As I Lay Dying

Cora Tull, the Bundren’s neighbor, has made cakes to sell. Although the cakes have turned out well, the wealthy lady she was going to sell them to cancelled her party, and she doesn’t want them. Kate thinks the lady should have bought Cora’s cakes as a matter of principle. Outside the window, they can hear Cash making Addie’s coffin.

We learn that Addie is still in the process of dying. Cora states that her cakes could not compare to the quality of Addie’s. She and Kate even fantasize that Addie will recover enough to bake more cakes. They spot Darl coming in through the hallway.

This chapter presents the Bundren sons’ contrasting personalities. Darl has a habit of waiting until the others are asleep so that he can be at ease and do as he likes. When he was a boy, he would take nighttime sips of water from a gourd, and now that he is older, he raises his shirttail and engages in a form of non-contact masturbation, “feeling myself without touching myself, feeling the cool silence blowing upon my parts” (7).

Jewel likes to frolic with his horse, performing feats that are thrilling and dangerous. While he is engaged in this rough play, he cannot hear Cash making Addie’s coffin.

Jewel regrets that Cash is making the coffin beneath the window where Addie’s sickbed is. He is convinced that Addie hears Cash and that “every breath she draws is full of his knocking and sawing” (10). For Jewel, the noises made by the adze and Dewey Dell’s fanning, conspire to hasten Addie’s death.

Darl and Jewel are to take the family wagon to run an errand that will make them three dollars.

Meanwhile, their father, Anse, and Cora’s husband, Vernon Tull, are contemplating the journey that will take Addie to the town of Jefferson, where her ancestors are buried. Jewel, the son who received the most attention from Addie, is in denial that his mother is that sick. He resents that his family are “burning hell” with their preparations for Addie’s death (12).

Anse attests that Addie’s sense of privacy would mean that she would only consent to be taken to Jefferson in the Bundrens’ own wagon. The family experience a sense of helplessness as they cannot be certain of when Addie will die. Darl fears that Addie will die before he and Jewel return with the wagon.

Cora, who has made her way to Addie’s deathbed, feels moved by the sight of Darl paying Addie some final respects. Cora believes that Darl is the redeeming figure in the Bundren clan, which she views as “loving nobody, caring for nothing except how to get something with the least amount of work” (13). She is disgusted that Anse would think of making three dollars while his wife’s death is imminent.

Cora is also against the plan of taking Addie to Jefferson. While Tull expresses Anse’s view that it was Addie’s wish to be buried with her family of origin, Cora believes that a woman belongs with her husband and children, both alive and dead.

Dewey Dell reflects on Darl’s coming to Addie’s deathbed. Darl knows that Dewey Dell is hiding a pregnancy, which was a result of her out-of-wedlock assignations with the farmer Lafe. Without using words, Dewey Dell asks Darl “are you going to tell pa are you going to kill him?” (16). When Darl asks “Why?”, Dewey Dell feels like her secret is safe with him (16).

Vernon Tull is with Anse when he worries that his sons may not return before Addie dies. Anse senses that Addie is “a-going […] her mind is set on it” (17). The Bundrens’ youngest son, Vardaman, comes by with a giant fish that he has caught. Anse asks him to gut it.

When Anse goes into the house, he is half in denial that Addie is sick in her bed, as though he expects her to be going about her chores in the house. On the wagon-ride home, Tull listens to Cora contemplating that after Addie’s death, Anse may remarry. She also considers that Darl or Jewel may benefit from having wives.

Anse considers that the bad luck he and his family have suffered is due to the fact that there is a road beside their house. According to Anse’s logic, while God intended that vertical things such as trees, houses and men should stand still, horizontal things such as roads and snakes move. The juxtaposition of a still thing like a house, with a moving thing like a road, will put the former “where every bad luck prowling can find it” (21). The road has bought them such bad luck as Cash falling off a church and Anse having to pay for Cash’s upkeep while he was unable to work for six months. He also blames the road for Addie’s death due to overwork and exhaustion. Addie’s sickness began in a tiredness. When Anse suggested she rest, Addie did not recover sufficiently to get out of bed. Despite his wife’s approaching death, Anse’s mind is occupied by financial matters, such as the three dollars that Jewel and Darl’s errand will bring him.

Anse considers that the impending rain will make their journey to Jefferson difficult.

Darl challenges Jewel into admitting that their mother is going to die.

Darl, who knows Dewey Dell’s secret, is also aware that the latter is eager to hasten Addie’s death so that they can get to town before her pregnancy becomes too advanced. He knows that Dewey Dell will not confess the truth about her pregnancy to Anse. She only asks whether Darl is going to tell Anse and potentially cause his death.

There is a smell of lightning in the sky, and Darl anticipates that when the doctor Peabody approaches, they will have to haul him up the steep road with a rope, as he and Jewel have taken the horse.

Peabody the doctor regrets that Anse has asked him to check on Addie. First, because the weather is terrible, and second because he will have to haul himself up the hill with a rope now that Anse’s sons have taken the wagon.

Addie looks very sickly when Peabody reaches her sickbed. Peabody asks Anse why he did not enlist his help sooner; he would have only expected the Bundrens to pay for the visit when they could afford it.

Dewey Dell, who has been incessantly fanning Addie, tells Peabody that her mother wants him to leave. Peabody thinks that Addie’s desire for him to go stems from her pride and a willingness to hide vulnerability and sickness. Addie hears Cash making her coffin and calls out his name in a clear voice.

Although Darl is away from home on the quest to make three dollars, he also manages to see the action at Addie’s deathbed.

When Addie implies that she wants to see Jewel, Anse tells her that the boys thought there was time for the errand, and that they thought she would wait for them. Addie raises herself for the first time in 10 days to address Cash. Cash meanwhile looks up at her.

Then, with a final look at her youngest son, Vardaman, Addie dies. Dewey Dell keens, while Cash, saw in hand, pays his respects. Anse tells Cash to go back to making the coffin and commands Dewey Dell to make supper to keep up their strength. Anse contemplates that now, following Addie’s death, he will be able to go to town and get the teeth that he has been missing.

Outside the room, Peabody reminds Dewey Dell that she will now take her mother’s place as the family homemaker.

Darl tells Jewel that Addie is dead.

Vardaman runs off to cry. Vardaman is angry at Peabody because he imagines that the doctor’s visit has hastened his mother’s death. He is also angry at his family, imagining that he will never help them out again.

Dewey Dell calls him to supper. She is cooking the fish that Vardaman caught.

Dewey Dell’s refrain in this chapter is that “he could do so much for me if he just would” (35). She is referring to Peabody, the doctor who could help her terminate her unwanted pregnancy. Dewey Dell is obsessed with going to town, warning Vardaman that if he does not behave, they will not take him to town where they will bury their mother.

Dewey Dell calls Vardaman a “durn little sneak” and shakes him when he catches her saying the word “Lafe” in the dark of the barn (38). He has interrupted her sense of privacy. The idea of children interrupting a woman’s sense of privacy is a motif that continues throughout the rest of the novel.

Vardaman contemplates the harsh reality of his mother’s body sealed up in the coffin that Cash has made. He compares his mother’s passage from life to death to that of the fish that he caught and killed.

Vardaman comes to Vernon and Cora Tull’s place with the news that his mother has died. They all set off for the Bundrens’ house. Although Tull is reluctant to meddle, Cora feels that it is her Christian duty to go over. When Vardaman can only talk about the fish, Cora reflects that the Lord’s judgement has fallen on Anse for his sins. Tull thinks that Anse’s worst burden is having to put up with himself.

Tull reports that it was long past midnight when they drove the last nail in the coffin and dawn before they got back home. Tull overhears that when they took the lid off the coffin, it became apparent that an exhausted Cash bored the nails right into Addie’s face.

Although it is raining, Darl, his brothers, and Tull light a lantern so they can continue to work on the coffin. Cash seems to exult in the final phases of physical labor. He even takes the time to bevel the edges. When the coffin is done, the men, including Peabody, take it inside with great ceremony.

Meanwhile, Darl and Jewel, who are staying in a strange room, but thinking of home, cannot empty their minds enough to sleep.

Cash proudly declares that he made the coffin on the bevel and offers a numbered list for his logic in doing so. For example, he recounts that “the animal magnetism of a dead body makes the stress come slanting, so the seams and joints of a coffin are made on the bevel” (50).

This chapter is a one-line sentence in which Vardaman declares that his mother is a fish.

The river is rising, meaning that any journey made with a wagon will be challenging. Still, Anse is determined that Addie will be buried in Jefferson, as per her wishes, and that they will use the family wagon once Jewel and Darl return with the replacement wheel. He refuses Tull’s offer to take his team of animals and hasten the journey.

They have laid Addie in her wedding dress with a mosquito bar veil to conceal the holes Cash has drilled in her head. Reverend Whitfield comes to visit and the women around him sing. Tull considers that wherever Addie has gone, she will find some peace in being separated from Anse.

Meanwhile, on the way home, Cora and Tull spot Vardaman, who is still talking about the fish. Vardaman claims that Dewey Dell also saw the fish.