From the very start of As I Lay Dying, Darl is established not just as a primary narrator in the novel, but also as the most eccentric character. Often, narrations given by other characters are sandwiched between his own in a constant affirmation of his primacy. At the same time, though, his peculiar perspective only sets him farther apart from, rather than above, the rest of his family; indeed, it alienates him from them, as sometimes his singularity elicits an almost prophetic nature. I argue, however, that this capacity for clairvoyance runs through the Bundren family with more fluidity than readers, or the characters themselves, may naturally perceive. Granted, Darl often appears to be the common force bestowing this special ability upon the others; still, in different degrees they all reflect a common sensitivity.
Products of their parents, the Bundren children (excepting Jewel, on account of his only partial biological relation) all reflect the strange influence of Anse and Addie’s complicated union. In other words, the way the Bundren children relate to their world is inherently based on how they relate to their parents’ idiosyncrasies: their collective criticalness of Anse’s moral deficiencies, and simultaneously, their inheritance of his tendency towards metaphor; from Addie, they assume a drastic stoicism and a confused relationship with words, names and labels. Indeed, even Addie’s sole narration in the novel reveals, for example, a likely source of the similarly existential crisis Dewel Dell experiences in her own nightmare-state: “I couldn’t think what I was I couldn’t think of my name I couldn’t even think I am a girl I couldn’t even think I” (121). Similarly, Addie’s assessment of words combined with Anse’s metaphorical reasonings regarding the physical formations of all God’s creatures seems to similarly influence Vardaman’s conception of his mother as a fish, his brother Jewel, a horse.
Moreover on the discourse of words, Darl and Dewey Dell exhibit a relationship in which words are often unnecessary, if not outright irrelevant. They communicate, the both of them, and comprehend each other, “without words” (27). In fact, as Dewey Dell notes, the certainty of their mutual understanding would actually be compromised if the expressions were vocalized: “[I]f he had said he knew with the words I would not have believed that he had been there and saw us” (27). The notion that non-verbal expressions can manifest such power is further emphasized by Dewey Dell when she describes the immense capacity embodied in Darl’s eyes: “The land runs out of Darl’s eyes; they swim to pin points. They begin at my feet and rise along my body to my face, and then my dress is gone” (121). In this instance, Darl doesn’t just successfully express a simple sentiment to Dewey Dell; he penetrates her psyche, disarming her with one sweeping, yet incisive look.
Darl and his older brother Cash, too, reveal an ability to understand one another outside the realm of verbal communication. Before the catastrophe at the river, for example, Darl describes this nature: “[Cash] and I look at one another with long probing looks, looks that plunge unimpeded through one another’s eyes . . . When we speak our voices are quiet, detached” (142). Clearly, the brothers engage more naturally through facial expressions than verbal ones. Indeed, twice more in the same narration, Darl and Cash communicate without words. First, Darl describes a memory of Addie holding Jewel on a pillow longer than his infant body, but he doesn’t speak his remembering. So when Cash so casually responds as if, with ease, he could hear Darl’s thoughts aloud, readers may almost miss the unspoken transmission that has taken place between the brothers. And again, as they reach the place where they will attempt the river-crossing, Cash must merely look at Darl in order to ask if he join in the undertaking.
