Addie's death sheds a light on how the family lived during the years she was around and how they suddenly change now that one part of their lives has disappeared. Each and every member of the Bundren family has problems, from little Vardaman up to Anse the father.

These people take advantage of the fact that Addie is gone now and start daydreaming away at different objectives and things that they can do to improve their lives or solve their problems. An important point Faulkner is trying to show us is that most of the character's actions revolve around the death of Addie. We get a feel from the start that

Addie uses her death and her final orders to take revenge over her family and cause any hurtful pain that are possible. Addie causes all the painful actions around her family either directly or indirectly, she is an everlasting abuser of each character no matter if they were her favorite or not. It is as if she knew when she was going to die and she knew exactly how she wanted to affect each character after her departure. Most of the pain and revenge is inflicted on Addie's husband Anse. A poor farmer who is lazy and can hardly carry himself to do any chores. He is teeth-less and has a need to act on every order his wife gives him. He is afraid of her. He is forced to take her to Jefferson to be buried as her final request. What she is putting Anse through now is a sort of payback for all the years when he just sat around while Addie and the children did all the work around the farm. Addie felt sorry for him being an ignorant pitiful person and she proves that by admitting to giving him Dewey Dell and Vardaman as a present because of the sin she committed with minister Whitfield. She never loved Anse, she only tried to use him over the years, but she realized that was not even possible because he was a good for nothing.

Addie is a strong person who is very opinionated. Whatever she wants, she gets. She demands to be buried in Jefferson, she wants a specially done coffin in which she wants to be buried and each member of the family reacts upon her 'requests'. That is the way we see it at the beginning. We get a feeling she is a nice person, a caring mother, and a good wife who barely wants anything out of life than to be near her family. A few requests that she makes will not hurt anyone since she spent her life giving them what they wanted and pouring her sweat and blood into their wellbeing. We soon enough realize that it was all nonsense.

Cash, another favorite of his mother's, is hurt indirectly by he helping. He is determined to please his mother, even when she is dead. He spends so much time and effort making her the coffin that she wanted. There was a problem with its balance before they set out on the journey and

Some common words found in the essay are:
Jewel Bundren, Vardaman Anse, Vardaman Vardaman, Addie Bundren, Dell Vardaman, Jewel Jewel, Dr Peabody, Darl Addie's, William Faulkner, Jewel Darl's, spent life, job teach, bundren family, buried jefferson, dell vardaman, dewey dell vardaman, dewey dell, minister whitfield, mother dead,
Approximate Word count = 1452
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)