Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.47960/2303-7431.21.35.2026.202
LIFE AND DEATH IN THE 1930s RURAL SOUTH: GENDER, POVERTY, AND SPIRITUAL DISILLUSIONMENT IN WILLIAM FAULKNER’S AS I LAY DYING (1930)
Ivana Čuljak
; Independent researcher
*
* Dopisni autor.
Sažetak
This article explores how poverty and cultural expectations shape life, death, and mourning in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Focusing on Addie Bundren, it highlights the intersection of gender, class, and spiritual disillusionment in the rural South of the 1930s. Addie’s emotional isolation, her relationship to religion and motherhood, and her disconnect from the rural community reveal the limited roles available to women and the failure of traditional belief systems during economic hardship. The grotesque treatment of her body, the crude funeral rituals, and the family’s self-serving motivations during the burial journey all demonstrate how difficult socioeconomic conditions distort mourning. By combining feminist interpretations of Addie Bundren with cultural theories of emotion and historical sources – such as funeral customs and the social realities of the American South during the Great Depression – this article reframes mourning and emotional deprivation in As I Lay Dying as shaped by poverty, gender norms, and cultural expectations that demand survival and silence rather than the expression of grief or emotional needs.
Ključne riječi
gender; class; American South; death; emotional deprivation; William Faulkner; As I Lay Dying
Hrčak ID:
352648
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.10.2026.
Posjeta: 0 *