Addie Bundren
Text:
Character Key:
Display Name:
Addie Bundren
Sort Name:
Bundren, Addie
Parent:
Race:
White
Gender:
Female
Class:
Lower Class
Rank:
Major
Vitality:
Dies
First Mentioned:
Origin:
Jefferson
Cause of Death:
Disease
Narrator:
Stream of Consciousness
Biography:
A former school teacher who came to Frenchman's Bend from Jefferson, Addie is the matriarch of the Bundren family who is lying on her death bed when the narrative begins. Her wish to be buried in Jefferson initiates and drives the journey at the center of the novel. After she dies she narrates one section of the novel; it demonstrates her cruel and sometimes violent detachment from others and explains her preference for Jewel among her children. Cora Tull tells us that "not a woman in this section [of Yoknapatawpha] could ever bake with Addie Bundren" (8). Addie is one of Faulkner's most memorable women characters, though she only appears in As I Lay Dying.
Note:
need Education as an occupation field. Farmwife is a term we finally came up with but we have some doubts. If we use it we might also want to have specific names for the jobs done by the children - male and female. For the moment, for them, even Dewey Dell, we have just put farmer or farm worker.
Financial Status:
laborer (works for wages)
financially dependent
Individual or Group:
Individual
Character changes class in this text:
digyok:node/character/5648