"How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home."
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
[For page number reference: First Vintage International Edition, October 1990]
1. The inciting incident in As I Lay Dying is when Addie Bundren becomes severely sick. The exposition expands upon the characters, mainly taking place on the Bundren farm. Cash builds the coffin, Darl and Jewel head into town to make three dollars, and Anse relaxes at home. As they leave the house, things begin to advance and the plot enters the rising action stage. The family tries to get Addie buried in Jefferson, forty miles from their home. This stage details the obstacles and struggles they must overcome to complete their mission. The climax of the story is when Darl is arrested for burning down the barn. The falling action is what comes directly after; Dewey Dell is taken advantage of by the doctor and Darl is taken to Jackson. The resolution brings an end to the story, closing it off. This is when Anse introduces the rest of the family to Mrs. Bundren, whom he met only the day before. He also shows off his brand new teeth, bought with the small amount of money the family had left.
2. Thematically, As I Lay Dying deals with death, family, and loss. The story revolves around the family trying to carry Addie's body to Jefferson; the actual death happens near the beginning of the novel, but it stays present until the end. Buzzards begin to follow the Bundrens as they advance on their journey, and the smell of Addie's body becomes stronger and stronger. The ugly realities of death are spoken of- realities that people typically shy away from.
The complexity of family is a steady theme of the novel, which thoroughly studies all aspects of the family.
3. Faulkner's tone through this novel is rather cynical and dark. One of my favorite lines from the novel sums up the tone well: "'God Almighty, why didn't Anse carry you to the nearest sawmill and stick your leg in the saw? That would have cured it. Then you all could have stuck his head into the saw and cured a whole family...'" [Page 240]. Anse's reaction to Addie's death shows that Faulkner's tone is also darkly comical. "Pa breathes with a quiet, rasping sound, mouthing the snuff against his gums. 'God's will be done,' he says, 'Now I can get them teeth.'" [Page 52]. Note: Anse has lost most of his teeth and wants to go into town and buy dentures. Another example of Faulkner's dark and cynical tone can be found in Dewey Dell's interaction with the second doctor, who trades her talcum-powder filled pills for sex, which he tells her will terminate her pregnancy.
"'Are you sure it'll work?' she says.
'Sure,' I says. 'When you take the rest of the treatment.'
'Where do I take it?' she says.
'Down in the cellar,' I says." [Page 248].
4. "Squatting, Dewey Dell's wet dress shapes for the dead eyes of three blind men those ludicrosities which are the horizons and the valleys of the Earth." [Page 164]. This metaphor carries a lot of meaning, adding
"My mother is a fish." [Page 84]. The symbol of the fish reappears throughout the novel, with relation to Vardaman. "My mother is not in the box. My mother does not smell like that. My mother is a fish." [Page 196]. Adds to the theme of death and Vardaman's encounter with it. No young child wants to smell the eight-day old rotting body of his mother.
Darl's philosophical musings incorporate a lot of literary elements. "Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not empty yet, I am is." [Pages 80-81]. This quote is very layered and heavy, and is also a departure from Darl's usually proper grammar.
"Darl puts the rope back, pulling hard. Cash's teeth look out. 'Hurt?' Darl says." [Page 196]. This is an example of personification; Cash's teeth did not literally "look out." He was baring his teeth in pain caused by his broken leg.
Faulkner uses repetition to explain Darl's mental state. "Darl is our brother, our brother Darl. Our brother Darl in a cage in Jackson where, his grimed hands lying light in the quiet interstices, looking out he foams. 'Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.'" [Page 254]. Whether or not Darl was insane, as most everyone believed by the end, is a matter of perspective.
"...After a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other; and that sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words." [Pages 173-174]. These are "sounds" and not words because the people forming them have no real concept of them. Faulkner is able to expressive a very large concept with this sentence.
"I heard that my mother is dead. I wish I had more time to let her die. I wish I had time to wish I had. It is because in the wild and outraged earth too soon too soon too soon." [Page 120]. Again, Faulkner's literary technique is very disjointed, but this is on purpose. It expresses the feelings of a person in shock or grieving in the wake of a relative's death.
Faulkner does not refer to what Cash is making as a coffin for a long time, but it is clear very early what it is, though the reader is left to infer it. "Where every breath she draws is full of his knocking and sawing where she can see him saying See. See what a good one I am making for you. I told him to go somewhere else. I said Good God do you want to see her in it." [Page 14].
"Whitfield stops at last. The women sing again. In the thick air it's like their voices come out of the air, flowing together and on in the sad, comforting tunes." [Page 91]. Faulkner's description of the voices as 'flowing' makes the reader think of water.
"The water was cold. It was thick, like slush ice. Only it kind of lived. One part of you knowed it was just water, the same thing that had been running under this same bridge for a long time, yet when them logs would come spewing up outen it, you were not surprised, like they was a part of the water, of the waiting and the threat." [Page 138]. The water is personified here, as if it willfully shot logs at people. It is a very real threat, and causes huge trouble for the Bundrens when trying to cross the river. This technique makes the water seem a living threat comparable to a person lurking in the shadows with a gun.
CHARACTERIZATION
1. Direct characterization examples: Anse is directly described to the reader by Darl. "Pa leans above the bed in the twilight, his humped silhouette partaking of that owl-like quality of awry-feathered, disgruntled outrage within which lurks a wisdom too profound or too inert for even thought." [Page 49]. Here, Cash is directly characterized. "Cash works on, half turned into the feeble light, one thigh and one pole-thin arm braced, his face sloped into the light with a rapt, dynamic immobility above his tireless elbow." [Page 76].
Indirect characterization examples: You learn a lot about Anse from a conversation between Vernon and his wife, Cora. "'His place was there,' Cora said. 'If he had been a man, he would a been there instead of making his sons do what he dursn't.'" [Page 153]. Anse is indirectly characterized by Dewey Dell: "Pa dassent sweat because he will catch his death from the sickness so everybody that comes to help us." [Page 26]. Darl is indirectly and directly characterized throughout the novel. "I cannot love my mother because I have no mother. Jewel's mother is a horse." [Page 95]. Shows Darl's disconnect from his mother, or her disconnect from him.
The use of both direct and indirect characterization towards nearly every character in the book allows for a well-rounded view of the character. Anse believes he is doing what is right, even if it makes trouble for the rest of his family. By the end I thoroughly disliked Anse's character, even though positive sides of him were presented. As I Lay Dying is primarily a character study; a large amount of time is spent developing each character.
2. Yes, Faulkner's diction and syntax both vary greatly between characters. The novel is written in first person but from the perspectives of multiple characters. Most characters do not use proper grammar or large vocabulary words. From the perspective of Anse, "Well, I reckon I aint no call to expect no more of him than of his man-growed brothers." [Page 38].
Compare that to this passage that is from the perspective of Darl: "For an instant it resists, as though volitional, as though within it her pole-thin body clings furiously, even though dead, to a sort of modesty, as she would have tried to conceal a soiled garment that she could not prevent her body soiling." [Pages 97-98].
Despite this variance in diction and syntax Faulkner is able to make most characters seem equally intelligent, which is one of the best aspects of this novel.
3. There is no traditional protagonist in As I Lay Dying; instead, the family is its own protagonist. The family is very round though. Each individual is characterized well; Faulkner balances the focus very equally amongst them. Anse is a round character, but static and not dynamic. In the end of the novel, he is still the same old Anse. Darl's arrest didn't faze him, nor did the loss of Cash's leg. In ten days since his wife's death, Anse is remarried. Darl is definitely dynamic and round, as is Vardaman. Darl undergoes a massive character transformation from the beginning of the novel to the end, and it is very effective
4. I felt like I could relate to some of the characters as people by the end of the novel. Particularly Darl, whose last chapter is strange and a departure from the format of the the others. Each of these characters did seem like people though. Dewey Dell's unwanted pregnancy is something not typically addressed in older novels, and the fact that she cannot find a doctor who will give her an abortion. The difficulty for women to have access to safe and legal abortions is still a problem in the modern day, and Faulkner's acknowledge of it brings Dewey Dell further towards life.
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