The Mysterious Jewel in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying Essay -- Faulkner’s

The Mysterious Jewel in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying William Faulkner loves to keep the reader guessing. One of his favorite narrative techniques is to hint at a topic and raise questions and then leave the reader dangling. We are left with a void which we can not fill. The questions that the reader is left with will eventually be answered, but the reader will find the answers before Faulkner comes out and states what is by then the obvious. A good example is in As I Lay Dying where understanding the significance of Jewel is a major part of understanding the story. Jewel is introduced in the first lines of the story, but his character is presented as being different and set apart. We know who Darl is right away. He is the narrator. What the relationship is between these two is unknown. The only clue that they may be brothers is their hats, but Jewel’s actions are set apart; â€Å"Jewel, fifteen feet behind me, looking straight ahead, steps in a single stride through the window†(4). The action of stepping through a window in a ‘single stride’ is difficult to imagine being able to do oneself, and yet Jewel does; â€Å"staring straight ahead, his pale eyes like wood set into his wooden face†(4). I am asking myself, who is this guy? Faulkner has set Jewel apart from the other characters. Faulkner heightens our curiosity about Jewel with the unusual scene with the horse. He captures his horse by diving into the air while the horse is rearing and pawing at him. He grabs onto the horse’s muzzle while in mid-air; â€Å"his whole body earthfree, horizontal, whipping snake-limber, until he finds the horse’s nostrils and touches earth again†(12). After he catches the horse he doesn’t put on a halter and lead the horse, or any way to control the anim... ...eople who don’t know fear. Sin is just a word as well. Addie says that she has cleaned her house, and that was her life, that was getting ready to die. After Jewel was born she is faced with paying for her life’s mistakes; â€Å"I lying calm in the slow silence, getting ready to clean my house†(176). She understands the words of her father completely. The rest of her life was spent getting â€Å"ready to stay dead†(175). Is the love hate relationship between Jewel and his horse similar to the relationship between Jewel and Addie? Cora tells us that Addie favored Jewel, but Addie says that she had two children that were hers before Jewel is born, and then she says, â€Å"I gave Anse Dewy Dell to negative Jewel. Then I gave him Vardaman to replace the child I had robbed him of. And now he has three children that are his and not mine†(176). Who are the three she is referring to?