As I Lay Dying: A Hero’s Journey about Sidekicks
Note that this blog post assumes you’ve read all the way to the
end and contains massive spoilers for the end.
Let’s take a moment to go over the end result of AILD for
each family member’s subplot.
Cash: his leg is maimed because of Anse’s trick with the
cement, and he therefore will not be able to take the barn roof job, or practice
much carpentry in general in the future.
Darl: he goes insane for a variety of reasons and is sent to
Jefferson™, possibly never to be heard from again.
Dewey Dell: after Anse “borrows” her secret abortion money,
she is stuck with her problem.
Jewel: Anse has taken his horse, and he really had no other
subplot.
Vardaman: no indication on whether he got the train, but I
suspect not because they have no money.
Anse: gets them teeth. Buries Addie.
Noticing a common thread between most of these resolutions?
I certainly do. All the children get massively (and unknowingly) screwed over
by Anse, while Anse gets the only happy ending the book has to offer. And the
way the book is narrated and written makes us notice this outcome.
In the Odyssey, all of Odysseus’s crew dies. But because
each member is given a few lines at most of death and mourning time, we don’t notice
or care. We might worry about their dwindling numbers, being concerned that
Odysseus will run into trouble and have little or no crew. We might wonder if
Odysseus will get lonely. But we don’t feel empathetic to the crew itself,
because we aren’t introduced to anyone on it (well, besides the Voice of
Dissent, and he is a one-dimensional character if I’ve ever seen one).
AILD flips this script on its head. The vast majority of
narration is done by sidekicks. They’re there to do more than blindly give
loyalty to Anse, or cynically question him the entire time. They have complex personalities.
But most importantly, they each have a complex storyline. And when Anse ruins,
with methodical precision, each and every storyline, Anse becomes a much more
complex hero. I might even consider him an antihero.
Consider how different AILD’s storyline would be if it were
narrated by Anse. Or even in the 3rd person all the time. Either way,
a more traditional telling of Anse and Addie’s story would probably focus on
the journey as a way to get Addie into the ground. The burial would be given pride
of place as the finale of the story.
But since AILD focuses so much on its sidekicks, giving them
the majority of narration time, we come away with a completely different
journey. Here, the burial is just a backdrop for an intricate family drama. And
the actions that Anse takes – which, in another book, could be “resourceful” or
“wise” – are portrayed as very, very destructive to the lives of those around
him. AILD stands with the sidekicks of every Hero’s Journey who are used and
then cast aside.
Holy caboodle nice spicy hot takes here. Nice post. Your exploration of sidekicks is really interesting. Anse does end up with the only happy ending at the expense of almost every other character - not to mention a new wife. This ending even seems to disadvantage Addie herself - because presumably Anse will repeat the whole process again and cause even more pain. (BTW I am fascinated by the detail that they never even depict Addie's burial, the central event of the whole novel. Good stuff)
ReplyDeleteWhile I think at this point we all sort of hate Anse, it's undeniable that he goes through some wonky, flopped-on-its-head Hero's Journey. It's disgusting to think about it this way, but Anse getting a new wife out of Addie's death is sort of his own triumph, and a fitting end to his "hero's" journey arc. He loses something, spends the entire book trying to do justice to it, and in the end is reunited with some version of that thing (his new wife will at least serve the same purpose Addie did to him - feed him, manage him, bear him children). I love the point you bring up about narration - he might even be sympathetic if he was our only narrator, which is a terrible thing to imagine. His nastiness to his kids, though (and we presumably like them better) really drives home the point that Anse is a terrible guy.
ReplyDeleteNice post! I like your interpretation of how the narration from so many viewpoints, while still centering around Anse, focuses attention on all the Bundrens and how that in turn makes Anse a much more complicated character. I also really like your comparison to the Odyssey. In the Odyssey we do get multiple viewpoints - Odysseus and a third person narrator. But since the narrator is so sympathetic to Odysseus, this doesn't result in the same sort of complexity as there is in AILD.
ReplyDeleteI love your comparison to the Odyssey. I'd probably like Odysseus a lot less if Homer took the time to introduce me to all the people Odysseus screwed over on his journey to get home to Penelope. I really don't like the idea that Odysseus and Anse have things in common, I'm bothered now.
ReplyDeleteAll of the children deserve so much better than they got, and Anse just needs to die in a hole. Slowly and painfully.
Great post! I like how you laid out every “sidekick” and their relationship to Anse. I thought the ending sequence was especially interesting. If Anse was truly the hero of this story, I could totally see the end being something epic: Anse has struggled long and hard to grieve his wife, in his final moments before laying her to rest, he meets a charming and sincere lady, and it’s love at first sight. It’s a (albeit slightly atypical) Hallmark movie plotline – Anse finds love, everybody is happy. Instead, through Cash’s narration, it all seems kinda weird and sudden. Cash focuses more on the gramophone than the bride, and it’s all just very underwhelming.
ReplyDelete