"Now I Can Get Them Teeth"

 

As one embarks on a hero’s journey, their journey may not always be perceivable to others. This idea can be applied to the Bundren family in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.  The novel is told through the Bundren family themselves as well as other characters like Tull, a neighbor; Armstid, a farmer; and Mosely, a drug-store owner. Through the non-Bundren perspectives, the family sure sounds like one chaotic bunch of clownish goobers. While the Bundren family as a whole may seem absurd, or at least the choices that they make are questionable, this does not mean that they can’t be considered heroes.

For instance, take Anse. Anse is the one who makes decisions that tend to be the most problematic: He has his family cross a flooded river causing them to almost lose Addie, he pours cement on Cash’s broken leg only making it worse, and all this while, he is continuing to lug Addie’s rotting corpse around. As crazy as it sounds, however, if we look past his goober-ish decisions, we will find that Anse is indeed a hero. What defines a hero? I say it is one’s ability to undergo meaningful self-development. 

Although Anse still has a significant presence, we don’t hear his voice as much throughout the novel. In fact, quite literally, Faulkner has taken away Anse’s voice from the majority of the story. Anse only has three chapters in the beginning, and for the rest of the novel, we hear about him from the other characters--both his family members and the outsiders. While we don’t get a chance to know exactly what he’s thinking as the journey progresses, he makes it clear in his limited chapters that his voice is important to him. He repeatedly mentions how he has had no teeth for fifteen years, and after Addie dies, he says, “But now I can get them teeth. That will be a comfort. It will” (Faulkner 111). His absence of teeth causes him to “mumble his mouth,” a symbol for the absence of his voice. He recognizes that he has lost his voice, and it’s important to him that he reacquires it.

As it has been fifteen years that Anse has remained toothless, it seems significant that he decides to get new teeth only after Addie has died. In Addie’s only chapter, we see the dynamic of their relationship, and it seems his voice was buried under Addie’s during their marriage. In Addie’s chapter, she claims that “words are no good,” and she believed that Anse’s word, “love,” was no different than other words. She says it is “just a shape to fill a lack…Let Anse use it, if he wants to. So that it was Anse or love; love or Anse: it didn’t matter” (171-172). Anse loves Addie, but Addie doesn’t seem to regard him with the same fidelity (she even cheats on him with a minister, hence, how we got Jewel…). His profession of love, a symbol for his voice, is meaningless to her, and perhaps this is why Anse has remained “toothless” in the last fifteen years of their marriage. 

Thus, Addie’s death is the initiation of Anse’s quest, and her burial is the true beginning of his hero’s journey. This is shown when he gets new teeth, which Cash says “made him look a foot taller…hangdog and proud too,” as well as a new wife, Mrs. Bundren (260). Anse’s new teeth represent how he has regained his voice, and Cash notices a physical difference in how he holds himself, reflecting its significance to Anse. His new wife also echoes the confidence that his new voice gives him. By the end of the novel, Anse has indeed begun a transformation, which qualifies him as a hero.