The Bundren Family: A Mosaic of Dysfunction

What is the relationship between the family construct and self-identity?  Do the roles we play in families define us, provide a sense of security and authenticity, or do they constrain and blind us to our true identities? Talk about, if you like, the roles members in your family have adopted.


How does Faulkner use the Bundren family to examine self-identitiy as a real or absurd notion?  How does he use the breakdown of this family to discuss the very essence of who we are or see ourselves to be -- in the viewpoint of the existentialist? 


(Existentialists assert that a human being is "thrown into" a concrete, inveterate universe that cannot be "thought away", and therefore existence ("being in the world") precedes consciousness, and is the ultimate reality. Existence, then, is prior to essence (essence is the meaning that may be ascribed to life), contrary to traditional philosophical views dating back to the ancient Greeks. As Sartre put it: "At first [Man] is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.")                                                                                               www.philosophybasics.com