In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying we see the two different “classes” that are portrayed throughout the novel. Those classes and separations are the townspeople, and the poor white farmers. An example of a townsperson would be Peabody, while an example of a “poor white farmer” would be the entire Bundren family. In my opinion, I do also believe that the Bundrens are included in this novel to represent some stereotype about lower class farmers and townspeople. I believe that the family is included to mainly undermine the lower class farmers; however, at the same time there may be included stereotypes. There are stereotypes like how we have learned (although it is not said word for word, we infer it) that Jewel is a child that is the product of an affair that Addie had. So, I suppose that at the same time, the stereotype of Southern women not being able to control themselves sexually contributes to undermining of Southern women. Honestly, all throughout the novel there will be stereotypes that contribute to the undermining of all groups represented in this novel. For example, Peabody is an overweight man that has to be tied up on a rope in order to get to the house of the Bundren’s before Addie dies. This I believe is just undermining most townspeople as if they are all overweight and/or out of shape. I also think that the character of Anse represents a lazy farmer, because… well, it is pretty obvious. The number one reason is because he says that if he sweats he “will die.” This is hilarious to me, because unless he has low blood sugar (possibly diabetes?) or is extremely dehydrated from any lack of water then we know for a fact that this isn’t true and that he is just representing the stereotype that poor farmers are just in fact lazy farmers. However, the only ones in the Bundren family that I believe are not lazy are Cash (because he is non-stop making the coffin, because it must be marvelous, and from his narrations we view him as a perfectionist and a hard-worker) and possibly Jewel (because he loves his mother very much and would most likely have done anything for her, and to be there for her death). I think this portrayal of the Bundren family being “lazy” or “hard-working” represents the success and failures of the family as a whole. If you look at some of the characters you definitely know why they are poor farmers. They rely on the phrase “The Lord giveth,” which means that if God had given them something, then they would need it, and if God did not give them it, they would not need it. Just by relying off of this one phrase and religion helps show that they do not do anything for themselves, they do not believe they should invest in things unless God tells them to do so. However, the only character that I feel goes the opposite way of this phrase is Jewel, because he goes out to get his own horse, he works somewhere else and earns himself a horse that we see him use on the journey to Jefferson later on in section two.
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