As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Words are labels and are insignificant in the long run. Addie Bundren understood this principle and she hated words and longed for quiet and solitude.

Her hatred of words started when Anse invaded her privacy with them when he met her down at her spring, her place of solitude after teaching. They had been flirting with glances when he would drive by just to see her but then he invaded her "secret and selfish thought" by meeting her at the spring, just as she invaded her students' thoughts with the flick of her switch. But as we tumble through this world it is true that our mode of communication really does not let us come into contact with other people. Words are intangible and we really do "use one another by words like spiders dangling by their mouths from a beam, swinging and twisting and never touching." We "use" each by words by talking everyday and we weave webs of words from our mouths to circle our lives. We weave webs of love with our spouse and tell them that we love them but words cannot penetrate a soul and so we do dangle and twist in our lives and speak words just to fill space.

Addie tells us "He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been use to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others; just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that anymore..." It is clear that she really didn't love Anse because if she did she wouldn't be able to describe it, wouldn't be able to describe how she felt with words. The word 'love' exchanged between the two of them was a void trying to fill a void just as Addie describes that her "aloneness had been violated and then made whole again by the violation." She was leading a very solitary life but one that had been invaded time and time again against her will. She longed for another man and committed a sin when she bore a child with Whitfield but somehow she felt more complete and loved Jewel more than her legal children with her husband. But most importantly one can see that Addie despised her life and felt that love, or the words of love, had taken over and ruined her life; that people who spoke words without really experiencing what is was that they were saying were foolish. "Sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words." Addie describes her life, or what she thought her life was. To her she was just that spider dangling and twisting, although never with her will. She alone understood the words sin and love and fear because she experienced them. She sinned when she was with Whitfield, she knew what is was to be loved but to love someone else, and she feared Anse and the guilt she would face for her actions.

Addie is a smart woman and knew that her sins could not be taken away just with words. And in the passage where she describes Cora prying her and wanting her to kneel with her so that she could be cleansed of her sins she feels it is ironic "because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too." Cora is praying with words but those words and repentance are empty because they are not followed with action on her part. Sinning is an action and so cannot just be negated with words, one must live a true and holy life and really act like forgiveness is justified.

It is funny though because in this whole narrative we see that Addie herself does not seem religious but she knows more about it than the people who call themselves holy. But then again they are just using insignificant words to describe themselves.

So, what is the significance of words? Are they really important? From this story one must conclude that the story of Addie, among many other things, is trying to teach us a lesson. Do not let your words hang empty in your lives. If you love someone do not just say it, do it. If you have sinned, act like you want to be forgiven. Never use words in the place of actions.