William Faulkner"s As I Lay Dying is a novel about how the conflicting agendas within a family tear it apart. Every member of the family is to a degree responsible for what goes wrong, but none more than Anse. Anse"s laziness and selfishness are the underlying factors to every disaster in the book. As the critic Andre Bleikasten agrees, "there is scarcely a character in Faulkner so loaded with faults and vices" 84. At twenty-two Anse becomes sick from working in the sun after which he refuses to work claiming he will die if he ever breaks a sweat again....
teeth and a new wife for the price of a graphophone. What defies explanation is why Anse is so cold-hearted and indifferent to his children? What has changed him from the hard working twenty-two year old man he once was.

In conclusion, by thinking only of himself Anse destroys his family. He is selfish whenever his need"s conflict with those of his family. His motives for cheating and lying range from the greed of money to self pity. Instead of what can I do for them Anse will always be the one thinking what can they do for me.