner complicates the meaning of life versus death, existence versus nonexistence, through the conscious views of Cora Tull, Darl Bundren, and Addie Bundren.
The three characters identify three types of death: emotional, physical, and psychological. One’s existence does not directly correlate with emotional or physical life, but rather, psychological life. Interaction with other individuals and the possession of conscious though embody what it means to exist, and ultimately what it means to be human.
