Motionless as an Idol - Columbus State University

Bullock 9creation that is then directed and controlled by men, even posthumously. Susan V.Donaldson puts it this way, "As I Lay Dying, [...] literally confines Addie Bundren in amuch abused coffin and figuratively imprisons her voice within a cacophony of othervoices [...]" (72). Donaldson diminishes some of the emphasis Iplace on Addie'spersonal voice, although she is accurate in pointing out that Addie's voice facesaggressive competition from fifteen other narrators (Pearce 89). Faulkner includes ascene when Cash is making the coffin and Addie watches him from her bedside window:[Cash] looks up at the gaunt face framed by the window in the twilight. It is acomposite picture of all time since he was a child. He drops the saw and lifts theboard for her to see, watching the window in which the face has not moved. Hedrags a second plank into position and slants the two of them into their finaljuxtaposition, gesturing toward the ones yet on the ground, shaping with hisempty hand in pantomime the finished box. For a while stillshe looks down athim from the composite picture, neither with censure nor approbation. Then theface disappears. (Faulkner 48)Cash gestures to show Addie what he is creating, while Addie makes no suchmovements. Still, Cash is able to see in Addie the "composite picture" Faulkner mentionstwice (48). This picture of Addie's face, framed by the window, is imagined by Cash anddemonstrates how a child imagines his/her mother but, more importantly, how a manimagines a woman in his life as a reflection of himself and his experience. Cash reads herface because we know he is aware of the lack of "censure or approbation," but he doesnot apply these to Addie's personality overall. He does not seek to understand or interprether feelings, he only wants to know the facet of her as it relates directly to him (48).