As I Lay Dying
(William Faulkner)

Sections 1-10

Section one is told from Darl’s point of view. He and his brother, Jewel, are walking through a bluff on their way home. On the journey, the boys come across an old abandoned cotton house, and Jewel decides to walk right through it, while Darl leaves it alone and walks around it.

The boys find a wagon with two chairs on it that Vernon Tull, their wealthy neighbor, has left for them and see their older brother, Cash, building a coffin for their mother who is ill.

In section two, Cora Tull, the wife of Vernon, is tending to Addie’s sick bed with her daughter Eula and has just learned that the cakes she was commissioned to make are no longer needed, though she has already made them.

Cora does not take this to heart, though her daughter, Kate, sees it as a cruel injustice. Cora remembers how Addie was adept at baking cakes and glances over at her, where she is barely breathing.

Cora cannot tell if Addie is sleeping or if she is looking out the window at her son, Cash, who is building her coffin. She notices Darl walk past the room toward the back of the house without saying a word.

Darl narrates section three, coming onto the back porch and encountering his father, Anse Bundren, and Vernon Tull. Anse wonders where Jewel is, and Darl informs him that Jewel is tending to the horses.

Darl recounts what a simple pleasure it is to drink water and remembers that, when he was a child, he used to sneak out of the house to do just that. Jewel is nearly unsuccessfully trying to get on a horse in the barn, and when he finally manages to do so he rides it around the yard then takes it back to the barn for feeding time.

In the next section, Jewel thinks about how much he resents Cash for insisting on building Addie’s coffin right outside her window. He feels like he is the only one who is resentful for this and is upset with his other family members for not seeming to care about this thoughtlessness. He deeply cares for his mother and wishes that he could sit at her bedside for the last few days of her life.

Darl and Jewel are preparing to make a trip for Vernon Tull, who is paying them three dollars to make a delivery for him. Anse does not want the boys to take the trip because he feels as though Addie will not survive long enough for them to return, and he does not want her to die while they are gone.

When Vernon tells the boys they can make the trip in time, Jewel is upset with him for intruding on their family business and is upset with the family in general who all seem anxious for Addie to finally die. Anse tells the boys they can go if they hurry home by the next day.

Cora watches as Darl comes in to say goodbye to his mother, just in case he does not make it back in time. He feels as though Jewel and Anse are both too callous in the situation, whereas Darl seems remarkably sweet and emotional.

When Dewey Dell is rude to her brother, Darl just ignores her and stares at his mother to overcome with emotion to say anything.

Dewey Dell, standing in the hall next to Darl after he has said goodbye to their mother, recounts the time she went harvesting with Lafe, a local farm hand. She remembers being nervous and says that she slept with him because she could not help it, and she knows that Darl found out about it somehow, though she is not sure how.

Darl tells Dewey Dell that he is sure that their mother will die before he and Jewel return, but they are going anyway because he cannot load the wagon alone.

Vernon Tull tries to set Anse at ease about Darl and Jewel making the trip at the chance that Addie will pass before they make it home. Vardaman returns from a fishing trip, eager to show Addie the fish that he has just caught.

Anse will not allow Vardaman to bring the fish inside, instead making him clean the fish first, so Addie never gets to see it. The Tulls leave the Bundren house for the night and gossip about the fate of the Bundren family.

Anse, inarticulately, explains his disdain for essentially everything in life, blaming the new road that was built for causing all of his bad luck, including Addie’s illness.

Anse sees Vardaman come into the house with blood all over him from the fish and tells him to go clean up, realizing that he cannot seem to feel any emotion at all. He thinks this must be because of the weather.

Darl and Jewel are on their journey, riding in the wagon, and Darl is doing all of the talking while Jewel rides in silence. Darl thinks about the time he confronted Dewey Dell about her relationship with Lafe, and he then shares with Jewel his thoughts on their mother’s illness. He decides that it is inevitable that she will die, likely before they return. Jewel has nothing to say on this matter.

Sections 11-20

Doc Peabody arrives at the Bundren house after being called by Anse. Doc is terribly overweight and old, and it takes him a long time to get up to house, as he has to be helped up the bluff.

He finds Addie to be dead still and almost dead and does not understand why Anse did not call for him sooner. Dewey Dell tells Doc that Addie does not want him there and asks him to leave. Addie just stares out the window at Cash, still building her coffin and calls to him.

Darl is narrating the next section, though somehow to story flicks over to the Bundren house while Jewel and Darl are on their journey. Addie calls to Cash as he builds the coffin and Dewey lies with her mother with Anse and Vardaman watching from her bedside. Addie then dies.

Cash comes in, and stares at his mother for a while before returning to finish her coffin and Dewey goes to make dinner. Anse lingers for a moment and then goes about his day. Somehow Darl knows exactly what has happened and informs Jewel that their mother has died.

Vardaman runs out into the yard when Addie dies, and he cries. He looks at the spot where he cleaned his fish and thinks about how it no longer resembles it a fish; it is just pieces of something that is no longer fish to him. He blames Doc Peabody for Addie’s death and beats his horses until they run away as a means of revenge. He then hides in the barn, despite Dewey Dell and Cash looking for him, and cries alone.

Dewey Dell is preoccupied with thoughts of her unwanted pregnancy, resulting from her affair with Lafe, and holds some resentment towards Peabody for not helping her to end her pregnancy. She cooks dinner for the rest of the family, but rather than sitting down to eat with them, she goes to look for Vardaman who has run off. When she finds him, she accuses him of spying on her and gets violent with him. When he runs off she goes back to thinking about her unwanted pregnancy and how Peabody could help her.

In the next section, Vardaman very briefly looks at his mother’s coffin and thinks to himself how unfair and unjust it is that she will be nailed shut inside a box, even though she is dead. Vernon Tull then narrates, recounting how he and Cora found out of Addie’s death.

Vardaman showed up at their house in the middle of the night, with Peabody’s horses, and he keeps talking about the fish he caught. When the Tulls return Vardaman to his house, Vernon helps Cash to finish the coffin. They place Addie in the coffin nail it shut though the next morning they find holes bored in the top of the coffin and Vardaman asleep next to it.

Vardaman had accidentally drilled holes through Addie’s face, and Vernon reflects that Vardaman’s behavior is a result of Anse’s poor parenting.

Darl is on his journey with Jewel still but is seeing the scene back home in his head. He sees his father and brother working on the coffin, then sees Tull show up to help and his mother being put inside it. Darl begins to question his existence. With the death of his mother, he no longer seems certain that he exists.

Jewel seems sure that he exists so he does not seem conflicted as Darl clearly is. Cash begins to narrate, not speaking of his feelings, but specifically explaining his carpenter-reasoning for building the coffin on a slant. He seems terribly sure of his workmanship. Vardaman is the focus of the next short section, where he simply proclaims that his mother is a fish.

Vernon Tull goes to the Bundren house the following morning for Addie’s funeral, accompanied by Peabody’s horses. Cash has plugged up the holes that Vardaman drilled in the coffin and a veil was placed over Addie’s face to cover the accidental drill marks.

Tull notes that she is placed in the coffin backwards so the flared bottom of her wedding dress would fit. Whitfield, the minister, performs the ceremony as the women sing and the men hang out on the back porch.

Cash speaks of how he broke his leg falling off of a roof, and everyone discusses the fact that Addie wishes to be buried in Jefferson and how Anse is adamant about fulfilling her wish. When Vernon is on his way home he sees Vardaman fishing, though he comments that there are no fish in the bog.

Sections 21-30

Darl and Jewel have been delayed for a couple of days on their journey but are now approaching the house and see buzzards flying overhead. Darl knows that this confirms that his mother has died, but tells Jewel not to worry he is sure Jewel’s horse is still alive.

Darl feels he can no longer be upset about his mother’s death because she now ceases to exist, but he believes that Jewel’s mother is now a horse. Once they get home Jewel and Cash argue about the coffin, as they pick it up, and why it will not balance.

Jewel is angry at the rest of the boys and continually curses everyone out while attempting to load the coffin in the wagon to begin their journey to Jefferson. The boys try to move the coffin, but Cash keeps talking about how it is unbalanced.

Jewel is angered by Cash and continues to move on quickly, leaving Cash and his broken leg to hobble behind. Jewel eventually puts the coffin on the wagon, mostly by himself, still cursing.

Vardaman narrates as Jewel heads toward the barn, upset with Darl for calling his mother a horse. Vardaman wonders if that means his mother is a horse as well but Darl tells him that it does not.

Cash is sure to pack his toolbox because he wants to stop and work on Vernon Tull’s house on the way back from Jefferson, though Anse feels this is disrespectful to Addie. Anse is further upset by the fact that Dewey Dell brings some of Cora Tull’s cakes with her to drop off in town, feeling that no one is taking their mourning seriously. He also feels that Jewel is being disrespectful for not coming with them to bury the body because he is mad at Darl, though Darl assures him that Jewel will catch up with them later, and they set on their way.

On the journey, Anse is still talking about Jewel and how disrespectful he is for not coming, when Darl starts laughing because they have only gotten as far as the Tull house when Jewel comes riding up on his horse to join them, just as Darl knew that he would.

The family passes the Tull house, with Jewel riding past them, yet ignoring them, and wave to the Tulls. When Jewel’s horse kicks some mud at the coffin, Cash promptly and diligently cleans it off.

Cash notes that within the next couple of days, Addie’s body will begin to smell and also he still frets about the coffin being unbalanced. Darl believes Cash should share these thoughts with Jewel, knowing it will get under his skin.

Anse thinks about how farmers are treated unfairly in life and assumes that when he someday gets to heaven he will be heavily rewarded for all of his days spent being poor and overworked. He does not seem to find his thoughts, or preoccupation with the new teeth he will soon get, to be disrespectful, although he finds everyone else’s preoccupations disrespectful.

After travelling all day, the Bundrens arrive at the farm of Samson, discovering that the rain has flooded the bridges so they cannot cross the river. Anse is upset by this news, yet finds solace in the fact that he will soon have a new set of teeth once they reach town.

Samson is sitting on his porch with his friends, MacCallum and Quick when he sees the Bundrens pass by on their journey. Quick tells them that the bridge is washed out, and Samson offers them a place to stay overnight and suggests burying Addie in New Hope, a nearby town.

The Bundrens accept his offer, but will not eat any of his food and insist on sleeping in the barn. When Samson’s wife Rachel gets wind of the journey the Bundrens are on, she is tearfully upset at the disrespect of dragging Addie, in her coffin, across the state to be buried, though the family does not seem to find it disrespectful, but their duty.

Samson does not bother to get out of bed the next morning to see the Bundrens off, after his wife’s outburst about their disrespect the night before. That day the family continues on their journey, looking for a new route and Dewey Dell thinks about her relationship with Lafe and her general distrust in men and her relationship with the men in her family. She remembers a nightmare she had when she was younger, when she shared her bed with her younger brother, Vardaman.

In the dream, she could not see or feel anything until suddenly she felt something silky move across her legs. The Bundrens then pass back by the Tull house looking for another way across the river.

Sections 31-40

Vernon Tull and his mule follow the Bundrens down to the river where they see the washed out river and think about how they can get across it. Vernon notes that all of the Bundrens give him dirty looks: Dewey Dell looks at him the way she looks at most men, as a sexual predator. Darl looks down at him; Cash sizes him up as a carpenter sizes everything up, and Jewel looks at him with the same contempt he looks at everyone with.

Jewel is upset with Tull for following them, but Cash is more concerned with finding a way to get across the river. As the family decides to wade across then try to drive the wagon across the shallow area, Tull refuses to allow them to use his mule. Although Darl and Jewel try to coerce him, he still refuses.

Darl sees the way Jewel looks at Tull, and he remembers a time years ago when Jewel was tired all the time, and everyone did his chores for him. The original assumption is that he was having an affair with a married woman and trying to hide it, but then Cash found out the secret and did not tell anyone.

Eventually, one day when Jewel came home on a new horse, it was revealed that he had been working overnight clearing land to make some extra money of his own. Anse was terribly upset that Jewel would make money to buy himself a horse and Jewel swore that the horse would not eat any of Anse’s food. Later that night Darl saw Addie crying beside Jewel’s bed.

Tull decides to cross the river with Bundrens, despite Jewel’s dirty looks. While Jewel, Cash, and Darl drive the wagon across the shallow part of the river, Tull, Anse, Dewey Dell and Vardaman cross by the bridge, nearly falling in.

Anse explains to Tull that the trip is a means of fulfilling Addie’s final wishes. Darl sees Anse, Tull, Vardaman, and Dewey Dell on the other side of the river, having successfully crossed, and asks Cash and Jewel how they should proceed.

They decide that Jewel will go first, by horse, holding a support rope, and Cash would steer the wagon while Darl rode inside it. As a log comes rushing at the wagon, Darl jumps out because Cash tells him to, the coffin gets away, and the mules drown.

Vardaman is watching this scene from the bank and yells to Darl to catch the coffin before it floats away. He begins to run along the bank, keeping his eye on it, watching Darl unsuccessfully try to catch it and Tull contemplate going in the water to help, which he eventually does, chastising Anse the whole time.

Darl watches as Cash, unconscious, washes up on the bank. He has already vomited, and when he awakes he vomits once more. The rest of the men try to get everything out of the water that they can salvage, though there is not much. The main priority seems to be collecting Cash’s tools, which they get most of. Tull anchors himself to a tree so he does not get swept away. Dewey Dell and the men surround Cash, hoping he is ok, and when he appears conscious they go back to searching for the rest of Cash’s tools. The only thing Cash can think of is how he tried to tell everyone that the coffin was not balanced.

Cora Tull narrates, remembering a time when she spoke to Addie about right and wrong. Cora, being a more religious woman than Addie, did not believe Addie could be the judge of what is right or wrong, when that judgment should lie in God’s hands only.

Addie did not appear to have a God, other than her son Jewel, who she almost worshipped. She referred to Jewel as her “cross” and her “salvation”. The way she spoke of him, despite the fact that he was rude and thankless, is as if he were her deity.

Addie reminisces on a time when she was a school teacher, though it is not specified whether she is narrating from before or after she died. She recalls finding pleasure in whipping her students when they got out of line and then considers her relationship with Anse.

After they married and had the oldest boys, Cash and Darl, she immediately resented Anse for taking her freedom and independence from her with the birth of the children. After having an affair with the minister, Addie finds wonder in the fact that someone who has supposedly given their life to God can commit such adultery.

Jewel, the product of her affair, becomes her favorite child and Addie then feels as though she must repay Anse for her affair, though he does not know of it. As repayment, Addie gives birth to Dewey Dell and Vardaman, feeling as though now that she has given penance she can die. She sees no merit in Cora’s talks of God and salvation.

Sections 41-50

Whitfield has been struggling with the idea of confessing his affair to Anse, and finally decides that he must tell him before Addie tells him on her death bed. He crosses over the washed out bridge and when he gets to the Tulls’ home he learns that Addie has already died.

It does not seem as though Addie revealed the affair; thus no one knows and the secret is safe. Whitfield decides that this is God’s way of telling him not to say anything and so he does not.

Darl is back at the river with his family and lays Cash, who is still in and out of consciousness, atop his mother’s coffin. The family needs the help of nearby farmer Armistid and Jewel rides ahead to let Armistid know they are coming.

Armistid tells the Bundren family that they are welcome to stay in his home for the night and even offers them food. At first they refuse the food but eventually accept, though they do turn down the offer to stay in the house and instead stay in the shed.

Armistid and Anse discuss the need for a new team of mules to help the Bundrens on their journey and Armistid offers his. Anse does not accept this offer, instead deciding to purchase a new team himself with what little he has.

Jewel goes off to find Doc Peabody, but he cannot and thus returns with a horse doctor instead. The horse doctor has no problem setting Cash’s leg, which was broken in the wagon accident. Cash never once complains about the pain that he is in though he does pass out from it.

Addie’s body is starting to smell and buzzards have begun to swarm her coffin. Anse sets off to get a new team of mules, and when he returns he says he has mortgaged his farm equipment, used some money Cash has saved, some of the money he had saved for his false teeth, and he sold Jewel’s horse.

Jewel is terribly upset, and leaves on his horse and everyone assumes that the deal will no longer go through, though the next day it is revealed that the horse was left on the land of the man who was to sell the Bundrens the team of mules. As they set out on the journey, Vardaman notes that a swarm of buzzards is following them.

The shopkeeper in the town of Mottson, Moseley, sees Dewey Dell Bundren looking around his store and asks if he can assist her. When he learns that she is looking for something that will help to abort her baby, he refuses to help her.

He advises her to marry Lafe; despite the ten dollars she is willing to give him to help her. Moseley learns about the Bundrens from his assistant who says that they are hauling an eight-day-old corpse with them, for which they have already been spoken to about the smell. One of the boys was seen buying some cement that he would use to set Cash’s broken leg in a cast.

The family continues on their trip and stops in front of a house where Darl asks Dewey Dell to ask if they can borrow some water to make Cash’s cast. Cash is losing a lot of blood and needs his leg to be set, though he insists that he is fine, and they should just continue on.

After Cash’s leg is set in the cast they continue, soon realizing they are coming up on a hill and will have to proceed on foot. While walking, Vardaman begins to wonder about the buzzards that have been following them. He muses as to whether or not they still follow them when the sun goes down and decides he will look for them that night.

When they make camp at a nearby farm, the coffin is set against an apple tree. Darl, knowing it gets under Jewel’s skin, asks Jewel who his father is but Jewel does not answer him. Darl tells Vardaman that if they listen they can hear Addie speaking to them from her coffin, which Vardaman tries to hear.

Addie’s coffin is moved in to the barn and Darl sets fire to it, as a means to an end. Vardaman and Dewey Dell both see him, but he tells them not to say anything. Darl and Jewel see the barn on fire, though Darl already knows it is, and Jewel runs in to save the animals. Jewel goes back in, risking his own well-being, to rescue his mother’s coffin from the fire.

Sections 51-59

Vardaman sits staring at what is left of the barn that has burned down and watches as Addie and her coffin are carried back to the apple tree. Cash’s leg is so confined by the cast that it is starting to turn black, and it becomes obvious that the cast must come off.

Anse tries, unsuccessfully, to remove the cement cast from Cash’s leg. Jewel’s back has also turned black, but from the medicine that Dewey Dell has given him for the burns he sustained rescuing Addie and the animals from the fire. Darl, after failing in his attempt to burn his mother’s body, lies on her coffin crying by the apple tree.

The Bundrens are back on their journey and obviously getting closer to Jefferson because they are seeing more signs and stores. Cash, still in a lot of pain and not feeling well, lies on top of the coffin as the family tries to find a doctor for him.

Dewey Dell mysteriously disappears in the bush and emerges wearing her best Sunday dress. The Bundrens’ wagon passes a group of pedestrians and they are disgusted by the smell of the rotting corpse. Jewel is angered by them and confronts them, only to have a knife pulled on him. Darl pulls Jewel away from the possible fray but says nothing.

The family decided to have Darl committed to a mental institution after word spread that he set the barn on fire. They feel as though there is no choice in the matter because Gillespie, the man who owned the barn, was going to press charges against them.

Darl, not yet committed, thinks they should fix Cash’s leg before they bury Addie, but Anse refuses and instead goes into a house to ask to borrow a shovel. Inside the house, a gramophone is playing, and Cash finds this exceedingly interesting, as he was going to purchase one for himself, but his money was used by his father to buy a new team of mule.

Anse emerges from the house after some time with two shovels in hand. Once Addie is buried, the men from the mental institution in Jackson appear to take Darl with them. Darl tries to get away from them, but his family helps to restrain him. Darl is so shocked that all he can do is sit on the ground and laugh hysterically.

The Bundrens find Doc Peabody and ask him to look at Cash’s leg. Peabody is appalled at the state of his leg and the fact that it was set in cement. He is skeptical as to whether Cash will ever walk again, though if he does it will be on a shortened leg.

Peabody is again disgusted with Anse’s childrearing skills, and thinking more highly of Cash, cannot believe he allowed his father to put a cement cast on his leg.

Skeet MacGowan is a clerk at the drugstore in Jefferson. When he sees Dewey Dell come into the store in her Sunday dress he finds her particularly attractive and pretends to be a doctor to impress her. She tells him that she has ten dollars and will give that to him if he can give her an abortion. He tells her that she needs to give him more than ten dollars, tells her to drink a random bottle off of the shelf, and to meet him later for the procedure.

Dewey Dell shows up at the store later that night, accompanied by Vardaman whom she leaves outside, and goes into the basement with him after he gives her a box of talcum capsules. As Vardaman waits out on the curb for Dewey Dell, with no idea why she is in the store, he thinks about Darl going crazy and being sent to live in a mental institution, while he stares at a cow standing by itself. When Dewey comes out of the store, she keeps say “it” will not work, though Vardaman does not know what that means.

Darl begins to actually go crazy on his way to the Jackson mental hospital. His monologue becomes complex, constantly switching from a first person to a third person point of view. He does not understand what is happening to him, or why he cannot stop laughing. He has been laughing since they cornered him and took him in. He is confined to a dirty, disgusting cell and all he can do is laugh uncontrollably.

Anse inquires to Dewey Dell about how she got ten dollars. Dewey tells him that she sold Cora Tull’s cakes for her and thus cannot loan Anse the money, though he has asked. She explains to him that it is not her money to loan and if he takes it, he will be a thief. Of course, she wants to keep the money to eventually buy herself an abortion. Anse takes the money anyway and takes off.

Cash considers the house that Anse borrowed the shovels from and how long he was in the house for. When he returned the shovels, he was in there for even longer. That night Anse disappeared, saying he had some business to attend to, being rather secretive about it.

The next morning when the Bundrens were getting ready to make their journey back home Anse told them to wait for him, as he would be back shortly. The Bundrens were sitting at the edge of town eating bananas when Anse finally returned, escorting a woman.

Anse had his new false teeth and looked extremely proud as he introduced the kids to the woman on his arm as “Mrs. Bundren”, seemingly forgetting that Addie ever existed now that she was in the ground.