AU Study Blog

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Character Studies

  • writing in sections (language, personality)
  • the focus
  • care/worry
  • personality
  • What does it reveal about action?
  • What does it reveal about other characters and themselves?
Darl
  • more order and structure
  • level-headed
  • observant and sensitive
  • articulate
  • ponders his existence
  • frustrated with the long, difficult process of taking Addie's body to Jefferson
  • "thinks too much": thinks more than acts
  • trapped artist
  • antagonist
  • sane or insane?
  • thought Cash would have told him that he'd be shipped off
Jewel
  • proud, fiercely independent
  • tall, stick-like, wooden-eyes (lifeless)
  • spoiled, hates when someone else has the attention
  • wants control of events but unable to
  • Jewel is mad because Cash is building Addie's coffin right in front of her
  • He resents all of the attention Cash gets--thinks Cash is showing off
  • Mom keeps close eye on him so he won't get married
  • Mom's "favorite"?
  • Separates himself from family...won't ride in wagon, takes horse
  • acts without thinking through it
  • passionate, brooding nature
  • fierce dedication and protector of his mother
Cash
  • selfless
  • master carpenter
  • perfectionist
  • has a task
  • very logical and rational thinking
  • very exact and detailed
  • tunnel-vision
  • upset because coffin won't be balance because she's turned around the other way
  • does what he must do
  • fulfills his duty
  • problem solver--thinks a lot about things
Dewey Dell
  • the only Bundren daughter, 17 years old
  • If the sack is full she'll have sex with Lafe in the secret shade
  • found out that she is pregnant
  • won't own up to what she decides or believes, FATE decides everything
  • Darl finds out, which worries Dewey--doesn't want her dad to know
  • uneducated, misspelling run-on sentences
  • thinking and reasoning like a teenage girl
Vardaman
  • very young
  • thinks his mother is a fish
  • tries to go to Vernon Tull's to turn back time because "he saw the fish too"
  • gets neglected, traumatized--no one is explaining what happened
Anse
  • overwhelmingly selfish
  • hated and disrespected by his children
  • 12 years since he's been to town
  • something about him makes men want to help him
  • lazy: doesn't want to work, doesn't want to work
Addie
  • a former schoolteacher whose bitter, loveless life causes her to despise her husband
  • invests all of her love in her favorite child, Jewel, rather than in the rest of her family or God.
  • enjoys the abuse of schoolchildren...wants the children to be aware of her
  • desires to mark them rather than inspire them...wants to perpetuate her existence [similar to Darl (?)]
  • marries Anse simply because he came along
  • desires to be alone--or to have possession
  • wants to be buried apart from Anse and family
  • has affair with Whitfield--gives birth to Jewel
  • wants to see Whitfield sin
  • Cora tries to talk to her about sin and redemption
  • sees the hypocrisy of words and religion--words are empty

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