The Hero's Journey in As I Lay Dying

    It is definitely not easy, but I do think it's possible to see some elements of the hero's journey in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. However, the hero isn't just one individual, it's the entire Bundren family which is essentially acting as one unit. It is also possible to see some smaller hero's journeys for individual characters like Darl and Cash, but here I'm just going to focus on the Bundren family, since I think it's easiest to see a hero's journey that way. However, there are still many steps that aren't really here. There's not much of a supernatural aid, meeting with the goddess, temptation, atonement with the father, and it feels like a lot of the parts of the return phase are also missing. However, there is a significant change in the family over the course of the journey, mainly Anse deciding to get a new wife days after burying Addie, and Darl going to a mental hospital. They do seem to have gone through some kind of collective journey and there are a few stages I want to focus on here.

    Addie's death is definitely the call to adventure, even though it happens about a quarter ways into the book. It's here where they decide that they have to go to Jefferson in order to bury her corpse, which seems to be mostly because of Anse, but it was a collective decision on some level. There isn't a very clear refusal other than that the family does seem a little reluctant to go at first. However, they also all seem to have some other motive for going on the journey, Jewel because of his horse, Anse trying to get his teeth, Dewey Dell trying to get an abortion, and Cash I believe had some work he wanted to do there. It's not even clear that Addie did it because she particularly wanted to be buried in Jefferson, since in her chapter it seems possible that she just did it out of spite (Faulkner 173). 

    One of the more important stages that is pretty unclear here is apotheosis. It could be the scene in the barn where Jewel saves Addie's coffin from the burning barn, since he's described kind of like a phoenix emerging from the "thin nimbus of fire" (Faulkner 222). Considering that Addie's coffin is the entire reason for the journey, it's possible that this is supposed to be representative of the apotheosis for the entire family, with them being reborn in the fire. The family does also seem to have renewed their drive to actually get to Jefferson after this, but it still doesn't seem like the individual characters change that much after this. The first thing Jewel does is nearly get into a fight and we find out that they hadn't even thought to bring a shovel, and that Anse plans to borrow one (Faulkner 230-231; 235). It is also possible that the apotheosis could be later in the story, possibly when they jump Darl and send him to Jackson since that also marks a change in the family. However, it's probably too late in the story and considering how the rest of the book is written it's possible there was another apotheosis that I just missed, but it does probably happen around the time that the barn is set on fire.

    The last stage I can see that is pretty clear is the Ultimate Boon, which is the Bundrens finally getting to Jefferson and specifically them burying Addie. This was their original goal and the reason that they all decided to leave for Jefferson at first, even though they all had their own separate reasons, it was the one thing they had in common. It does also seem like getting to Jefferson was more important than the actual burial, which is only briefly mentioned by Cash, "when we got it filled and covered" (Faulkner 237). They all wanted to get there because each of them had something to do there, Anse to get his teeth, Dewey Dell trying to get an abortion, and Cash with his tools, but it does still seem to be a goal which can unit them. There also isn't a clear alternative other than maybe Cash getting the peg leg, but that seems more specific to just Cash. Jefferson is pretty clearly the Ultimate boon, and is one of the few clear stages of the Hero's Journey in this story. However, it does hit all the really important ones, so I could see As I Lay Dying as fitting the model.

Comments

  1. ZevDecember 20, 2022 at 10:40 AM

    I really like the main idea of your post that the entire family is the hero. This is basically what I wrote about for my in-class essay. I agree that their story is missing a lot of steps, but so is every other hero’s journey that we’ve studied this year. I don’t think there’s any clearly correct way to match up the story with the steps, and I mostly agree with you, but I would consider burning the barn as more atonement with the father. Maybe the confrontation outside of Jefferson was apotheosis since the family worked together successfully to diffuse the conflict.

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  2. Thomas SDecember 20, 2022 at 12:16 PM

    This a really interesting idea that the whole family could be bunched together into one full hero, although I disagree I do see where your coming from. You also aren't wrong about the book missing several key features of the heros journey. I tried to justify this in some of my posts and essay. But any ways the heros journey isnt supposed to be traced but used more as a reference. I think it hits the points it needs to, to aid in the interpretation of the heros journey. Overall good post and it shows you have strong opinions which is a good thing.

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