As I Lay Dying Summary
...sections depending on who is narrating the story. This interesting literary form provides a view of the story from almost every possible perspective, and gives the book a feeling of continuous action. Addie is now nearing death at the beginning of the novel and as a last present for his mother, Cash decides to make her a coffin outside of her window, where she lays dying. Anse sends Darl and Jewel on a trip to do lumber job to earn them some money for the trip to Jefferson, the place where Anse had promised to bury Addie, and where Addie’s family is buried and lived. Dewey Dell meanwhile recounts how she got pregnant by a guy, Lafe, who tricked her into sex while working in the fields. Darl and Jewel have an accident with the wagon and are forced to return for a spare wheel, by the time they return they have missed the last few breaths of their mother. Vardaman the youngest gets traumatized by his mother’s death. Meanwhile Cash has finished the coffin and a funeral service is held. Darl and Jewel go on to the job and return with money and the family starts the trip to bury their matriarch in Jefferson. Along the way the family runs into trouble, lots of it. Storms cause a difficult journey as well as the fact that bridges have been taken out. The stench of the rotting corpse becomes more noticeable and buzzards even roam above. The family attempts crossing a taken out broken bridge, and Cash nearly drowns and breaks his leg, the mules are killed and the coffin goes into the river, Jewel saves it though. Meanwhile everything is going on Dewey Dell, at every town they stop in tries to find a drug from a pharmacist that can abort her baby, losing sight of the family’s quest to bury their mother. Cash’s leg gets worse and the family buys cement to try to make a makeshift cast for him, which only makes matters worse. The family at one point stops to take shelter at the farm of a man nam...