As I Lay Dying

Cash complains that his coffin will not balance. One of his brothers, likely Jewel, commands him to lift it anyway.

Darl is carrying the coffin with Cash and Jewel. Jewel’s fury and vigor leads him to carry the coffin singlehandedly, and to put it in the wagon bed.

Vardaman notes that they are on their way to town in the wagon, just as Addie wanted. Although Addie’s body is in the wagon with them, Vardaman is convinced that his mother is a fish. Darl tells him that Jewel’s own mother is a horse, while Darl’s mother exists only in the past tense. Dewey Dell, who is carrying two packages, comments that she is taking Cora’s cakes to town to try to sell them for her. Anse deems that this is a sacrilegious errand given the family death.

As they get into their mule-drawn wagon and begin to make their journey, Jewel has hung behind. Cash wonders whether Jewel will go to Vernon Tull’s, and Darl thinks he may catch them up.

Anse reveals that Jewel would have tried to kill his horse if he had not stopped him.

Jewel is going to town on horseback, a defiant act which goes against his mother’s wishes and in Anse’s view, damages the family’s reputation. Anse is also annoyed that Darl begins to laugh, despite Anse’s repeated warning that “it’s doing such things as that that makes folks talk about him” (62).

While Jewel starts out the journey behind the mule-drawn wagon, he ends up overtaking them and even splashing them with mud as he passes them. Cash expresses his fear that the coffin is not balanced right for such as long ride.

Anse reflects that life is difficult for men like him, who work so that rich town-dwelling men may make a profit. He trusts that in heaven the fortunes of rich and poor will be reversed. However, it bothers him that “a fellow must earn the reward of his right-doing by flouting hisself and his dead” (65). Still, Anse looks forward to the teeth that are due to him. They drive all day before they get to Samson’s place.

Samson will host the Bundrens overnight. He deems that the family are eccentric and that their plan of burying Addie in Jefferson is crazy, especially when all the bridges on the way are broken. He wants to persuade them to go back to New Hope and to give Addie a respectful burial there. Anse insists that they will carry out Addie’s wishes instead. Jewel then offers to pay Samson in order to give his horse extra feed, as Jewel’s custom is to pay for his horse’s upkeep himself.

The family use Samson’s barn for their mules, though they will not accept his offer of indoor lodging. Samson does not hear the wagon leaving the next morning. He believes that it is bound for New Hope, although they could go up by Mount Vernon if they insist on going to Jefferson.

There is a sign that the Bundrens are approaching New Hope. Dewey Dell reflects that the passing of her mother happened too soon for her to contemplate. They pass New Hope and enter into Vernon Tull’s lane.

Tull sees the family pass and follows them with his mule. The bridge is down across the river and the tide is rising, which will make the Bundrens’ passage difficult. They try to think of solutions. Cash has the idea of hitching Tull’s mule ahead of their ones to enable the passage. Tull says that he is not going to risk his mule in the water.

Darl watches Jewel proudly on horseback and recollects the summer when Jewel was 15. That summer the family began to notice that Jewel displayed symptoms of extreme tiredness and weight loss. While a worried Addie wanted to keep Jewel at home and call the doctor, even hiding a reserve of food for him, Anse insisted that Jewel should continue to work on the farm. Cash and Darl, meanwhile, suspected that Jewel was exhausting himself through an affair with a married woman.

However, the true object of Jewel’s affections was a splotch-patterned horse that he bought from Mr. Quick. He paid for the horse by working singlehandedly for Mr. Quick and cleaning up 40 acres of new ground at night. Anse was furious, as he considered that Jewel bought a horse for him to feed, despite his financial troubles. Jewel insisted that he would pay for his own horse’s feed.

When Darl caught Addie crying, he knew that it was from her guilt at hoarding away food for Jewel and enlisting Dewey Dell and Vardaman for Jewel’s chores. Addie was not living up to her own high moral standards.

Within view of the dangerous river crossing, Anse, Vardaman and Dewey Dell get out of the wagon. Anse requests that Tull lend his mule, but the bridge shakes and sways in a manner that alarms Tull. Tull tries to get the family to postpone their trip until the next day. When they see Cash turning the wagon around, Tull and Anse go to the ford in order to try and help. Tull tries again to persuade the family to wait another night. However, the Bundrens refuse, as they are anxious to get to town regardless of how the river is rising under the bridge.

Cash and Darl search for the ford, the shallow point in the river where they will be able to cross. Jewel, on horseback, says that he will ride on ahead and feel out the way. He mutters tender encouragement to the horse. Darl remembers how sickly Jewel was when he was born, and how Addie held him on a pillow in her lap.

After much debate about which course of action to take, they decide that Jewel will take the rope’s end, cross upstream, and brace the current. The mules show signs of suffering and foreboding.

Jewel forces the horse through a current, and Cash takes the reins and lowers the team of mules into the stream. A log is the chief embargo to their progress. Darl feels the current take them, and two mules from the team vanish. Jewel is meant to hoist them up with the rope. Darl recalls the sight of the two mules rolling out of the water “turning completely over, their legs stiffly extended as when they had lost contact with the earth” (90).

Vardaman, who is watching from the bank, sees Addie’s coffin go under the water and Darl struggling to rescue it. When Darl finally succeeds, Vardaman charges him with not truly catching Addie, because Addie has turned into a fish.

When Tull tells Cora about the log that got in the way, Cora judges that it is God’s punishment to the Bundrens for daring to make the journey. Cora blames Anse for not going in the wagon, and thus risking his sons’ lives in place of his own.

When Tull reflects on the scene with the wagon in the river, he judges that it was as if the log “had been sent there to do a job and done it and went on” (92). The scene was tense as the water was rising and there were moments when Tull thought they would all die.

Cash is unwell and unable to speak after his endeavor. He vomits, and Dewey Dell wipes it on her dress. The others are eager for him to speak so he can tell him where the tools are. Jewel dives into and under the water to reclaim the tools, although some have already sunk. The four mules have also drowned.

Cash’s paragraph-length chapter complains that the coffin was not on a balance, and that he already warned the others of the dangers.

Cora fears for the state of Addie’s soul, as the latter loved Jewel more than Darl, despite the fact that Darl loved Addie more than Jewel did. Then, Addie blasphemes by talking of Jewel in quasi-religious terms, saying that “he is my cross and will be my salvation. He will save me from the water and from the fire. Even though I have laid down my life, he will save me” (102). Cora gets down on her knees and prays for Addie as she has never prayed for anyone before.

Addie narrates this chapter, even though she is already dead in the main narrative. She narrates the chapter as though she is ready to die, but not actually dead.

Ever since her girlhood, Addie’s father has told her that “the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time” (102). Addie finds life, and especially motherhood, torturous. She only feels connected to her children when she is whipping them. She finds that the birth of her first child, Cash, violates her sense of “aloneness” in a manner she finds unbearable (105). It is after Darl’s birth that she makes Anse promise to take her back to Jefferson after her death.

Following Darl’s birth, Addie considers that Anse is dead and has an extramarital affair with a man in a priest’s garment, resulting in her conception of Jewel. When Addie has had Dewey Dell to compensate for Jewel, and Vardaman also, she feels that she has done her duty by Anse and life, and she is ready to die.