Darl I (3-5)

"Walking 2 the Cottonhouse"

The edition we are using to study As I Lay Dying is the one to your right. Blog entries will be titled by character name followed by a roman numeral when necessary.

In addition to this, I have taken another cue from Adler and renamed the chapters. Why do this? It forces you to summarize, and it reinforces the story. (I like to make mine comical whenever possible, but of course, you will be the judge of that.)

It's a good idea to take note of first sentences: "Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file." Is there any special significance to this? Maybe, but I don't think we have enough information to tell yet. Is it important that Darl has the first say? Again, we don't know yet.

Reading through this chapter, we do learn that Darl is highly perceptive and given to noticing small details, such as the cottonhouse. He also devotes some time to talking about Jewel, whom he describes as having a "wooden face" (4). Darl will often describe Jewel in terms of wood...we need to figure out why.

Jewel goes through the house, and not around it, as Darl does. It is not explained why he does this, but can we make a guess? At the very least, we should keep this in mind.

We learn about some other people as well: Tull, who owns the wagon; Cash, who's building the coffin; and Addie Bundren, who will be put in the coffin soon.

Two neat things to notice: 1) the use of the word delapidation, which has an interesting etymology, and the use of onomatopoeia of Cash using the adze. "Chuck. Chuck. Chuck."