"He had a word too. Love, he called it." Although Addie Bundren rejects the word love when used by her husband, Anse, as "just a form of filling a gap," her other relationships are not so empty (172). In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner reveals the nontraditional love of Addie's children after her death as the family ventures to bury her body in a nearby town. Often irrational, her four children struggle to cope with their mother's death, especially when combined with the misfortunes heaped on her corpse by her selfish husband. Vardaman, Cash, Jewel, and Darl's compassion towards their mother, while unusually shown, demonstrates the authenticity of their feelings in a way that words could not. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Vardaman's immaturity and lack of guidance leads him to express his legitimate pain in unhealthy and often incomprehensible ways. Initially, Vardaman tries to find the cause of this mother's expected death. His ignorance and emotional turmoil lead him to blame Dr. Peabody for his recent visit. Blaming Peabody for "killing" his "jaws," Vardaman reveals the anguish caused by the death of the mother he loves (54). In his emotional state, Vardaman, drawing on a past dramatic experience, believes that Addie needs air to survive, which forces him to ask Cash if he's going to "Nail him? Nail him?" (65). No strong adult figure emerges to explain the reality of the death or to advise Vardaman, who is obviously distraught. His desperate, misguided love and loss, instead of reducing him to melancholy stupor, instead lead him to "save" his mother by drilling air holes in the coffin and in her face (67). However, the bond that Vardaman creates between his mother and the fish he caught and subsequently slaughters is illustrative of the love he maintains for his mother. Initially, after Addie's death, Vardaman mistakenly believes that the disappearance of his big fish and the "disappearance" of his mother are inextricably linked. The fish becomes a symbol whose existence must be verified by Vernon, a neighbor who had already seen Vardaman and the fish. Since Vardaman firmly believes that "with both it will be and then it will not be", there is no doubt about the emotional significance of the fish for Vardaman (67). As this thought matures, the details become simplified until Vardaman bluntly proclaims that his "mother is a fish" (84). While not a traditional comparison used to remember loved ones, Vardaman is only able to express his complex emotions in terms of events he understands. Like Vardaman, whose personal experiences shape how he shows love, Cash's technical skills allow him to mourn his mother's death. in equally powerful if more subtle ways. In an effort to show Addie the respect she deserves, Cash painstakingly builds her coffin, using his woodworking skills to show his love and devotion. Although some characters view Cash's decision to build Addie's coffin before her eyes as disrespectful, the "Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. of the shovel" undeniably comforts Addie, who understands Cash's affectionate action (5). It is not surprising, however, that Cash's logical mind is unwilling to accept the reasons for its precise creation. Instead of admitting that he bevels the edges because he wants to give the best to his mother, he instead lists thirteen reasons why a bevel is the more practical option. The closest thing to expressing the truth is his vague thirteenth point: "It makes a job tidier" (83). Even aftercreation of the coffin, Cash continues to worry about its maintenance, reinforcing the symbolic relationship between the coffin and his mother. After a lump of mud is thrown from the street onto the coffin, Cash "scrapes the stain with wet leaves" in an attempt to preserve the sanctity of the coffin, as well as the memory of his mother.(109). Although Cash does not feel the need to verbalize the strong love he feels for his mother throughout the novel, it is Addie's section that demonstrates that this is an inherent characteristic of Cash, not a product of his grief. Addie and Cash's relationship did not require the verbalization of their shared emotion, love. Because Addie recognizes that “Cash didn't need to say it to me nor I to him,” Cash finds other outlets, such as symbolically seeing the coffin as his mother, to express his love (172). Although Jewel, like Cash and Vardaman, uses a physical object to represent her mother, she also allows her anger to color her actions and decisions. While Cash is building the coffin outside Addie's window, Jewel shows her first sign of aggression towards her mother's memory. Instead of acknowledging Cash's true motivations for making the coffin, Jewel angrily asks Cash to "go somewhere else," as if creating the coffin expresses Cash's desire to see her "in it" (14). This unprovoked anger, no doubt a coping technique, is soon augmented by the symbolic meaning Jewel attaches to her horse. It doesn't take much thought for the other characters to determine that "Jewel's mother is a horse" (95). When Darl pushes the statement further, reminding him that "it's not your horse that's dead," Jewel explodes in anger, almost as if she can't bear to allow others to witness the depth of her devotion to her mother (94). Once the arduous steps required for Jewel to purchase the horse are revealed, the importance she places on it changes perspective. Even with her beloved horse, however, an omnipresent anger is omnipresent in Jewel's interactions. Many of Jewel's selfless actions, such as saving Addie's coffin from the river and the barn fire, seem to be driven by her love-induced anger. Even as her mother's body rots in her coffin, Jewel defends her honor, intentionally starting a fight and risking bodily harm (228). While the other Bundren brothers have physical manifestations of their mother, Darl lacks these concrete connections and instead views the matter philosophically. . Without Addie, or at least a physical representation of her, Darl's life loses focus and meaning; continuity once present is erased. Initially, Darl even struggles with the idea of ​​loving his late mother. Darl concludes, “I cannot love my mother because I have no mother” (95). This definitive statement, however, does not settle Darl's active mind, and he rapidly expands his idea. When discussing the topic with Vardaman, who is still comforted by his concrete fish symbolism, Darl thinks only of Addie as "was", and therefore concludes that "she can't be she is." More importantly, from this Darl proclaims, “Then I am not” (101). Connecting his own existence with that of his mother is his subtle way of showing love and pain. It is only much later that Darl allows these thoughts to influence his actions. After tolerating the torture of Addie's corpse for more than a week, Darl expresses his love by selflessly sacrificing his freedom to end the disrespect towards his mother. Desperate to give his mother the peace she deserves after death, Darl sets fire to Gillespie's barn, effectively trying to burn his mother's rotting carcass..