The New Mrs. Bundren

When we talked about the new Mrs. Bundren, the class was almost unanimously against Anse for picking up a new wife so soon. However, after considering it some more, I have come to the decision that Anse's decision is actually not that unreasonable, given his specific circumstances, and it actually does not disrespect Addie's memory as much as people think it does.

First off, we know that Anse rarely visits the town, and as far as we know, there are no women that live close to Anse that he could potentially marry. It also sounded like Anse needed a woman around the house to do stuff like "cut his hair" and take care of the house, especially with Darl gone and Cash injured. Without a new wife, it is unclear whether Anse's house and farm would even be able to function, especially with Anse's dislike of any real work. Thus, it makes perfect sense for Anse to find a new wife in town, especially if the women likes him back, which we can only assume that the new Mrs. Bundren does.

I also do not see the new wife as dishonoring Addie, mostly because the entire journey was Addie's way of spiting Anse. Addie never really loved Anse, and in fact she hated him for most of their marriage, and her telling Anse to do the journey was her way at getting back at him. Yet Anse still went through with the journey to complete Addie's last wish, so that Anse could be done with Addie. Once the task was completed, it makes sense that he would look for another woman, preferably one that liked him at least a little as a person. So in the end, Anse's choice of a new wife makes perfect sense, and is only slightly offensive to Addie's memory, given that Addie hated Anse to begin with.

Cash

Now that we have finished As I Lay Dying, there is little doubt in my mind that the only character who is heroic in any fashion is Cash. First of all, Cash seems to be the most intelligent of the characters, and is also hard-working and dedicated, traits often associated with heroes. Cash shows immense bravery in his continuing with the "heroic journey" after the crossing of the river broke his leg. Cash continues to say that he is okay, and refuses to let his pain or suffering delay their journey. This bravery and dedication eventually leads to Cash losing his leg, which can be seen as his sacrifice for the journey. Cash will most likely be unable to continue working as a carpenter without the full use of one of his legs, yet he still braves through it, like a true hero.

Cash is also the only one in the novel who seems to have an arc as a character from the beginning to the end. At the beginning, he is solely focused on his work of the coffin, which is a show of extreme dedication towards his mother. His chapters at the beginning of the novel are short and abrupt, even ending with a partial sentence, because Cash is so focused on working that he doesn't have time to help narrate the story. However, by the end of the novel, Cash is the most reliable narrative, providing the reader with mostly clear and coherent narration. This is in contrast to Darl, who starts out as a reflective narrator who we rely on throughout the beginning and middle of the book, but ends up going "crazy," and his last chapter makes very little, if any, sense.

Overall, Cash's bravery, stoicism, and overall tenacity of achieving his goals makes him the hero of the novel. Cash even ends up getting what he wanted when he first started the journey into town, which was a gramophone. This gramophone is provided to Cash by the new Mrs. Bundren. This can be seen as Cash's award for being a hero throughout the book and bearing the pain of his leg throughout a large portion of the journey, and bearing the inability to walk the rest of his life.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O Brother, Where Art Thou? has a relatively different plot than The Odyssey, but at the same time there are many characters who are direct parallels of characters from The Odyssey. However, there are also a group of characters that have more ambiguous parallels between the movie and the book.

The most obvious parallel is betwen Big Dan, who wears an eye patch, and the cyclops Polyphemus. The parallel is seen in the way that Big Dan robs Everett and the way that Big Dan almost loses his eye to a flag, only to be later crushed by a burning cross. Another obvious character parallel is the sirens in the movie, who obviously represent the sirens from the book who lure people in with there singing, but also can be seen to represent Circe in the way that they "turn" Pete into a toad, because in the poem, Circe turns Odysseus's crew members into pigs.

The themes from the poem can also be seen translated into the movie. For instance, Odysseus's greatest flaw in the book is his excessive pride, and in the case of Poseidon and the cyclops, his pride is what caused Poseidon's animosity towards him. In the movie, Everett also has excessive pride in his hair, with his special hair product that actually end up helping the police officer that is chasing them. In both the book and the movie, the excessive pride hurts the main character. The other most obvious plot parallel is between the suitors in the poem and the man who is trying to marry Everett's wife. In both stories, Everett/Odysseus is traveling home to prevent a marriage to a "suitor," and Everett's daughters even call Vernon a suitor multiple times in the movie. The final plot similarity is the emphasis on deception throughout The Odyssey by both Athena and Odysseus, and the large use of deception in the movie. Everett's entire escape is based upon the elaborate deception that he told his prison inmates about having buried treasure, and Everett was also originally arrested for posing as something he wasn't, which is another form of deception. All of these examples show that there exists many character and plot similarities between the two stories, some more obvious than others.