Jewel Bundren’s Character Analysis in As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner utilizes a number of narrators in As I Lay Dying, a strategy that enables him to illustrate diverse mindsets on events and ethical queries. Some narrators’ motivations are clear: Dewey Dell is determined to get an abortion, for instance, and Vardaman longs for a toy train and bananas. Jewel is more challenging to comprehend, and is the only member of the Bundren family members who gives no personal narration following Addie’s death. Simply because the reader can only understand Jewel via the accounts of others, she may possibly be specifically confused as to why Jewel would help Anse, a man to whom he has neither biological nor affable ties, by giving up the horse that has extended been his only outlet for expressions of love. The explanation is that Jewel realizes he must compromise his principles to obtain something, and that he becomes increasingly willing to query his instant reaction to conditions.

In order to realize Jewel’s final selection to assist Anse, 1 must examine the relationship amongst Jewel and both his mother and horse. The filial connection amongst Jewel and Addie is special both emotionally and genetically. Although Cash, Darl, Vardaman, and Dewey Dell are all the young children of Anse and Addie, Jewel is the child resulting from the affair between Addie and Father Whitfield. As such, Addie favors Jewel more than all the other kids. Addie even admits to Cora that Jewel “is [her] cross and he will be [her] salvation. He will save [her] from the water and from the fire” (168). On the other hand, Addie’s opinion toward Cash and the rest of her children is produced apparent in Addie’s personal narration when Addie claims, “And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it” (171). Addie deemed getting youngsters with Anse each punishment and preparation for death as opposed to something from which to derive pleasure and adore. Nevertheless, as a mother, Addie knew that she had to treat all of her young children equally, and hated herself and Jewel in a way for forcing her to deceive the other individuals into pondering she loved them all equally when enjoy was a word she could not even comprehend. In this sense, Addie “whipped” Jewel a lot more, disciplining him to make up for her overly-expressed really like toward him. Considering that Jewel’s only source of enjoy was that disguised by Addie’s anger, Jewel has also learned to really like in such a way. To his horse, Jewel’s “tough-love” is reciprocal of his mother’s “teachings.” Jewel’s remedy of the animal that he purchased with his personal money with curses and pushes mixed with spoils and treats is Jewel’s highest form of expressing enjoy.

Jewel’s adore for his mother is clear in his sole narration “dedicated” to Addie. Even though Jewel’s hostile proclivity is completely on the surface, his underlying intentions of wanting the greatest for his mother are clear. Jewel goes as far as to want that “it would just be [him] and her on a high hill and [him] rolling the rocks down the hill at [everyone’s] faces, selecting them up and throwing them down the hill faces and teeth and all by God” in response to the constant consideration by all that Addie is getting on her deathbed. In addition, Jewel, except for “crazy” Darl, is the only 1 of the Bundren family members that goes to Jefferson in order to bury his mother with no selfish side-intentions. Jewel’s really like for his mother can't be explicitly stated, for, like his mother claimed, the word really like is only utilized by these who have by no means felt it. However, he would do almost anything for her Jewel would even break into a burning barn to rescue her coffin. Whilst Jewel’s hostility toward anybody creates uncertainty about his character, he undoubtedly lives by one guiding principle: to do what ever it requires to please his mother.

Even so, when Anse asks Jewel to give up the horse in order to acquire yet another team to continue on the way to Jefferson to bury Addie, Jewel have to then decide in between the two loves of his life: his horse and his mother. For Jewel to decide on the horse, his mother would have to be buried close to Armstid’s home, disregarding her final wish. If Jewel chooses his mother, she could make it to Jefferson, but he would drop the living animal for which he had cared so deeply. Contrary to Armstid’s belief, Jewel does not decide on to aid Anse due to the fact Anse just has “something” about him that tends to make any man want to help him. Jewel does not support Anse for Anse’s sake he merely realizes that the adore for his mother, with out which he would in no way have lived to be capable to have a horse to really like so, is a lot more essential than his adore for his horse. The whole journey to Jefferson would have been pointless if he refused to relinquish his horse, a disrespect Jewel does not want to give his mother.

Regardless of his immediate reaction to run away to keep away from giving up his horse, Jewel learns a new lesson in giving the horse to Snopes: to take into account all the consequences of his actions prior to they are made. He realizes that his all-natural inclination to run away contradicted his all round desire to do the ideal for his mother. At the identical time, his demand to place the coffin in the wagon with out a balance led to its falling in the river, a full disrespect of his mother. Thus he starts to question all his reactions to conditions. This lesson is exemplified by Jewel reconsidering his anger toward the man whom he thought commented on his mother’s smell in Jefferson. As an alternative of punching the man as he normally would, Jewel goes as far as to apologize for his outburst. With the two he held most dear gone, Jewel realizes that his hostility has not gained him anything, although the losses themselves might not necessarily have been preventable. As such, giving up his horse is possibly the starting of a new outlook on life for Jewel, a single in which he attempts to act in a loving way. Even though Jewel can not but stop this aggression, he has undoubtedly begun an internal conflict in which he should recover from the loss of his two loves and learn a new way to reside.