One way to explain the plot in As I Lay Dying is to consider that the driving force behind the plot might be the reader's inevitable disgust with Anse. He is just a bad human being. First of all, he is lazy, and I find his excuse of dying if he sweats a little too convenient and unlikely. He pretty much forces his wife and children to do all the work of running his farm, and just sits around on his porch all day rubbing his hands and trying to look pitiful. At this early point in the novel, the reader must begin to dislike Anse, and one thing that keeps them reading is a search for more justification for this hate. They don't have to wait long for more evidence.
The point of the journey he forces the family to take is supposedly to honor his wife's wish to be buried in her family plot, but for Anse this burial takes second priority to getting himself a pair of dentures. In fact, nothing else seems remotely important to him. In the process of getting his teeth, he harms all of his children. First, Cash's leg is broken while he tries to get Anse's wagon across the river. Then, because of Anse's cheapness and incompetence, Cash's leg is set in cement which takes several layers of skin with it upon removal. Cash may never walk again. As the story progresses, the list of Anse's self-serving acts grows long and the damage to his family increases, driving the plot forward and keeping the reader wanting more.
Another result of Anse's stubbornness in crossing the river is that both of their mules are drowned, and Anse refuses to borrow the mules offered to him. To buy new ones, Anse trade's away all of Cash's money and Jewel's prized horse, as well as an insignificant amount of his own possessions. By Cash's interpretation, this unfairness is what causes Darl to set the barn on fire as he sees it as making things more even. So, indirectly, Anse is responsible for Darl being sent of to an institution as well.
Finally, when they get to Jefferson, Anse guilt-trips Dewey Dell into giving up the ten dollars she had received to pay for her abortion. Having stolen from and hurt all his childern who made his journey possible, Anse buys his teeth, becoming the only Bundren to get what they wanted out of the trip. Also, he takes a new wife just hours after burying Addie. This conclusion of the novel caps off a buildup of increasingly disgusting things that Anse has done, and thus serves as a relatively satisfying conclusion of the book.
Do you think this interpretation of the plot makes sense? Can we view this book as driven by hate of the central character?
This is a really fascinating idea, and from the countless "I hate Anse" blog posts around here, probably something we could all get behind! Lots of evidence backing up your idea. Yah I guess now that I think about it, one of the most interesting parts of the book for me was seeing how pitiful/ despicable Anse could get, and I was not disappointed with what i found.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that by the end, almost all of us hate Anse, and it's not just his lazinethss and stubbornness that gets me, but also his hypocrisy. He keeps saying that he doesn't want to be beholden to anyone, and yet he is always taking favors from others and borrowing their things. He also never seems to think about that fact that taking his children's stuff should make him beholden to them too, and this makes me hate him even more.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think it is a valid interpretation of the story to say that it's driven by a hatred for Anse, given one important stipulation: a reader would have to want a sense of conclusion or justice for a character they hate, rather than losing their interest in a story if they don't like the main character. But if this is the case, then certainly such a reader would find his/her just (or if not "just," per se, then certainly "unambiguous in its stance of hatred towards the protagonist") ending.
ReplyDeleteThats very true, a book seemingly driven by the reader's disgust would not appeal to everybody, and I think that many people (myself included) did not find this book so enjoyable. I think it is only really interesting on an intellectual level or because of the desire for justified hate, not for the gripping plot or wonderful characters like other books.
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