Preview

Dewey Dell Epilogue Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
418 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Dewey Dell Epilogue Analysis
Reflection
My epilogue for Dewey Dell is set only a couple of months after the last chapter. By this time, the family has situated with Mrs. Bundren and she has become a familiar figure to Dewey Dell.
Throughout the novel, Dewey Dell is portrayed as being out of place from the rest of the Bundren family because she is the only female and she does not have a mom. She states, “I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth” (Faulkner 64). She is unable to communicate her thoughts and make connections to the rest of her family, like telling them that she is pregnant. Her separation is further presented through her repetitions of feeling alone, “It's because I am alone. If I could just feel it, it would be different, because I would not be alone” (Faulkner 58-59). Dewey Dell’s tendency to repeat phrases such as “alone” and “too soon”
…show more content…

In between my paragraphs, I tried to mimic this style as Dewey Dell describes the people and the setting around her. She also tends to be single minded and has a single focus. This is portrayed through her continuous attempts at getting an abortion. This continues through the epilogue, as she is still pregnant. This time though, she has Mrs. Bundren to speak to, and is not the only woman anymore. Moreover, in the novel, Dewey Dell takes on the role of a caretaker. She is the only one who really takes care of Vardaman and also tends to Cash’s leg. In the epilogue, her role continues as she lifts Darl’s leg and constantly keeps watch over Vardaman’s actions.
Finally, Dewey Dell utilizes symbols due to her inability to be comfortable with her sexuality. Many symbols recur throughout the novel in relation to her pregnancy. In my epilogue, i made sure to include these symbols, as they are a big part of Dewey Dell’s character. Some of the symbols that are both in the novel and in the epilogue are her “sack” and the “land in Darl’s


You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    On the first day of the trial, a psychologist is called in and brings light to Perry’s traumatic life events. The following day, witnesses are brought to the stand, the last being the most important- Alvin Dewey, who gives the public the first actual description of what occurred that night. Throughout the week, the trial continues and eventually the psychologist diagnoses Perry as possibly being a paranoid schizophrenic. Perry and Dick are sentenced to death, and after a two-year postponement, on April 15th, 1965, they meet their fate. Dick conveys no resentment towards the State; Perry feels that the death penalty is unwarranted. After five years, the case has finally come to an end, a pale vindication for the Clutter…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The tone at the end of the book, displays Dewey’s confused emotions at not feeling “a sense of climax” (pg. 341) at Dick and Perry’s death. Instead Dewey felt more of a climax, “leaving behind… the…

    • 240 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Rick Bragg’s “The Widow’s Mite” and Floyd Dell’s “We’re Poor,” both stories were similar in that they utilized first person point of view when reflecting on their childhood of poverty. Although Bragg and Dell’s point of view is similar, their stories are different in that Bragg utilizes more complex diction and syntax to convey his recount of his childhood.…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In your own words, summarize each chapter in Tyack and Cuban’s Tinkering Toward Utopia. Write one sentence for each chapter in your own words. Do not include any quotations.…

    • 372 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dewey Dell's Quest

    • 202 Words
    • 1 Page

    On the surface As I Lay Dying is about a family who are on a quest in order to lay their mother to rest in Jefferson as she have requested. However, it can be seen that putting their mother to rest plays only a small fraction of their “real” intention since they all have their own quests to complete. For instance, the real intention for Anse taking this quest is for him to be able to acquire his false teeth while Dewey Dell’s real intention is to obtain some abortion pills. Nevertheless, in a way they are still on the same quest with the same destination without them realizing. It is a quest all where the characters (and even we as readers) must journey through. It is in fact the quest of death as Addie’s father has said “The reason for living…

    • 202 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the novel's most characteristic moment, Kansas Bureau of Investigation Agent Alvin Dewey--one of Capote's favorite "characters"--finally hears the confession of Perry Smith, one of the two former Kansas State Penitentiary cellmates who murdered Herb Clutter, a prosperous farmer, and his family. For seven months, Dewey has worked continuously, staring at grisly photos and following useless leads, in his quest "to learn 'exactly what happened in that house that night.'" But when he finally hears the entire story--told by one of the killers, step by step, shotgun blast by shotgun blast--he is strangely disappointed. The truth, he discovers, is even more disturbing than anything he had imagined. Even though he suddenly knows more about the crime than he, or Capote, would ever have hoped, the "true story" somehow "fails to satisfy his sense of meaningful design" (277). The truth, Dewey discovers, is at once more ordinary and more disturbing than anything he has been able to imagine. Contrary to his expectations, Smith and Richard Hickock did not kill the Clutters out of some aberrant sense of revenge; in fact, until the night of the crime, they had never even met their chosen victims. They…

    • 4839 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Characters: Edna Pontellier is a twenty eight year old wife of Léonce Pontellier, a businessman from New Orleans, In the middle of the book Edna finds herself dissatisfied with her marriage and her limited lifestyle, she soon falls in love with her husbands best friend Robert Lebrun which starts trouble with her relationship with her husband and her husband's relationship with Robert. I chose dissatisfied as an adjective to describe Edna because she is not that happy with her wife role and feels disappointed with herself about falling in love with Robert.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ethel Payne

    • 3055 Words
    • 13 Pages

    The Paynes were then forced to open their home to boarders, with two or three people sleeping in each of the bedrooms, and Ethel’s mother began teaching high school Latin and cleaning other people’s homes, but she still managed to encourage Payne’s early talent for writing. Payne’s interest in writing arose from nightly sessions where her mother read the Bible and literature to Payne, her brother, and her four sisters.…

    • 3055 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Curley’s wife felt sadness as well, living in a ranch with no one to talk to, because everyone thinks that she is a troublemaker. "I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely." "What's the matter with me? Ain't I got a right to talk to nobody?" "Seems like they ain't none of them cares how I gotta live". These quotes could exactly tell you how Curley’s wife feels lonely, because none of the men living in a ranch wants to talk to her.…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dewey Dell’s diction in As I Lay Dying functions to unravel the novel’s deeper themes of suffering and selfishness. As she “bleeds quietly”, Dewey Dell endures the “dead air” on this “tub of guts” (Faulkner 58-63). Burdened with an illegitimate pregnancy after her rape, Dewey Dell grieves alone as she is isolated in her guilt and shame. She views the world as a sickening visceral pile of guts, implying that death is her only relief, furthering the theme of mortality. It is interesting to note that Dewey Dell also describes her pregnancy as a “tub full of guts”, which implies the connotation of birth as a miserable obligation, rather than a joyful desire (Ross 305). As the novel progresses, “Dewey Dell” labors on past “New Hope”, drowning in “agony and despair” (Faulkner 121). The etymology of Dewey Dell’s name stems from dew, which symbolizes youth and how it swiftly evaporates, and dell, an uneducated, vagrant wench (Ross 307). In the efforts to bury Addie in Jefferson, Dewey Dell passes through New Hope Church, praying for an abortion. In fact, the Bundrens’ entire journey is a recurring motif functioning to present the novel’s theme of selfishness. Though Dewey Dell describes the journey as a means of transporting Addie’s body through the countryside to Jefferson, it is actually a ploy to visit a pharmacy that can abort her baby, thus easing her agony (Bassett 127). Faulkner’s diction…

    • 1090 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Symbols in the book: One of the symbols in the novel is the restaurant. The restaurant is a symbol of togetherness in the family. The restaurant and the Tull family are not very stable, and both have Ezra trying to keep them from falling apart. After Ezra is left with the restaurant, her changes the name and tries to keep it running. In addition to that, he is also trying to bring his family together. He often calls them for a family dinner. However, the dinners always end up in some sort of argument. Another symbol in the novel is vision. In the novel, Pearl's vision is slowly dissapearing. This symbol represents that she is starting to lose her children. She only remembers them as children and doesn't know them as adults. However, when there's a lot of light in the room, she can see the silhouette of Ezra, which shows that he is closest to her.…

    • 1274 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    One example of a symbol in the novel is when Finny wears a pink shirt and a tie as a belt. This symbolizes Finny's outlook on authority, how he has lack of respect for it and tests it. When Finny wears the pink shirt and the tie as a belt proves how Finny can get away with anything. The Headmaster for violating the dress code at the luncheon questions him. Finny manages to talk his way out of getting in trouble for being out of dress code. His excuse was his patriotism for the bombing in Central America.…

    • 270 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Who says you can’t have more than one identity? In “Charles,” by Shirley Jackson, the story reveals how even people staying beneath the same roof may not be fully informed of each other’s true identities. Laurie’s mother, who is the narrator in this story, is unworldly unmindful of her own son’s poor conduct in Kindergarten and is too disposed to presume his illustrations of some different disobeying child. Although her son’s deportment alters when he goes into Kindergarten, she blames this on Charles’s behavior, a boy mentioned a lot by Laurie.…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Life Of Pi Survival Essay

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Other symbols in Life of Pi would include the ocean, which represented life and death at the same time, providing Pi with food but in exchange ruining his body with everything from sores to storms and the whistle, which slightly represented survival, as Pi needed it to keep Richard Parker at bay. In brief, symbols helped this story by allowing the reader to better understand the themes of the…

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Book 9 details the fall of mankind as Eve is tempted by the serpent, and consumes the forbidden fruit condemning mankind. This sole act allows sin to enter the world and is the sole reason why we experience hardship. However, within this book Milton paints a richer picture of what might’ve or likely happened on that fateful day as he describes the experiences of Adam and Eve within the garden. This book is treats men and women very differently as it essentially blames women for the fall from grace. A large portion of this book is devoted to a defining conversation between Adam and Eve in which Eve argues that solitude can be the best form of society. She presses that they should separate briefly and when Adam detests the idea this motivates…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays