as i lay dying characters
At the beginning of the novel, Vardaman proudly returns home with a large fish that he wants to show to his mother, but Anse instructs him to clean the fish so the family can eat it. This process of transforming the fish from a live creature into a home-cooked meal, or a "not-fish," becomes the lens through which he understands Addie's death.
As I Lay Dying Summary. The Bundren family live on their farm in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional rural county in Mississippi. They are incredibly poor, and the clan matriarch, Addie Bundren, is nearing death. Cash, the oldest son of the family, is a carpenter. As a last gift to his mother, he makes a coffin for her outside the window of the Darl passes Cash without engaging with him and walks into their house. Darl similarly emphasizes Cash's uninterrupted attention toward completing Addie's coffin, revealing Cash's inner nature as a careful, pragmatic, and detail oriented craftsman, as well as his role in the family as a man of great charity and self-sacrifice. 2.