As I Lay Dying: Faulkner's Depiction of Addie as Odyssey's Agamemnon
Stepheny Ek
In the southern gothic novel As I Lay Dying, Faulkner utilizes an interpretation of the Odyssey's story of Agamemnon to portray Addie Bundren as a tragic figure shaped by death, deceit, and loss of dignity.
The quote from the Odyssey comes from the seemingly tragic story of Agamemnon's death. In this epic poem, Odysseus visits Hades, interacting with the spirits of the dead. One such soul is a Greek commander in the Trojan War, named Agamemnon. The war hero tragically recounts the story of his murder: after returning victorious from the 10 year battle, Agamemnon returns to his wife, only to be cruelly slaughtered by his wife, Clytemnestra and her new lover. As he dies, he claims Clytemnestra didn't even give him the dignity of dying with his eyes closed. Agamemnon's last image before his demise is his wife's betrayal.
Like Agamemnon, Addie experiences a death full of disrespect and mistreatment. As a direct reference to the book title, Addie remains a crucial character to the narrative of the novel. She is the physical representation of the first person perspective of "As I Lay Dying", as the main premise of the book revolves around how to bury Addie's body. The book begins when Addie starts to die, and only continues because of her last dying wish to be buried far away from home. One could even say her descent to death starts beyond her old age and begins when she is young.
The flashback chapter the readers get of Addie reveals a new aspect of Addie. Addie did not her like her life - even when she was alive, she wished for death, internalizing her father's sentiment that "the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead for a long time" (Faulkner 138). In a sense, Addie was already dying internally - feeling listless and bitter in her new duties as a mother and a wife. Addie feels emotionally distant from Anse, and further, the children she had from Anse. Anse, she claims, was already dead to her, full of empty words and false promises. She doesn't feel a connection with Anse, and holds no love for him. She feels disillusioned about her marriage, and feels alone in the world. Addie's death while alive is full of feelings of disappointment and betrayal, similar to Agamemnon.
Even after her actual death Addie suffers by the hands of her supposed loved ones. Her corpse is subjugated to physical damage and paraded around towns, left to rot and smell. Most of her family has alternate reasons for going to Mississippi past burying Addie, and her death itself is treated with a comedic undertone - with vultures circling around her coffin and watching her son build her coffin as she lies dying. Half of the time the family argues with each other and are too caught up in their own self interests instead of focusing at the main task at hand.
In Agamemnon's story, Addie represents Agamemnon. Dying feeling betrayed by the ones closest to you, even if in her case it wasn't as intentional. Darl even compares Anse's eyes at the beginning of the book to dog's eyes, stating that "his [Anse] eyes are like two knobs of pale meat set into his face, looking like a dog's eyes do when it wants you to think it loves you"(Faulkner 4). This direct call out of Anse's eyes as "dog eyes" only reinforces the idea that he represents Clytemnestra. Further, the children of his, with likely similar eyes, may represent the secondary disrespect she experiences at her death.
However, Addie, just like Agamemnon, is not without faults. In the Odyssey it is revealed that Clytemnestra had a reason for her desire of Agamemnon's death. Not only had he killed her daughter for advancement in the war, but he also came home bringing Cassandra, the Trojan princess, as a prize of honor. Addie not only has an affair with another man but also neglected to tell Anse that Jewel is not his biological son. While Addie doesn't actually kill any of her children, she feels as if Jewel represents "the child I [Addie] robbed him[Anse] of" because Jewel is a deception of the son Anse thinks he is (Faulkner 158).
Overall, while Addie is a pitiful character who does not deserve the mistreatment she experiences throughout the book, she isn't perfect either. Perhaps her life after death is the karma she deserves.
Works Cited:
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Vintage International, 1990.
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. Wikipedia, 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:As_I_Lay_Dying_1st_ed.jpg. Accessed 8 May 2025.
