As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner explores the dynamics within a
             family who prepares to fulfill the dying request of the matriarch, Addie.
             Her request is to be buried in Jefferson, and her surviving family prepares
             to make the arduous journey from the rural town Yoknawpatapha. The
             hardships experienced on this journey serves to reveal the decay begun by
             Addie's act of adultery with a minister. The result of this act is inner
             familial decay through a lack of love on Addie's part. At her death the
             decay worsens, and is symbolized by the burning barn.
             The most prominent relationships explored in the novel are those of
             Addie with her son, Jewel, and the rest of her family. Jewel, as the name
             implies, is Addie's most treasured son. He is the product of an
             illegitimate union between Addie and a priest. Jewel is for her the symbol
             of having lived intensely in preparation for death. She carries on this
             paradigm in pouring her entire capacity for love into her relationship with
             Jewel to the exclusion of the rest of her family.
             The love that Addie withholds from her family is particularly
             personified in Darl. It is also Darl who also has the most prominent
             narrating role in the novel. Darl is the opposite of Jewel in almost every
             respect. He is refused his mother's love, while Jewel is the recipient of
             all she can give. The feelings towards Jewel within the family are also
             somewhat ambivalent. Jewel is treated as part of the family, but because
             of Addie's attitude, there is a keen awareness that he is an outsider and
             the focus of the love that would have otherwise belonged to the rest of the
             family. This is the source of Darl's jealousy. But in addition to
             jealousy Darl also experiences an attraction to Jewel's physical
             magnificence. In the harsh surroundings of family life, there is little of
             aesthetic appeal. Jewel with his excellent physique and later his
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