The Addie Conundrum

We are pretty well into the book As I lay Dying, and we have had a good bit of insight into the lives of the Bundren family. Halfway into the book I thought that I was beginning to understand the family dynamics there, but then Addie's chapter was introduced (even though she's dead...) and I am so confused.

At the beginning of the novel, Addie was not dead yet but she did talk and was too weak to get out of bed. We saw that Cora and others were not very fond of Anse Bundren, Addie's husband, but Cora was Addie's friend so I had no reason to think much of Addie. Instead, my focus was on how Anse couldn't seem to do much of anything right. I also focused on how the children were all kind of weird in their own ways, but I chalked that up to the time period and dealing with their mother being on her deathbed. I figured that, since Anse seemed to be an incapable person in general, let alone as a father, that Addie must have been a great mother and the person to balance out Anse's incapabilities. 

But Addie's chapter (starting on p. 169 in my edition) wiped that theory out of the water.

Addie only married Anse because in that time period the socially acceptable thing was to do was get married and Anse was there. She never loved him, either. She said that Anse could use the word love, but she never would because words obscure reality. Addie had then had an affair with Whitfield, resulting in the birth of Jewel. She then had Dewey Dell with Anse to 'negate' Jewel. She had her last few children for Anse to make it up to him, even though he was never told about the affair or that Jewel wasn't his son. Then at the end of the chapter she said something about how, after she had Vardaman, she could die because she had done her duty. I don't know... it is all so confusing. Basically, Addie doesn't seem to be a good mother, she only has kid's because she's supposed to. I'm now going to have to reevaluate my understanding of the Bundren family.