Questions for "As I Lay Dying" 2

1. Why does Addie seem to hate her children? In her chapter, she talks about how she wants to hit them with switches and influence them.
2. Why is Whitfield happy that Addie is dying? He says, I wrestled with Satan and emerged victorious. He also says that his soul felt quieter and freer.

Word of Significance

A word that is significant for this section of As I Lay Dying is journey. The Bundren family prepares for and leaves on a journey to bury Addie. Also, each character has their own ways of dealing with Addie's death and they are all going through their own journey of mourning.

Jewel is separated in "As I Lay Dying"

In the book, As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, the character Jewel is separated from the others. While they are riding in the wagon to take Addie’s body to be buried, Jewel does not ride with them. Instead, he takes his horse and rides behind the wagon alone. The people in the next town, Samson and Rachel think this is odd because he is separated from the rest of the family. Darl’s descriptions of Jewel are consistent but odd. Darl frequently calls him wooden and rigid. He repeats this description often. Though Darl and Jewel are close and they work together, Darl still makes it seem like he is different. From the beginning of the book, Darl has payed close attention to Jewel’s features. Darl has talked extensively about Jewel’s eyes. Dewey Dell also referred to Jewel’s eyes as marbles. This talk about his appearance being different singles him out.

Questions for "As I lay Dying"

1. Is Darl an omniscient narrator because during the scene of Addie's death, he and Jewel are not present, yet he is the one narrating? To what extent is he all knowing?

2. Why does Darl keep repeating things? In the beginning, he repeats how Jewel's eyes look like wood. Later he repeats things such as "Addie Bundren is dead, " and he repeats his observation that the mud around them is yellow.

Elroy Berdahl in "The Things They Carried"

        A very interesting character in the story On the Rainy River in the book The Things They Carried is Elroy Berdahl. Elroy is the owner of the Tip Top Lodge. O’Brien, the narrator, meets Elroy when he runs away from the draft after he receives the notice. O’Brien’s plan was to flee to Canada to avoid going to war. O’Brien meets Elroy and says that this man saved him. Elroy was extremely respectful of O’Brien's privacy although he thought Elroy knew what was going on with him. He did not pry or judge or force O’Brien to make any moves about going to Canada or going to war. Instead, Elroy takes him fishing and allows him to decide on his own what he is going to do. He has the opportunity to swim to Canada from the boat but, he chooses not to. The way Elroy just lets him be is interesting. O’Brien refers to his presence as silent and watchful. He is similar to a God figure just being there and silently guiding O'Brien through his decision. Elroy does not necessarily need to be real as O’Brien says in a later story. He says that war stories do not have to be totally true. Instead, they can be crazy but make you feel the true feelings of war. Elroy could be real in O’Brien's life or, he could be made up to act as a way for the reader to see how O’Brien was guided through his decision. 

Food as a symbol of cultural difference in "The Arrangers of Marriage"

        In the short story the arrangers of marriage, food symbolizes the cultural differences in the main character, Chinaza’s, life. Before she comes to America, Chinaza plans on cooking traditional nigerian food to keep her nigerian culture in America. She packs ingredients that can only be bought in Nigeria. At the Airport, they confiscate her Nigerian ingredients and she is forced to leave without them. This incident causes her to start her life in America without her traditional meals, distancing herself even further from her culture. Later in the story, as Chinaza cooks other Nigerian dishes with ingredients that can be bought in America, her husband, Dave, tells her not to cook the dishes anymore. He is worried about the smells drifting down the halls and the Americans being offended by them. Chinaza being forced to stop cooking food symbolizes her separation from Nigerian culture and the differences between Nigeria and America.