Of all of Hawthorne's characters in As I Lay Dying, Darl is the most hypnotic, understandable and eloquent because he though this book has multiple narrators appears to be omniscient and so troubled in a way that no other character nor himself truly understands him. He, of the members of the Burden family, appears the most distant, educated, and misunderstood due to the fact that he is continually impersonal when address issues of his mother or that of his other family members.
Darl's education can be seen in both the general language of his paragraphs and also through his interaction with his family members. Specifically his grammatical correctness sets him apart from the majority of the characters in this book because not only does he have a limited amount of grammatical errors, he usually lacks any hint of the southern dialect that plagues the passages of others. The visual imagery used by Darl offers an eerily timeless and emotionless perspective of every situation that the family finds themselves in. For example describes his setting in ways that are completely unexpected such as, "the chips look like random smears of soft pale paint on a black canvas"( page 75) which is a stark contrast to the uneducated speech of his brothers and sisters. His educated status can also be seen in his analytical ability as he acknowledges the fact that he is socially criticized when speaking to Vardaman when he somewhat jokingly says "that's why I'm too much for one woman to handle". While there is some ambiguity as to how much of the town gossip the characters are aware of, Darl is the only one who is brave and sensible enough to address what is going on outside of the family. By addressing the gossip Darl also shows that he is not consumed with family and is able to be a member of both his family and his external environment as well.
Darl is primarily misunderstood in this book because he refuses to ever reveal his true intentions in the book. Yes there are a few moments in the book wherein he expresses animosity toward Jewel or laughs mindlessly at the family's situation in the back of the wagon but outside of that his journal entries are purely narrative and talk about all other family members. This disconnects that Darl shows can also be seen in his reaction to his mother's death and also just his general reaction to stressful or intense situations. When his mother dies Darl is not at home because he forced his brother to come into town with him to get enough money to bury her even though he knew she would die while they were gone. Darl does not display the same distress and nervousness of his other brothers who either choose to consume themselves with their passions (husbandry or carpentry) or try to rationalize the events. Darl seems to not care about not being around his mother when she dies which is somewhat unusual but in this situation there is also some ambiguity as to whether or not he leaves to get the money because the family will need it or if he doesn't care.
The characterization by other characters is also contradictory from his narrative pieces due to the fact that while in his passages he appears to always be watching and assessing situations instead of really interacting with others. However from the persepectives of Cora and Vardaman he is always acting compassionately or seen as being the most considerate of the Burdens.
