So, after finishing the last page of As I Lay Dying, I realized just how despicable I found Anse, the father of the Bundren family. Oh, I didn't like multiple characters in this book--Addie and Cora weren't wonderful in my opinion--but Anse Bundren...he tops the list.
I think my dislike of Anse began right after Peabody's chapter. We had gotten Cora's opinion but she wasn't a trustworthy narrator to me so I gave Anse the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was just Cora. Then, we get Peabody's chapter where we see Anse acting like a child--Peabody describes him as "small, motionless in faded overalls". Yes, we can make the argument that he is swamped with grief and so can't move. However, the fact that his children, people who were also experiencing this tragedy, were still trying to do things--Cash is meticulously making his mother's coffin--Anse seemed kind of useless and I didn't like that. From that point on, my dislike for Anse only grew.
Anse's inability to make decisions and tendency to latch onto a goal that makes trouble for everything really made me mad. Because he was set on taking the Bundrens' wagon, he delayed the trip by a few days. Because of this, the river flooded before they could cross it, causing the Bundren family to have to make the perilous trip across it when it was high water. Anse could have easily saved his family the trouble (and Cash his leg) by agreeing to take Tull's team. Due to his own stubbornness, Anse endangers his family. The fact that he also constantly inconveniences people even while saying that he "won't be beholden to no man" is something that made me hate Anse even more. He doesn't stick to his words and forces friends and neighbors to do favors for him. This is probably why everybody kind of hates him.
In the beginning and the middle of the novel, Anse seemed kind of annoying, dull, and nonsensical. However, it wasn't until we reached the chapter where he took Cash's money and Jewel's horse to trade for two mules from Snopes that he became even more horrible (if that is possible). Yes, to be fair, he does take some money from his own fake teeth fund but he doesn't even tell his children that he's going to take belongings that are rightfully theirs!! Dewey Dell's chapter near the end of the book further shows Anse taking advantage of his children for his own gain.
We talked in class about how this novel can flip both ways: comedic/slapstick or epic. Similarly, Anse's character can be viewed in both ways. Some may argue that Anse is a heroic character like Odysseus who guides his family to Jefferson against tremendous odds but is he truly heroic if he's done all these things? The fact remains that Anse is the one who benefits at all by the end of the book. Much like the crew, the Bundren children's situation is worsened at the end of the journey.
