Characters' Choices
Who insists on burying Addie in Jefferson, no matter what happens?
Who is Anse Bundren?
What does the coffin symbolize?
What is the weight of obligation, decay, and family burden?
What is unique about Faulkner’s narrative style?
What is Multiple first-person, stream-of-consciousness voices?
What is Addie’s main complaint about family/life?
What is the emptiness of words, burdens of motherhood?
What shocking event happens immediately after Addie is buried?
What is Anse introducing his new wife?
Which character ends up being institutionalized by the end?
Who is Darl?
What does the river crossing represent?
What is Endurance, nature’s power over human plans?
Which narrator’s voice becomes increasingly unstable?
Who is Darl?
Who seems most loyal to Addie’s wishes?
Who is Cash?
What tone does Faulkner create with this ending?
What is Dark irony and absurd humor?
Why does Dewey Dell go to the pharmacy in Jefferson?
What is to secretly seek an abortion?
What might Cash’s broken leg symbolize?
What is the cost of blind duty, suffering for others?
How does Faulkner use punctuation/structure to reflect emotion?
What is fragmented sentences mirror mental chaos?
What moral question does the journey raise?
What is the Duty to the dead vs. living?
Why is Darl’s institutionalization significant?
What is it that silences the most self-aware voice in the novel?
What motivates Cash to help Anse despite his broken leg?
What is loyalty and family duty?
Anse’s new teeth symbolize what?
What is Selfish renewal, false progress?
Why does Addie’s chapter stand out stylistically?
What is narrated from beyond the grave, stark, detached?
How does Dewey Dell’s struggle highlight gender roles?
What is she oppressed by, social shame, under male control?
What is the meaning of Anse’s line “Meet Mrs. Bundren”?
What is it that undercuts all the suffering that came before — a grim joke about selfishness?
What ironic “reward” does Anse get after burying Addie?
What is he gets new teeth and marries immediately?
What does the fire (burned barn) symbolize?
What is destruction, purification, and escape?
How does Faulkner’s style force interpretation, not dictation?
What is it shows subjectivity, meaning is fragmented?
What does Faulkner suggest about “family duty” through Anse?
What is duty can disguise selfishness or moral decay?
How does the ending force readers to rethink who the novel’s “hero” really is?
What is it challenges the idea of heroism; everyone is flawed, even the most “dutiful”?