As I Lay Dying - Extra

This story is creepy... I just cannot get over the son building his mother's coffin right in front of this. It is weird to me that Faulkner continues to concentrate on the fact that Cash is this supposedly great carpenter. I guess it might be the irony of this son using his craft for his mother's coffin. Faulkner keeps going back to the fact that Cash is right outside his mother's window building her coffin. When Darl says, "A good carpenter Addie Bundren could not want a better one, a better box to lie in. It will give her confidence and comfort. I go on to the house, followed by the Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. of the adze" (4-5). It is just very strange to me that it seems like everyone in this family is so concentrated on the mother's death. Even Addie is "accepting" her own death and nothing is being done about it. It really makes me mad how the stupid son keeps continually reminding her of her own death. It will be interesting to see how they come to terms with the death.

Even though this is a very creepy book, the language that Faulkner uses is actually very well put together and very beautiful. The way he describes things gives the reader such a vivid visual. I love when Darl says, "I enter the hall, hearing the voices before I reach the door. Tilting a little down the hill, as our house does, a breeze draws through the hall all the time, upslanting. A feather dropped near the front door will rise and brush along the ceiling, slanting backward, until it reaches the down-turning current at the back door: so with voices. As you enter the hall, they sound as though they were speaking out of the air about your head" (20). Whenever I read this, it told me so much about the setting and the character and what was going on. The entire mood of this story is developed so well.