Part of character development is to establish reader identification with the characters, especially the protagonist. In Faulkner’s novels, with the multiple points of view, we’re never sure exactly who that is. What’s more, we have to learn to separate good viable information from opinion, action we see versus what a character sees and relates to us.
Who do we trust? Who knows the whole story? Here’s neighbor Cora’s take on it:
She lived, a lonely woman, lonely with her pride, trying to make folks believe different, hiding the fact that they just suffered her, because she was not cold in the coffin before they were carting her forty miles away to bury her, flouting the will of God to do it. Refusing to let her lie in the same earth with those Bundrens. (p. 22)
Yet we already know from Addie’s husband, Anse, that this is her wish. Anse himself is reluctant but determined to see it through. Yet he is judged for this decision as if there is no love and caring for his wife.
Faulkner’s windows in the house of story he builds are many, and he allows us to peek inside them all.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology