Merida's Journey of Familial Love in Brave

Fitting As I Lay Dying into the Hero’s Journey Departure Stage

William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying follows the Bundren family and their neighbors in their separate lives as the Bundren mother, Addie, dies. Each character has a different personality and a different way of processing their grief, and thus provides a unique perspective on their family and the storyline of the book. As I Lay Dying is written as a stream-of-conscious interior monologue, with each character providing their own thoughts and perspectives on the story in each chapter. It often goes through the same event multiple times, allowing the reader to see multiple perspectives on the same event. While this might be helpful in some readings of a book, through the lens of the Hero’s Journey, this book makes it hard for the reader to understand the true storyline and decide which step a certain part of the book may fit with. It also leaves a reader wondering who the main character might be, since each character believes their opinion is right and provides a different interpretation of events. Nevertheless, As I Lay Dying uniquely fits the Hero’s Journey in the Departure Stage when portraying the entire Bundren family as the main character.

The first half of As I Lay Dying places the Bundren family in the midst of the Departure Stage, so it only seems fair to look at it the closest. The real call to adventure starts later on in the book, maybe 100 pages in, when Addie dies, but a pseudo-version begins as soon as the book starts as the entire family is preparing for her death. As we experience each character and their reactions to and opinions on Addie’s death, we also get to know more about the characters and the whole family’s dynamic. Each of the children is completely unique, and each of them brings a different perspective on their dying mother. This first part of the book also introduces us to the biased opinions of the different narrators. For example, the Bundren’s neighbor, Cora, believes that out of all the Bundren children, Darl is the purest and most godly. On page 18 she gushes about how godly and caring he is, especially in comparison to his siblings and father who she sees as mean and cold (Faulkner 18). But really, as we see him through his perspective and others around him during the book, we find that he is really the worst of them. At one point he “Darl [is] setting on the plank seat above her where she was laying, laughing”, upsetting the entire family with his lack of remorse for the death of his own mother. These little differences allow readers to notice what each character thinks of themselves and the people around them throughout this hard time, which gives us a glimpse into their true personalities and how that affects the Departure Stage.

The second step of the Departure Stage is also pretty inconspicuous and happens parallel to the call to adventure. There is a lot of refusal in the book, due to pride and ignorance, two things that tend to come up again and again with the decision makers of the house: Anse and Darl. The key example that likely led to Addie’s death is called back to in the book, but never truly experienced, since the story starts within the midst of the departure stage. Addie has been sick for some time up until now, but Anse has refused to call the doctor. Eventually she gets more and more sick, while he sits in denial and eventually when he calls the doctor, it ends up being too late. At one point the doctor even asks Anse: “Why didn’t you send for me sooner?” because even he is shocked, they ignorantly waited this long to help Addie (Faulkner 29). Another refusal of the call is from Darl when he forces Jewel to go with him to make a delivery to town while their mother is on her deathbed, consequently leading them to miss the death of their mother. Both Anse and Darl show throughout the book again and again that they would rather be ignorant of Addie’s slow demise than actually be there for her, causing the call to adventure to be sadder and more drawn out due to repeated refusals of the call.

The final step of the Departure Stage before crossing the first threshold is Supernatural Aid. As is true with all the previous stages of the Hero’s Journey, each character plays a part in this stage as well. The supernatural aid in this book is carried out through a talisman that each family member uses to cope with Addie’s death. For example, Jewel uses his horse to cope with his mother’s death by putting all the care that he had for his mother into this horse that no one cares about except for him. Anse is pretending her death didn’t happen and is looking to the future, thinking about the teeth he will get in the town when they bury Addie, Unlike Jewel, he does not let out his feelings, he instead suppresses them with excitement for material things. The rest of the characters have their talisman (Dewey Dell’s cake, Cash’s toolbox, Vardaman’s hope for a train), and they all use these as ways to push their grief aside by focusing on other things.

               As I Lay Dying is filled with contradictions and confusing perspectives, which might seem like it creates a hostile environment in which to frame the Hero’s Journey, but in reality, it allows us to watch the Departure stage through varying perspective creating a complex version of the Hero’s Journey that most other books are unable to create. On the surface this book seems uncategorizable but despite the many readings of the plot line, there is a clear fit onto the Hero’s Journey template through Addie’s dying wish of being buried in Jefferson, Darl’s and Anse’s refusal to acknowledge Addie’s death, and the family’s talisman and coping mechanisms as they embark begin crossing of the first threshold. The unique perspectives and confusing order of events makes As I Lay Dying hard to read, but it helps readers map it onto the Hero's Journey because of the different experiences we see in each character's narrative.

 

Work Cited 

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. New York City, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010.