# As I Lay Dying — Character guide

> Key figures in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.

- [Darl Bundren](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/darl_bundren.md): Darl is the watchful, awry-haired Bundren whose interior monologues carry much of the journey, a man whose uncanny perception sets him apart from his kin. Cora Tull insists he alone inherited Addie's nature and natural a
- [Jewel Bundren](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/jewel_bundren.md): Jewel is the son Addie labored for and coddled, a stiff-backed, high-colored young man who traded secret night work for the horse he loves and who cannot bear a stranger's insult over his mother's coffin. His rage flashe
- [Cash Bundren](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/cash_bundren.md): Cash is the family's steady craftsman, the son who bevels the coffin so it will sit right and who endures a broken leg with the same quiet patience he brings to joinery. Where his brothers rage and brood, Cash absorbs pa
- [Anse Bundren](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/anse_bundren.md): Anse is a hunched, rooster-haired man who never sweats and never stops talking about what he has suffered, invoking Addie's wish to be buried in Jefferson as sacred duty. He begrudges every dollar and every favor, yet in
- [Addie Bundren](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/addie_bundren.md): Addie is the dying woman at the center of the journey, a proud, lonely wife who chose Anse and then found her life hollowed out by him, taking refuge in her love for Jewel and in secret deceptions. She lies watching her 
- [Dewey Dell Bundren](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/dewey_dell_bundren.md): Dewey Dell is the family's lone daughter, a young woman who has been caring for Addie and who now moves through the journey with a secret pregnancy pressing on her every thought. She guards her ten dollars and her plans,
- [Vardaman Bundren](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/vardaman_bundren.md): Vardaman is the baby of the family, barefoot and bewildered, trailing the wagon with blood on his hands and a head full of terrible logic. He cannot hold two ideas at once — that his mother is dead, that a fish he killed
- [Vernon Tull](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/vernon_tull.md): Tull is the practical neighbor who shows up when the coffin needs finishing and the family needs hauling, standing in the rain beside Cash while Anse mutters about the wetting. He is decent, tired, and quietly judgmental
- [Cora Tull](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/cora_tull.md): Cora visits Addie's deathbed, sings about bounding toward her God, and delivers verdicts on everyone in earshot. She is pious, gossipy, and convinced that Addie's suffering is a lesson, that Anse is a cross, and that her
- [Peabody](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/peabody.md): Peabody has doctored the Bundrens for years and has learned to expect the worst from Anse, whom he regards as a man who wears out wives the way weather wears out fences. He arrives too late, as he knew he would, and his 
- [Moseley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/moseley.md): Moseley is a small-town pharmacist with a conscience and a short temper, and when Dewey Dell comes in with her desperate request he turns her away with a speech about sin and shame. He is not cruel so much as rigid, a ma
- [Armstid](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/armstid.md): Armstid gives the family shelter when the rain and the road have beaten them down, and in return he gets a night of Anse's complaints and the smell of a week-dead body in his barn. He is generous in the way rural people 
- [Samson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/samson.md): Farmer who briefly hosts the Bundrens and observes their odd behavior.
- [Whitfield](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/whitfield.md): Whitfield is the rural minister who, years before the novel opens, carried on an affair with Addie Bundren and fathered Jewel — a sin he has spent a lifetime trying to pray away. When he learns Addie is dying, he sets ou
- [Lafe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/lafe.md): Man who impregnated Dewey Dell, mentioned but not seen on page.
- [Gillespie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/gillespie.md): Farmer whose barn burns down during the Bundrens' stop.
- [Rachel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/rachel.md): Samson's wife, distressed by the Bundrens' treatment of Addie's body.
- [Kate](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/kate.md): Cora Tull's daughter, helps with household tasks.
- [Mack](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters/mack.md): A man encountered during the Bundrens' travels.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/as_i_lay_dying_se/characters