As I Lay Dying Essay: The Characters -- As I Lay Dying Essays

The Characters in As I Lay Dying The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail. (excerpt-Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech)   Ã‚  Ã‚   Analyzing character in a Faulkner novel is like trying to reach the bottom of a bottomless pit because Faulkner's characters often lack ration, speak in telegraphed stream-of-consciousness, and rarely if ever lend themselves to ready analysis.   This is particularly true in As I Lay Dying, a novel of a fragmented and dysfunctional family told through fragmented chapters.   Each character reveals their perspective in different chapters, but the perspectives are true to life in that though they all reveal information about the Bundren family and their struggles to exist they are all limited by the perspective of the character providing the revelations.   The story centers on the death of the mother of the Bundren clan, Addie, whose imminent death creates fragmentation and chaos in the Bundren family because Anse, Addie's husband, has promised to travel to Jefferson to bury her with her family.   Floods, fires, injuries and poor decisions mar the journey, but the fa mily endures and Anse brings home a new Mrs. Bundren.   However, Anse, often read as the most selfish Bundren is the only one prepared to go on with life and accept Addie's death.      Others in the family are not so ready to accept the displacement of their mother so readily.   Among them, Vardaman and Dewey Dell are often portrayed as the least individualized characters in the Bundren family.   Someone once suggests he is a "frightened, perhaps deranged child" and she is a "female vegetable."   These suggestions might be a bit extreme, but defin... ...ner   57).   Vardaman, on the other hand, is even younger than Dewey Dell and seems less able to cope with reality.   However, he does see Darl set fire to the Gillespie's barn and trusts Dewey Dell enough to reveal this to her.   She tells him never to repeat it.   However, Vardaman will be disappointed in the journey as will Dewey Dell.   Only Anse gets what he wants.   Vardaman's train is not in the store window and Dewey Dell is tricked by another man, the pharmacist, into providing sexual favors.   Both are victims of their genetics and their environment, which, at their age, does leave them the least individualized characters in the novel.      WORKS   CITED          Faulkner, W.   As I Lay Dying.   Vintage Books, New York, 1957.       2                                                      

About Me

My culture, Hinduism, and race, Indian, have been the most influential characteristics in my life. These two characteristics combined also influence my other characteristics such as my age and sex. In America, my age restricts me from doing many things; but coming from a Hindu background brings me many more responsibilities along with my age. My sex prohibits me from achieving many life goals that other people would have no problem achieving. My ethnicity and culture have had a very big impact on my social life. Learning that I was different from others was an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. I learned about one of my dominant characteristics in the second grade. One day in class, Steven Vogel cut out little red dots for me because I did not already have one on my forehead. He also howled like an American Indian and did a rain dance for me. That day, I realized that I was different and I would have to live with it for the rest of my life. I lived in a southern town of Florida near the border of Alabama where many people were not open to other races; so I would have to get used to the taunting. At that time, I realized that I am Indian. Growing up, everyone wants to be in the in-group. Being an Indian Hindu girl, I was told not to go out. I was not allowed to go to football games, school dances, or any other after-school functions. No matter how much we want to be in the popular group in high school, most Indian children belong in the group between the in-group and the nerds. Hindu parents usually do not let their children go out because they believe their children will be corrupted. For example, I really wanted to go to my senior prom, but I was not allowed to. I was not even allowed to get a job like a normal teenager. This summer I asked my parents if I could so that I could save up for college. My father did not let me get a job because I had to stay home to learn how to cook. Females have very little advantages in my culture. We are not allowed to be too educated. If a woman is too educated, she is basically considered to be no good, modern, too independent and an instigator of family problems after marriage. The belief that girls should not be allowed as much freedom and independence as men hinders other women, from achieving many of our life goals and me. With age I have many responsibilities and restrictions. Most of my restrictions come from living in America. I am not yet allowed to vote. I am not given many job opportunities: I went to the mall a week ago to find a job but most of the stores require their employees to be eighteen. Another restriction that my ethnicity, along with age and sex, brings is marriage. A good Indian girl is engaged by the age of twenty-one or twenty-two. I am only seventeen years old, but I am expected to know how to cook and clean because this is the prime age when the adult matchmakers observe me. I expect my life in the future to include being a housewife. I approve of the concept of housewives, but I would like to be more educated. The times have slowly been changing. I am a first generation Indian-American and I have more privileges than my parents did. Because of the changing times, I may be able to fulfill my dreams of becoming a doctor. The typical Indian, Hindu family instills the importance of respect and morals into their children. I have learned to appreciate all of the values that my parents have taught me while growing up. This is a big privilege because when I look out in the world, I see families who teach their children to hate or do not teach their children the significance of respect. I was taught also to especially respect my teachers. Many people, however, do not have that same respect. I am proud that I have had the chance to learn and grow up with the values and principles that are taught by Hinduism.

Civil War A War That Shaped History - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1115 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2019/05/08 Category History Essay Level High school Tags: Civil War Essay War Essay Did you like this example? The Civil War is a war that is taught about in every school throughout the United States of America, no matter if its the first grade or your senior year of college, youve heard about it every year in school since kindergarten in some form or another. The nation split into two parts. the Union also known as the North and the Confederate States of American, or just The South. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Civil War: A War That Shaped History" essay for you Create order It was a war that shaped history, the nation could look like a totally different place today if it wasnt for the norths eventually victory over the confederate south. Both sides believed that what they were fighting for was legitimate and fair, but if you look deeper the real reason for the Souths session is common from the beginning of the nation to the end of the Civil war. The war began when the Confederates fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861 and went on until Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. The south was clearly dependent on slavery as they were mainly in agriculture with harvesting crops such as cotton, tobacco and more, while Northern states, were more into manufacturing and used mainly paid labor instead of slavery. In fact, most of the Northern states at the time didnt have any slavery at all leading up to the war. If you were to go back and ask a southern what they believe was the cause for the war, they would most likely say that they were not fighting for slavery at all but instead were fighting for states rights. They claimed that their rights were being taken away by the federal government with their voices being thrown aside, that it wasnt only the fact that, what they saw as their right to own slaves was being taken away but that the government really had no power to take them away. The point being that if you were to ask the different sides, the north would go on to say that the war was fought over slavery while the South would go on to say have it was over states rights and not slavery. So the question would be which one is correct when it comes to the south, was it slavery or states rights? If you look at the events leading up to the war it is quite clear that the north and south were growing apart in ideas and culture for decades. The North was becoming more and more industrial and had more and more immigrants coming to American in search of the classic American Dream meaning there were labor hands in the north. While the South stayed true to its roots and focused on crops, crops that were harvested by slaves. When the United states began to push towards the west and the idea of free states came into question it threatened the south. Like with the Missouri Compromise of 1819, the south saw it as a threat to the balance of the free states and slave states. It was the first time that the south started to understand that the government could create laws dealing with slavery. Same goes for the Northern states and the Fugitive slave act, which was part of the Compromise of 1850 which states that a federal officer must arrest a runaway slave or they may be subject to a fine which caused many members of the North to increase their efforts to end slavery. Another major event leading to the start of the war would be when Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which basically opened all the new territories as long as they could vote on whether to be a free state or a slave state. This lead to what historians call Bleeding Kansas when a series on confrontations happened between opposing forces of free and slave state members. The act led to the formation of the Republican Party, a new political party based on the idea of opposing of opposing slavery into the new west. The newly formed party would be what eventually president Lincoln would run as and would be the final nail for the south. The Civil War started because of stubborn differences between the Union and South over the fact of, if national government had the power to stop slavery in the territories that America had gained from the Mexican war, Louisiana purchase and others. What capped it off finally for the south was when Abraham Lincoln ran and won the presidential election in 1860 while one of his promises during his campaign was to keep slavery out of the new territories. Once he was elected South Carolina succeeded from the union and on April 12, 1861 the war began. The war shaped American today in a great number of ways. The largest would have to be the thirteenth amendment, which abolished slavery in the united states. It also laid ground for the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. However, thats not all it did for this great country. Even while the war was going on the Union was making moves to make the country better. Since there were no southern to block and bills, laws or acts, Congress was able to pass things such as the First Transcontinental Railroad or the Pacific Railroad, which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific and was built between 1863 and 1869. This helped people travel more out towards the west with things like the Homestead Act in 1862, which stated that any male could own a hundred plus acres if they lived and improved it over 5 years. Last but not least The war brought us paper money, during 1862, the Union was gaining more and more expenses so they had no way to continue paying for the war. So they created greenbacks which is similar to the paper bills that we actually use today. Simply put the war was fought by the South because of slavery, or their states right to slavery. If you look at the reasoning behind their methods, its because of slavery. Its important that the Union one because there is no slavery today when it comes to forced labor. Without the Civil war we might not even see one unified nation as we are today but rather one with slaves and one without. It laid the stone work for or modern day United States with huge acts put force by congress such as the fourteenth amendment that has become so important over time, especially in the 20th century with the Civil Rights movement and the due process clause. The Civil war tore us apart as a nation but once it was over, it opened us up to a whole new Union.