For humans, life inherently exists with a void, which people seek to fill by indulging in various constructs established and measured by society. Some invest themselves in money, others absolve themselves with religion and still others use vanity as a drive for survival. In As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, the central character of Addie Bundren is consumed by her emptiness, the story of her struggle serving as the main plot of the novel, despite the fact that most of what is revealed about her is made posthumously. , as she is dead for most of the novel. Addie's vice isn't about dollars, gods, or behavior, but rather about people. He repeatedly attempts to make connections with others throughout his life, particularly through his children. However, while she gives birth to them and acts as their caretaker during their formative years, she fails to create meaningful relationships in a way that gives her a sense of long-term gratification. Faulkner's work highlights the differences between biological and social definitions of what it means to be a mother. Addie realizes one, but doesn't fully understand the other, increasing her feelings of depression and isolation until the eleventh hour of his passing. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay While the linguistic aspects of language would typically be the most obvious, throughout the novel, the emotional weight of language has far more importance than its logic or face value characteristics. The words, to Addie, were not words. They were associations, a “form of filling the gap” (Faulkner 40) for people who could not understand the term through experience. There is a “division between words and deeds (Mississippi State University); these word-related experiences had no standards or commonalities, in the same way that the definition of a word is unshakable and immutable over time. These experiences were based on her knowledge, thus limiting Addie's perspective of the meaning of a word to events in her life. This event is not rare and also constitutes a scientific basis for psychological studies and activities. The problem isn't that she interprets the vocabulary this way, but rather the specific words that Addie misunderstands, this "difficulty with language [that serves] to mask the meaning...and [illustrate] her message" (Mississippi State University). The word "love" is one that even the youngest children and the most incompetent minds can understand, used to express desire or affection, meant to represent something endearing or adored. However, Addie's interpretation of “love” is completely distorted. Although he does not provide an explicit definition of the word, in his one chapter he explains it with great apathy, simply stating, “It didn't matter” (Faulkner 40). Love for one's offspring exists in even the most primal of beings, yet Addie claims that her first son, Cash, "didn't need it" (40). Love is supposed to be the foundation of marriage, and in Addie's case, that's true, but in a way that's far from the traditional sense. The only person Addie associates with the word "love" is her husband Anse, whom she despises and blames for being the source of her discontent. The use of the word "love" in Addie's distorted lexicon is a prime example of irony, as she only identifies it in conjunction with someone she hates. Despite these misinterpretations, it is clearly evident that Addie understands what it means to mother a child in the physical. sense. He viewed Cash's birth as "a 'natural' result of his sexual expression"057535131>.