Observations on the Role of Women

            The role of women in As I Lay Dying is confusing. I had trouble understanding how women fit in Faulkner’s story, and I couldn’t exactly tell how much power a woman had in this society, because roles and power balances seemed to vary depending on the couple. In the end, I concluded that women have certain set roles in this society and that women have more power in marriage than one might assume.

            The main role of a woman in this society appears to be having babies for her husband. We see this clearly in the marriage of Anse and Addie. The way that Anse and Addie discuss having children is almost business-like, and this shows that there is really no intimacy in their relationship. Anse says the following to Addie: “you and me aint nigh done chapping yet, with just two”. We can see from this quote that the focus of having children is more on the number of children rather than the value of having children with someone you love. After Addie had Cash and Darl, she described her role of bearing children for Anse as a duty. Addie says that she gave the children to Anse, but she had not asked for them. This statement shows that Addie is not bearing children for Anse because she wants to, but rather because this is her role as a wife and she in a way owes Anse children. Due to the fact that Addie’s main role is to produce children for Anse, it is hard for Addie to have her own identity in the story.

            Cora Tull believes that a woman should stay committed to her husband and children. Cora thinks that it is a woman’s role to stay beside her family, whether she is dead or alive. Addie rejects this standard, as she asks Anse to take her back to Jefferson when she dies. Addie clearly does not want to be associated with Anse or his children. I am not sure whether the standard that Cora states is something that everyone in this society accepted, as Addie and Anse broke this standard without much of a public outrage. However, many people did think it weird that Anse was burying Addie in Jefferson instead of with his people, so perhaps the idea that women are expected to stay with their husbands even after death is a common expectation in this society.

            Addie does not have much power in her marriage with Anse. Although Anse is an incompetent, lazy, and weak husband, he still has the majority of the say in things regarding their marriage. Anse decides how many children he wants, and also Addie needed permission from Anse to be buried in Jefferson. The power balance may seem heavily in favor of the men when you look at Anse and Addie, but there are several cases throughout the book where women seem to have a good deal of power in their marriages. We see this most clearly in the scenes where two different women angrily rant at their husbands about the way that Anse is disrespecting Addie’s dead body. The two women did not hold back their anger, and they both fiercely stated their opinions to their husbands. The husbands in return seemed to cower a little, and they didn’t really say anything in return. This shows that, at least for these two marriages, the women had a lot of say. The fact that they spoke their opinions in this bold manner indicates that they have some power and say within the family.

            These are just some of my observations about the way that women are portrayed in As I Lay Dying, and the roles that they are expected to have. It is hard to tell what the norm is at times, because Addie, one of the main woman characters in the story, is not a normal woman, and her family definitely isn’t normal either. What do you guys think about the role of women in Faulkner’s story?