The thing that I liked most about As I Lay Dying were the changing perspectives from one character to another. I think because every person in the book had an opinion, this approach gave a wholesome insider look at the Bundren story.
While this approach does have a benefit, it also has its downfalls. The most major of these is how connected with the Bundren family and the country life the reader becomes, making it very difficult to gain an outside -- city folk -- perspective. Out of the 59 chapters in the book, only two offer the reader a city perspective on the Bundren family.
The first comes from the perspective of a Mottson drugstore worker, Mosley. Mosley's chapter begins with Dewey Dell standing outside his shop, as she enters, he remarks, "She kind of bumbled at the screen door a minute, like they do, and came in" (198). Here Mosley blatantly shows his opinion on country folk; bumbled, which is synonymous to walking awkwardly or in a confusing manner. This first description of country people by Mosley further alienates his opinion from that which the Bundren family describes.
Next, Mosley describes a story told to him by Albert, his assistant, of a man and his family (the Bundrens) who come through town with an eight-day-old body on a wagon and asks for cement to fix Cash's broken leg. The marshal observes this ordeal and remarks, "You'll cause him to lose a leg...and you get this thing buried as soon as you can, don't you know you're liable for jail for endangering the public health?" (204). Here, the sheriff feels he must explain to Anse that carrying around an old body is a danger to the public, something Anse knows, and as a result, he is trying to bury Addie as quickly as possible.
The third encounter with city folk comes from the perspective of McGowan, the next drugstore worker with which Dewey Dell meets. When he hears from his assistant that she is looking for him, he asks, "What kind of woman is it?" His assistant Jody quickly responds, "Country woman" to which MacGrow finally remarks, "Send her to the courthouse...tell her all the doctors have gone to Memphis on a barber convention" (241-242). Here is the first time in which we see an outsider act on his opinion of country folk and almost refuse Dewey Dell service solely off her description.
I think that it's interesting how little Faulkner shows us an outside perspective on the Bundrens, making the reader almost forget it even exists. In the movie, the final scene shows this phenomenon wonderfully when a car casually passed by the Bundren wagon in the middle of town. The fact that cars were already common but the Bundrens were forced to use a wagon and mules raised on sawdust, brings a whole new dimension to the Bundren journey.
You make a good point: it's easy to overlook the cultural critiques as a reader when you are caught up in just how bizarre the Bundrens are. I thought the few chapters when that cultural difference was illustrated actually helped me glean the most about the Bundrens, because I could separate which aspects of their situation were culturally to be expected and which were the really messed-up parts (bumbling is apparently a "country" thing. Cementing a leg is just a bad idea). I also thought the McGowan chapter was an interesting cultural critique. The fact that Dewey Dell is a "country girl" makes McGowan think he'll be able to take advantage of her more easily. In actuality, i's hard to say whether Dewey Dell's predicament is a result of her being from outside of town or whether it has to do with her specific acutely isolated situation...
ReplyDeleteCool post, Sarah! I didn't notice how few city perspectives there were until I read your blog post. I think the lack of perspectives from townspeople throughout the book is to humanize the Bundrens who are regarded as the laughing stock when they come into town. Depending on how we read it, we may either pity the Bundrens or align ourselves with the townspeople in thinking that they are stupid or dull.
ReplyDeleteNice post! I found it interesting that there are very few narrations from "city folk" perspectives as you say. This in turn makes us as readers rely more on the Bundren's (and few others) descriptions of the city and events which i think was a crucial aspect of the book. Because we don't get many outside perspectives we need to differentiate between the Bundrens, and figure out who is a reliable narrator so we can get a grasp on what is going on.
ReplyDeleteI think that it was good that the outside descriptions were only at the end of the novel. It allowed us to come up with our own opinions of the Bundren family, before the end of the novel when the "city folks" point out all the flaws. Although the realistic perspective that the "city folk" provide is important, I feel that is was perfectly placed at the end of the novel as a way to test our faith in the Bundren family and whether or not they did the right thing.
ReplyDeleteThat same effect, with the car suddenly driving past the parked wagon in the film, happens in the novel when we first hear reference to telephone lines on the road, and when the car passes them and kicks up dust all over the wagon as they finally get close to Jefferson. Of course, modernization took place at vastly different rates, and often spread to rural communities more slowly (as reflected in _O Brother_ as well). But there is something striking about the sudden realization that the Bundren story is taking place in what seems to be the late 1920s, a time of automobiles, phonographs, and telephones. And the novel reminds us how *exploitable* these deficiencies made the Bundrens--MacGowan in particular views Dewey Dell in a thoroughly predatory way, with a chilling disregard for her well-being or even her worth as a human being, taking advantage of her with no thoughts or compunctions other than how much he can get away with without "the old man" (his boss) finding out.
ReplyDeletethis is a really interesting post. I think the fact that the outside perspectives are used so sparingly makes their impact even more significant because we get so used to just hearing Anse's complaining and the typical bundren weirdness that we forget there's still the real world around these people. I also think these outside perspectives are particularly interesting because of how much they contrast with the Bundrens' own ideas of what they're doing: they think they're going on this noble, epic journey, and to a point the reader agrees with them, but then you get this other perspective that makes it really obvious that there are so many easier more rational things they could have done instead.
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