Don't Stand Next To The Main Characters

In a chapter of How To Read Literature Like A Professor Thomas Foster makes the claim that it is a bad idea to be next to the hero. He claims that those closest to the hero(es) are usually the first to go, as they are used as a symbol to show the main character the price of his actions. This idea can easily be found in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying albeit in a different manner with different results

In As I Lay Dying there is no hero. Instead, the aforementioned claim revolves around the Bundren family, a family that just won't seem to change its ways, even when they are the result of problems. The major example, and the one that I am choosing to write about, is when the Bundren's ask Tull to lend his mules so they can cross the river. There had been a crazy storm, and as a result, the bridge that crossed the river had been destroyed by the flood. The Bundren family would not let that stand in the way of them granting their mother's dying wish: to be buried in Jefferson, where she is from. After arguing with Tull for a good while, the family convinces Tull to lend his mules, despite his reluctance. At first, all is well. Anse, Tull, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman successfully cross the river. Now it's Jewel, Cash and Darl's turn. They have the mules pulling the wagon, which is carrying Addie Bundren's coffin. As they are crossing, a log that was caught in the flood crashes into the wagon, and the mules drown. Now Tull is stranded on the far side of the river, and his mules are drowned. Faulkner uses Tull in the manner that many authors use the hero's best friends to prove to the Bundren family the error of their ways, unfortunately for Tull.