Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: Part One – An Overview of Themes and Style

 

Proof of purchase.  My 1980 paperback.  I have read this novel several times, but my most recent reading was the first time in a couple of decades.  I am thrilled to have rediscovered this masterpiece!

Note: This is the first of a five-part analysis of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. There are only minor spoilers given in Part One, it won't ruin the book for you if you haven't read it. The other parts contain major spoilers, however, as this is an analysis more than simply a review. I don't feel any of it actually “spoils” the book because, as I have noted previously, you can't spoil a piece of art that must be read or seen or heard.

I like reading William Faulkner in the summer time, though I only came back to him after many years last summer with The Unvanquished and Light in August. The heat and humidity of living in the deep south just sets the stage for me psychologically to tackle his remarkable, often poetic prose and his bleak yet innovative narrative style.  As I Lay Dying is my favorite Faulkner novel and one I would recommend to anyone seeking a quality introduction to his work. More than that, however, my most recent reading placed the work in my heretofore elusive No. 5 spot on top five novels in world literature.

The novel surprised me this time around. I knew from distant, prior readings that it was “great” but this time I experienced it as elite. I haven't read As I Lay Dying since before I started this blog in 2008. My "Faulkner period" was mostly in the 1980's and 1990's.  So, I no longer recalled much of the novel. After this reading it seems unforgettable to me. I knew the basics, of course. At the start of the Great Depression, a white trash Southern farming family (Faulkner always speaks to the dark side of being Southern) embarks upon a quest to bury the mother (who is wordlessly bedridden and dies about 50 pages into the story) in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi, some 40 miles away. They have only a wagon and two mules to work with, motor vehicles being still a rarity in this region at the time. One of the characters travels alongside the wagon on a horse he recently acquired.

It is July and the summer heat, among other things, means the unembalmed body decomposes rapidly during the journey. This adds some macabre tension to the quest, which meets with all sorts of obstacles, including crossing a flooded river that has washed out the bridge and later rescuing the coffin from a burning barn during one of the family's stay-overs during the nine-day quest. So there is a heroic nature to what is happening, it is just that almost none of the characters possess any heroic qualities.

In fact, none of them are really worth connecting with. Certainly, none of them had me rooting for them when I re-read this great novel. Which is a strange thing. Here is a world-renowned piece of American literature by a Nobel Prize winning author. Normally, a novel devotes at least part of its narrative toward someone with whom the reader can connect and support or at least become more invested in.  As I Lay Dying is filled with characters that almost no one, including me, could not care less about. Many of them are rather repugnant. My god, it's white trash all the way down.

Except for Darl. I invested in Darl. But I'll come back to him.

The novel can be rather disorienting to begin with due to the particular writing style Faulkner employs. It is challenging, particularly to the uninitiated, but ultimately it is strikingly rewarding. It is sort of like putting a puzzle together, there are a lot of pieces that do not easily fit together to begin with. Gradually, the pieces become joined and the grander image is revealed. In As I Lay Dying there are a multitude of images as the narrative takes on greater form, which makes the novel sophisticated, metaphysical, ambiguous, and poetic all at once.

Its fragmented structure is one of its most impressive features. The novel consists of 59 chapters narrated by 15 different characters, each offering their own perspective on events. In major scenes, such as the attempt of the wagon to cross the flooded river, several different perspectives overlap to give an account of events, sometimes not equally reliable or objective in the telling. This fragmentation serves multiple purposes. Firstly, it accentuates the disjointed nature of human perception and memory. By presenting the story through multiple, often disunited viewpoints, Faulkner creates a more realistic representation of how events are experienced and remembered by different individuals.

The disjointed structure also reinforces the novel's themes of isolation and the difficulties of communication. Each character's narrative is essentially an interior monologue, highlighting their inability to fully connect with or understand one another (or even themselves). The varying lengths of chapters – from Darl's extended musings to Vardaman's startling single-sentence chapter ("My mother is a fish.") – further contribute to the sense of fragmentation. This structure keeps readers off-balance, forcing them to actively engage with the text to piece together the full narrative and the myriad of fascinating aspects contained therein.

Faulkner also employs a stream of consciousness mode in a non-linear timeline, with characters' thoughts often drifting between past, present, and future. This temporal fragmentation adds depth to the characters and their relationships, gradually revealing crucial backstory and motivations, though often the reader does not understand them until later. This is a novel where practically every detail is important but Faulkner often does not make the importance readily apparent.

The author's use of dialect and colloquialisms skillfully captures the voices of his characters, most of whom are uneducated rural Southerners, creating a strong sense of authenticity and place. The dialect is most pronounced in the speech and thoughts of characters like the family's rather deadbeat father, Anse Bundren, whose language is marked by grammatical errors, colloquialisms, and phonetic misspellings that reflect his lack of education and strong regional accent. For example, Anse says, “I mislike undecision as much as ere a man." This use of dialect not only adds color but also provides insight into Anse's character and background.

Even (slightly) more educated characters, like Darl, use colloquialisms and regional expressions, grounding them in their Southern setting. However, the contrast between Darl's poetic internal monologues (which greatly contribute to driving the explanation of events) and his external speech highlights the gap between his inner life and his outward persona. But I'll come back to that.

Faulkner's use of dialect extends beyond just dialogue. The narration of characters like Vardaman, the youngest child whose exact age is a subject of debate (he could be anywhere between 8 or 12), is rendered in a style that reflects their limited understanding and unique perspective. Vardaman's confused, childlike logic is reflected in the structure and vocabulary of his narration.

The prose in As I Lay Dying often transcends conventional narrative writing, veering into the realm of poetry, like all of Faulkner's best works. His ability to craft lyrical, evocative passages adds depth and beauty to the novel, contrasting with the often harsh and gruesome events or situations being described. His often strangely beautiful prose is a primary reason for reading any of his novels to begin with.

As we will see, this poetic quality is particularly evident in Darl's sections. His observations are often rendered in language that is rich in imagery and metaphor. For example, Darl describes Jewel and his horse as follows: "Jewel's eyes look like pale wood in his high-blooded face. He is a little taller than I am. He looks at me, and I at him." This sparse yet evocative description showcases Faulkner's ability to convey complex emotions and relationships through carefully chosen words and images.

Addie is the dying and dead wife and mother. Her posthumous monologue also exemplifies Faulkner's poetic prose. Her reflections on life, love (or lack of it), and language are philosophical and deeply introspective, often bordering on the abstract. When she says, "Words are no good; words don't ever fit even what they are trying to say at," Faulkner not only conveys Addie's thoughts but does so in a way that challenges the very medium he's using to tell the story. Such fragments and paragraphs elevate the narrative, transforming a story of a poor Southern family's journey into a profound meditation on existence, perception, and the human condition.

To this must be added the ambiguity of much of the text. The reader will become accustomed to this while traversing the novel. The author frequently employs a narrating character's interactions with “he” without clearly identifying which of the many possible “hes” to which the narrator might be referring. Almost always, this is revealed later or can be figured out by what the “he” says or how the “he” behaves.

There are almost no physical descriptions of anyone in the narrative. There are no complete descriptions at all. The reader will only obtain bits and pieces of their assorted appearances. We learn that Dewey Dell “looks like a pretty hot mama, for a country girl,” for example, but otherwise there is a dearth of specific details. Hands and eyes are the most common features given, even then these are revealed more metaphorically than objectively. Comments about hands appear 108 times in the novel with eyes appearing a close second at 106 times while hair, for example, is only mentioned 19 times. This forces the reader to distinguish each character psychologically and behaviorally, which is obviously Faulkner's intent.

One of the most potentially disorienting aspects of the novel's prose is the fact that Faulkner thrusts the reader into the middle of a situation without any explanation. The best example of this his during the barn burning section. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, Jewel is struggling to save the coffin and the various animals from the uncontrollable blaze. The reader only discovers later how the fire started and why. But, to begin with, we don't even know there is a fire, we only gradually become aware of it as Jewel and various other characters react in a panic to an initially undetermined situation. The blaze is mentioned in the most nonchalant way, without detail. Faulkner never says anything clearly like “The barn was burning,” that would ruin the effect he so marvelously crafts here.

Though this can be confusing, it is also highly effective. The reader's confusion melds with the distress of the situation to remarkably bring us into the confusing and anxious state that haunts the entire novel but particularly the more spectacular sections of saving the coffin while crossing the river or from the barn aflame.

Of particular note is his somewhat confusing but nevertheless strategic, periodic use of italics throughout the novel. He often uses italics to denote internal thoughts or stream of consciousness passages. This helps differentiate between spoken dialogue, external descriptions, and the characters' private reflections.

Italics is employed to signify memories or even foreboding visions, often out of chronological order. This is particularly evident in Vardaman's chapters, where his recollections of seeing something Dewey Dell tells him not to ever tell anyone are embedded yet set apart from the narrative through the use of italics. This technique allows Faulkner to move fluidly between different time periods within a single character's narrative, enhancing the non-linear nature of the storytelling. But, Faulkner also uses italics in their traditional sense - for emphasis, drawing attention to specific words or phrases that carry particular weight or significance.

In other instances, italics are used to distinguish between different voices or perspectives within the same section. This inconsistent and sometimes seemingly arbitrary use of italics also contributes to the overall sense of fragmentation and disorientation in the novel. It represents the characters' own confused states of mind and the often chaotic nature of their experiences. This helps create a rhythmic ebb and flow within the text, enhancing the novel's overall musicality and emotional resonance.

Faulkner's use of italics, therefore, is not merely a stylistic flourish but an integral part of his narrative technique. It adds depth to the characters' perspectives, facilitates the novel's complex temporal structure, and contributes to the overall sense of psychological complexity and discombobulation that characterizes As I Lay Dying.

The themes explored in As I Lay Dying are both universal and deeply personal. Existentialism permeates the novel, particularly through Addie's nihilistic philosophy that "the reason for living is to get ready to stay dead a long time." This bleak outlook shapes her relationships and actions, influencing her children's worldviews in turn. The novel also scrutinizes family dynamics, exposing the tensions, secrets, and misunderstandings that can exist even among those closest to us.

Truth and perception emerge as central concerns. Each character's narrative reveals their unique perspective on events, sometimes contrasting or complementing others' accounts. This multiplicity of truths highlights the subjective nature of reality and the limitations of individual perception. Faulkner's polyphonic narrative approach creates a rich, multifaceted story that resists simple interpretation. Each narrator brings their own biases, limitations, and insights, forcing readers to question the reliability of any single account and to consider the subjective nature of truth and perception. More on that in Part Five of this analysis.

As I Lay Dying is notable for its exploration of the absurd. While some readers and critics have identified comic elements in the novel, I think it's more accurate to describe its tone as absurdist rather than comical. The family's dogged determination to fulfill Addie's burial wish, despite numerous obstacles and tragedies, highlights the often meaningless and irrational nature of human endeavors. This absurdism serves to emphasize the characters' isolation and the futility of their struggles against an indifferent universe.

The stream of consciousness technique is another important element in Faulkner's narrative style. By allowing readers direct access to characters' unfiltered thoughts and feelings, Faulkner creates an intimate connection between reader and character. This technique is particularly effective in revealing the inner workings of complex characters like Darl, whose poetic and often cryptic musings provide some of the novel's most profound insights (more on that in Part Three). The stream of consciousness approach also highlights the characters' struggles with identity, mortality, and the meaning of existence, reinforcing the novel's existential themes.

As I have said, the novel's intentional ambiguity and delayed revelations are key aspects of its narrative technique. Faulkner often withholds crucial information or presents it in a fragmented manner, requiring readers to piece together the full picture gradually. For instance, the true nature of Jewel's parentage is not immediately revealed, and Cash's broken leg is only mentioned indirectly at first. This approach actually is fairly realistic considering the way information is often discovered or understood in real life – piece by piece, rather than all at once – and adds to the novel's sense of mystery and complexity.

Perhaps the most obvious example of Faulkner's narrative risk-taking or innovation is the chapter narrated by Addie after her death. This posthumous narration breaks the boundaries of conventional storytelling, allowing a dead character to offer her perspective on past events and relationships. This technique not only provides vital insights into Addie's character and motivations but also brings into focus the novel's themes of the enduring impact of the past on the present and the blurring of lines between life and death (more on that in Part Two).

The use of symbolic and repetitive phrases, such as Vardaman's "My mother is a fish," unifies the disparate narratives and reinforces key themes. These recurring motifs create a sense of coherence within the fragmented structure, linking different perspectives and highlighting the shared experiences and traumas that bind the Bundren family together.

The Bundren family's arduous journey to bury Addie in Jefferson is clearly the central symbolic action of the novel. This journey represents far more than a mere physical trek; it becomes a metaphor for the human struggle against adversity, the search for meaning in life, and the complex dynamics of family obligation.

The journey's difficulties – including floods, fire, and injuries – symbolize the obstacles we face in life and our often futile attempts to control our destiny. Each setback the family encounters can be seen as a test of their resolve, reflecting the human tendency to persist in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Moreover, the quest symbolizes the characters' internal psychological journeys. As they move towards Jefferson, each family member is also traveling towards a deeper understanding of themselves and their place within the family unit. The physical distance covered parallels the emotional and psychological terrain they navigate.

The absurdist nature of the journey – its unnecessary hardships and the family's dogged determination to complete it – also symbolizes the often irrational nature of human behavior and our adherence to societal expectations and personal promises, even when they no longer serve a practical purpose.

Addie's coffin is perhaps the most prominent symbol in the novel, representing both a literal and figurative burden that the family must bear. On a surface level, the coffin embodies Addie's physical presence and the family's duty to her. The coffin represents the emotional and psychological weight of Addie's influence on the family, which persists even after her death. Each character's relationship to the coffin reflects their relationship with Addie and their way of dealing with loss. Cash's meticulous construction of the coffin symbolizes his practical approach to grief, while Jewel's fierce protection of it represents his intense, almost obsessive love for his mother.

Vardaman's absurd declaration, "My mother is a fish," is a powerful motif that haunts the novel. In fact, Faulkner absurdly gives it a one sentence chapter all to itself. This seemingly nonsensical equation symbolizes Vardaman's struggle to comprehend death and change. Unable to grasp the concept of his mother's death, Vardaman conflates it with his experience at the beginning of the novel of catching and cleaning a fish, creating a logical framework that allows him to process his loss.

This motif serves multiple symbolic functions. It represents the often irrational ways humans attempt to make sense of traumatic experiences, particularly highlighting a child's perspective on death. The equation of Addie with a fish also symbolizes the transformative nature of death – the idea that something familiar can become utterly alien and incomprehensible.

Furthermore, the fish motif connects to broader themes of fluidity and change in the novel. Like a fish out of water, the Bundren family is out of their element on their journey, struggling to adapt to new circumstances and challenges.

The family's dramatic crossing of the flooded river is certainly the most engaging part of the novel for me. It is the closest thing the work comes to true action adventure (the barn burning is a close second). It is likewise rich in symbolic significance. The river itself represents a boundary between life and death, past and future. Crossing it is a symbolic rebirth for the family, albeit one fraught with danger and the potential for destruction.

The violent, chaotic nature of the crossing represents the turbulent emotions and family dynamics that have been building throughout the journey. Each character's role in the crossing reflects their broader role within the family: Cash's stoic endurance, Jewel's passionate determination, Darl's detached observation, and Anse's ineffectual presence.

The near-loss of Addie's coffin in the river signifies the family's struggle to hold onto the past and their connection to the mother. Jewel's heroic rescue of the coffin symbolizes his desperate attempt to maintain his bond with his mother, even as natural forces threaten to sweep it away.

The damage to Cash's leg during the crossing seems to be a physical manifestation of the harm the family endures in their quest to fulfill Addie's wishes. His stoic acceptance of this injury and the family's misguided (comic?) attempts to treat it symbolize the often self-destructive nature of familial duty and the ways in which family members can inadvertently harm one another.

The symbolism and motifs in As I Lay Dying contribute significantly to the novel's fascinating depth. The journey to Jefferson, Addie's coffin, Vardaman's fish equation, and the river crossing are all powerful symbols that enhance the novel's exploration of themes such as death, family obligation, the search for meaning, and the struggle against the chaotic forces of nature and fate. Through these symbols, Faulkner creates a sophisticated, multilayered narrative that invites readers to delve deeper into the characters' psyches and the universal human experiences they represent. The novel is not so much entertaining as it is fascinating.

The narrative structure and techniques employed by Faulkner in As I Lay Dying are integral to the novel's power and meaning. By challenging traditional storytelling conventions, Faulkner creates a work that demands active engagement from the reader directly with the complex, often confusing nature of human experience itself. The multiple narrators, stream of consciousness, intentional ambiguity, and non-linear storytelling all deepen the novel's exploration of subjectivity, perception, and the human condition. Through these techniques, Faulkner not only tells the story of the Bundren family but also invites readers to reflect on the nature of narrative itself and the elusive, multifaceted nature of truth.

Faulkner's novels are wonderful to read on many levels. The strangely beautiful content of his prose in the context in which it is written is alluring to me, especially in As I Lay Dying. I unexpectedly found myself in the midst of a summer reading obsession. I rediscovered the glorious nature of this special novel. At a minimum, I think I have found a placeholder for No. 5 on my best world literature list. Better than Moby-Dick, As I Lay Dying professes great profundity through essentially backwards and pathetic people, attempting to fulfill a promise no one really cares about. 

Anse and Dewey Dell undertake the quest for completely selfish reasons. The father wants a set of false teeth, while the girl needs an abortion.  Meanwhile, Cash wants to show off his carpentry skills, which leads to the ridiculous situation of Jewel attempting to recover Cash's tools scattered by the raging river.  Plus Cash wants a gramophone ("graphaphone"), only obtainable in Jefferson.  Darl, Jewel and Vardaman seem along for the ride.  And what a ride it is! This quest to cover 40 miles through flood and flame to reach the promised land of Jefferson, Mississippi.

~

My Top 5 list as of now, in order of greatness...

1. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

4. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

5. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Honorable mentions go to: Moby-Dick by Hermann Melville, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, The Hours by Michael Cunningham and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Some other “modernist classic” contenders like Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow just don't make the cut for me. There are several other novels I need to either read or reread before I add anything to this evolving list and perhaps eventually turn it into a Top 20 listing of novels I most admire and enjoy reading.

(to be continued)