Thinking of Home

Read: "Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if i am not emptied yet, I am is. How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home."
As I Lay Dying

Ponder: In this passage from William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, one of the main characters, Darl, is going through a mini identity crisis. His mother is dying and he believes that once she is gone, so is he. His thought processes are very confusing but I believe that he is almost trying to make himself believe that Addie Bundren isn't gone because her family isn't gone. It's Darl's only way to cope with the death of his mother and it's his final attempt to draw sense from the passing of a loved one.

Pursue: Hmm...this is a hard one. How do you purse an identity crisis? But then why would you want to in the first place? I think the message to draw from this passage is that hard stuff happens; stuff that causes our own self to collapse on itself and makes us ponder the fact of our own existence. Darl was not a very intelligent man and his lack of knowledge expressed itself in his methods of greiving. We are different. We need to remember those whom we've lost, and keep them with us always. Our hearts should be our safest homes, and we should keep everything that is dear to us in them.