As I Lay Dying, Cash quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What is Cash concerned about in his third section?

   • The coffin lid is not nailed down properly for the journey
   • Correct answer: The coffin is not balanced correctly for transport
   • The wagon wheels are too worn to carry the coffin safely
   • The road to Jefferson is too rough for the coffin to survive

   Cash states that "IT wasn't on a balance" and begins to explain what would need to be done to carry it properly, but is cut off before finishing.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What happens to Cash's sentence in this chapter?

   • He finishes his thought but no one responds to his warning
   • He pauses to reconsider and then changes the subject entirely
   • Correct answer: He is interrupted mid-sentence and never completes his thought
   • He repeats the same point three times for emphasis

   The section ends abruptly with a dash: "they would have to——" Cash's thought is cut off mid-sentence, leaving his practical advice incomplete.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What literary term describes the technique of breaking off speech before it is completed?

   • Anaphora (repetition of a word at the start of successive clauses)
   • Correct answer: Aposiopesis (deliberate breaking off of speech mid-thought)
   • Synecdoche (using a part to represent the whole)
   • Litotes (understatement through negating the opposite)

   Aposiopesis is the rhetorical device of deliberately leaving a sentence unfinished. Faulkner uses it here to dramatize how Cash's practical expertise is silenced.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What is Cash's primary role in the Bundren family?

   • He is the youngest child who struggles to understand death
   • He is the philosophical narrator who observes the family
   • Correct answer: He is the skilled carpenter who built Addie's coffin
   • He is the family patriarch who organizes the journey

   Cash is the eldest Bundren son and a meticulous carpenter. He built Addie's coffin with great care, and his practical knowledge about transporting it is central to this interrupted section.

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5. 5

   Question 5. How does the brevity of Cash's third section reflect his position in the family?

   • It shows that Cash is too busy working to narrate at length
   • It demonstrates that Cash has nothing important to say about the journey
   • Correct answer: It dramatizes how the family dismisses and silences his practical warnings
   • It indicates that Cash is the least intelligent of the Bundren children

   The extreme brevity and mid-sentence cutoff show that despite Cash's practical expertise, his voice is not given space in the family discourse. His warnings about balance go unheeded.

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6. 6

   Question 6. Which other Bundren sibling has a famously short chapter in As I Lay Dying?

   • Dewey Dell, whose shortest section is a single image of the barn
   • Darl, whose briefest section consists of only a few observations
   • Correct answer: Vardaman, whose five-word chapter reads "My mother is a fish"
   • Jewel, whose shortest section is a single angry outburst

   Vardaman's famous five-word chapter ("My mother is a fish") is another of Faulkner's extreme experiments with brevity, though unlike Cash's fragment it expresses a complete thought.

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