All 3 Uses of
travail
in
As I Lay Dying
- It is like a casting of fading bronze upon the pillow, the hands alone still with any semblance of life: a curled, gnarled ineptness; a spent yet alert quality from which weariness, exhaustion, travail has not yet departed, as though they doubted even yet the actuality of rest, guarding with horned and penurious alertness the cessation which they know cannot last.†
Chpt 12
- They begin at my feet and rise along my body to my face, and then my dress is gone: I sit naked on the seat above the unhurrying mules, above the travail.†
Chpt 30 *
- It was He in His infinite wisdom that restrained the tale from her dying lips as she lay surrounded by those who loved and trusted her; mine the travail by water which I sustained by the strength of His hand.†
Chpt 41
Definition:
-
(travail) a difficult experience -- especially one involving hard work or pain