Is Darl Real?

It's clear that Darl is a very weird character in As I Lay Dying. He sort of unnerves both people in his family and strangers, has almost omniscient knowledge at times, and has an extremely strange ending. I was sort of confused by many parts of Darl's story in the book, and as I was trying to understand it, I had an interesting idea: What if Darl doesn't actually exist? 

There's actually a few places in the book where it's implied that Darl isn't real. Addie's chapter, at the end, contains a section where she's adding up all of her children. At the very end, after subtracting both Jewel and the child that would have been Anse's if not for Jewel, she says she has given Anse three children that are not hers. There are actually four; Cash, Darl, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. Darl not being real would explain this. At the very end of the book, Cash says that this world and this life weren't for Darl, and Anse completely omits him when telling Mrs. Bundren about the family. The clearest example, though, comes right after Addie's death, where Darl literally says that he does not exist. He says that Addie "was" and is not "is," so concludes if his mother is no longer "is," he no longer "is" either.

Darl not existing would actually not contradict the main story that much. He is sort of a non-essential character in terms of plot, as he doesn't make any major decisions that affect others and does virtually nothing physical that's important except for burning down the barn (which I'll get to later). His personality is also sort of non-existent, as he virtually never discusses himself, and the only thing others say about him is that he's weird and sort of freaks them out. He's alienated from pretty much everyone besides his family.

His interactions with his family are really the most supportive part of this theory. He knows things about everyone that no real person would be able to figure out, like Dewey Dell's pregnancy and Jewel's father. In addition, pretty much every single time he talks to someone, all he does is reflect their own inner doubts back at them, sometimes even harassing them. Darl's dialogue, in many cases, could easily be what the inner conscience of the person he's talking to is saying, reflecting their doubts back at them.

So, if Darl isn't a real person, what could he be? One possibility is that he's completely in the imagination of the Bundrens, and for each of them he is just a personification of their conscience. But this doesn't explain Darl's one main physical action in the book, burning down the barn. I personally think that Darl could be representing a spirit/angel sent by God to help the Bundrens on their journey. His talks with them represent him helping them with moral problems, and his occasional omniscience would make sense. This could also explain why Cora, who is extremely religious, is the only one who really likes Darl. The barn being burned as an act of God is also backed up by something Cash says. He thinks that it's possible the river flooding was a sign from God for them to stop, that they weren't supposed to get the coffin back. This would support a servant of God then burning the barn in an attempt to stop the journey.

(This theory is sort of crazy, and Darl probably does exist. But still, I thought it was quite interesting how much the story would still make sense if he didn't given how major a character he was).

Anse's Journey

There has been a lot of discussion in class over whether or not the journey the Bundrens take can be see as a heroic journey, and whether or not Anse can be seen as a hero in the story. Personally, I think that Anse turns out to be a very selfish character and isn't much of a hero at all, and the Bundrens' journey is more of a series of misfortunes than anything heroic.

I do respect Anse for his desire to take Addie all the way to Jefferson. Even though they weren't very close at all while she was alive, he did really try to love her and wanted to respect her memory by honoring her last wish. He even overcomes his great fear of moving to set off on the journey, which I suppose can be seen as heroic in a way. However, it's not the intention that makes Anse not a hero, it's more the way that he goes about leading this journey that's the problem.

Anse proves to be an extremely selfish and stubborn man. He refuses to give up when almost any normal person would, which does show good perseverance but also causes Addie's body to rot and people to disrespect him for what he's doing to her. The worst part of Anse though, is the way that he endangers and hurts many of the other members of his family while on the journey. Anse refuses to do any work himself and makes the others do it, often putting them in danger as we see during the river crossing. As a result of continuing the journey, Cash breaks his leg and nearly dies, Jewel is almost killed in a fire, and Darl is sent to an insane asylum. If Anse had just given up on the journey when it started to become more and more dangerous, he could have saved his family a huge amount of trouble.

One other bad trait of Anse is that he appears to be extremely selfish. We know that a side motive for his trip to Jefferson is to get some false teeth on the way, and we know that many of the other characters have secondary goals as well. Anse seems to prioritize his goals over those of the others, which is best shown in how he buys the new mules. First of all, this trade is only necessary because he's being ridiculously stubborn in refusing Armstid's offer to use their mules. He trades away some family equipment, Cash's money, and Jewel's horse without asking anyone about it. He does throw in some of his money he'd been saving for his teeth, but this isn't overly impressive as he steals Dewey Dell's money to replace it later in the book.

Finally, the moment at the end of the book where he returns with a new wife makes the entire journey just seem sort of dumb. Anse, after all of his talk about not wanting to disrespect Addie, and after dragging all of his children through an insane, dangerous, painful journey that nearly killed two of them and got one of them locked up, turned out to just have wanted to go to town to get some new teeth and a new woman. Not very heroic at all.