Faulkner's As I Lay Dying: Part Three – Darl's Existential Crisis

The end of Darl's description of the wagon crossing the river transitioning into Vardaman's perspective.  This is a good example of how Faulkner varies his writing style throughout the novel.

The prose in Faulkner's many stories, long and short, is often extraordinary (see my Light in August post). He can be glorious without heroism, an abstract prism strangely touching the heart of the reader. He both inspires and weighs down. Melancholic phrases that are also the most beautiful gardens of delight create an attraction to the engaged reader. Discovering Faulkner's prose and how he uses it to describe the intimate circumstances of each person is a wonderful experience.

In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner's best prose is reserved for Darl, who is simply more psychologically curious and lyrical than anyone else in the novel. This is a major reason why I became invested in him with this reading. I didn't care what happened to any of the rest of them, the whole novel of interesting yet pathetic characters. But what ended up happening to Darl bothered me as only Faulkner can bother you.

Here some examples of Faulkner's prose contained in chapters by Darl...pagination is from my Kindle edition:

“The air smells like sulphur. Upon the impalpable plane of it their shadows form as upon a wall, as though like sound they had not gone very far away in falling but had merely congealed for a moment, immediate and musing. 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. Below the sky sheet-lightning slumbers lightly; against it the trees, motionless, are ruffled out to the last twig, swollen, increased as though quick with young.

“It begins to rain. The first harsh, sparse, swift drops rush through the leaves and across the ground in a long sigh, as though of relief from intolerable suspense. They are big as buckshot, warm as though fired from a gun; they sweep across the lantern in a vicious hissing. Pa lifts his face, slack-mouthed, the wet black rim of snuff plastered close along the base of his gums; from behind his slack-faced astonishment he muses as though from beyond time, upon the ultimate outrage.” (pp. 65 – 66)

“Jewel and Vernon are in the river again. From here they do not appear to violate the surface at all; it is as though it had severed them both at a single blow, the two torsos moving with infinitesimal and ludicrous care upon the surface. It looks peaceful, like machinery does after you have watched it and listened to it for a long time. As though the clotting which is you had dissolved into the myriad original motion, and seeing and hearing in themselves blind and deaf; fury in itself quiet with stagnation. Squatting, Dewey Dell’s wet dress shapes for the dead eyes of three blind men those mammalian ludicrosities which are the horizons and the valleys of the earth.” (page 145)

“How do our lives ravel out into the no-wind, no-sound, the weary gestures wearily recapitulant: echoes of old compulsions with no-hand on no-strings: in sunset we fall into furious attitudes, dead gestures of dolls.” (page 184)

Together, these stylistic tidbits create a complex narrative that pushes the boundaries of traditional storytelling, as we saw in Parts One and Two of this analysis. Faulkner's innovative approach not only enhances the thematic depth of As I Lay Dying but also cements its place as a seminal work of modernist literature, influencing generations of writers and continuing to challenge and engage readers approaching a century after its publication. Then there are these especially important passages:

“In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. 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 emptied yet, I am is.” (pp. 69 – 70)

Then, later, there is this exchange from Vardaman's perspective...

“Then what is your ma, Darl?” I said.

“I haven’t got ere one,” Darl said. “Because if I had one, it is was. And if it is was, it cant be is. Can it?”

“No,” I said.

“Then I am not,” Darl said. “Am I?”

“No,” I said.

I am. Darl is my brother.

“But you are, Darl,” I said.

“I know it,” Darl said. “That’s why I am not is.  Are is too many for one woman to foal.” (page 87)

As the novel's most frequent and reliable narrator, Darl's perceptive and often poetic observations provide readers with fundamental insights into the family dynamics and the unfolding events. His intelligence and apparent clairvoyance (he has the unexplained knack for knowing things about his family that he has no apparent way of knowing) set him apart from his family members, allowing him to articulate the absurdity and underlying tensions of their situation. Darl's reliability as a narrator, however, becomes increasingly questionable as the story progresses, culminating in his apparent mental breakdown and commitment to an asylum. This trajectory emphasizes the novel's themes of sanity versus insanity and the subjective nature of reality.

Yes, I invested in Darl. With this reading I saw him as the only truly fascinating character in the novel, though the novel is alive with interesting, if ignorant and selfish, persons. If the quest to bury the mother is heroic in nature (and it is) then the great tragedy in As I Lay Dying seems to be that the ignorant and selfish go on with their lives but Darl is committed to a mental institution for laughing, mostly, though he did burn down a barn. It can be a devastating read when you first encounter it but, as I want to emphasize, you can't go around burning down barns of small-time farmers in 1930 Mississippi. People have to be trusted that much or they get locked up. Fair enough, I suppose. Barns meant a lot more in that time and place than they do today.

Darl’s stream of consciousness, filled with questions of being and nothingness (before Sartre wrote that book), places him in the tradition of the great existential thinkers (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and, certainly, Dostoevsky). The passage, “In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep…” encapsulates his existential dilemma. Sleep, for Darl, is a metaphor for death—a state where identity dissolves, and the self is emptied. His contemplation of sleep as a temporary cessation of Being challenges our understanding of existence as a continuous thread. Darl’s inability to reconcile the fluidity of identity across time and states of consciousness shines a light into the existential abyss faced by those who, like him, think too deeply about the nature of reality.

His comparison of himself to Jewel further highlights Darl’s unique self-awareness. Jewel, who “knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not,” represents the unexamined life. Jewel’s ignorance shields him from the existential dread that plagues Darl. This ignorance, however, is not merely bliss—it is a form of protection from the torment of questioning one’s existence. Darl’s intellectual torment is reminiscent of Ivan Karamazov, whose existential crisis in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov leads him to the brink of madness.

Darl quickly emerges as a character of extraordinary depth and complexity and as many other characters are introduced, Darl remains someone I can empathize with more than anyone else. Through his occasional introspective monologues and philosophical dialogues, we witness a mind grappling with the fundamental questions of existence, identity, and reality. Which is why I wanted to devote a separate blog post to Faulkner's prose specifically involving the psychology of Darl's stream of consciousness. It is his profound awareness that makes him such a compelling character though this ultimately leads to his tragic fate.

The capacity of Darl's mind and perspective in the narration reveals a person who is too perceptive of their world. For Darl, consciousness is a kind of chasm. In the first passage, Darl's stream of consciousness reveals a mind constantly probing the boundaries of existence:

"In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were."

Here, Darl explores the nature of Being through the lens of sleep, a state that blurs the line between existence and non-existence. His use of "are" and "were" highlights the fluidity of identity across time and states of consciousness. For Darl, sleep represents the death of being conscious, awareness - a temporary cessation of Being that challenges our understanding of continuous existence.

Darl's musings extend beyond himself to encompass his brother Jewel:

"Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not."

This comparison reveals Darl's unique self-awareness among all characters in the novel. While Jewel exists in a state of unquestioning Being (common among all the other characters in the novel), Darl (alone) is acutely conscious of the paradoxes of existence. As I already stated, he is as intellectually tormented as Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky's great novel. This heightened awareness sets Darl apart from his family and foreshadows his eventual alienation.

Darl's introspection reaches its peak in his contemplation of the wagon:

"Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep."

This passage reveals Darl's ability to perceive the interconnectedness of all things and the impermanence of ownership and identity. His understanding transcends conventional boundaries, allowing him to see the world in a way that others cannot comprehend.

In Darl's dialog with Vardaman Faulkner challenges the limits of language in an almost incomparable way in English literature. This passage, narrated from Vardaman's perspective, showcases Darl's attempts to communicate his complex thoughts:

"Then what is your ma, Darl?" I said. "I haven't got ere one," Darl said. "Because if I had one, it is was. And if it is was, it cant be is. Can it?"

Here, Darl grapples with the concept of existence in relation to their mother's death. His use of "is" and "was" demonstrates his understanding of the mutually exclusive nature of past and present. For Darl, something cannot simultaneously exist in the present ("is") if it belongs to the past ("was").

Darl's statement, "Then I am not," reveals the extent to which his sense of self is intertwined with his relationships and perceptions. If his mother no longer "is," then part of his own existence is called into question.

The dialogue culminates in Darl's cryptic statement:

"That's why I am not is.  Are is too many for one woman to foal."

This phrase encapsulates his struggle with identity and existence. The play on "is" and "are" suggests that the multiplicity of existence - perhaps referring to all the children Addie bore - complicates any simple notion of Being.

There is something involving him that is directly attributable to the comic absurdity of the Bundren situation(s). Laughter. The words “laugh” and “laughing” occur just 24 times throughout the novel. Almost all of them pertain to Darl's laughter. Most prominently and, at once, revealing and puzzling, Darl laughs as he gets in the wagon at the beginning of family's journey to Jefferson. Then, he explodes in laughter again when the family decides to ship him off to a mental institution near the end of the novel.

In both instances, the family is mystified by Darl's laughter. Cora, a neighbor, specially tells us that Darl's laughing makes folks around there think of him as “queer,” that is, odd. Anse remarks about his laughing: “How many times I've told him it's doing such things as that that makes folks talk about him.” In my reading of the text, I have always felt that Darl is laughing because of his mysteriously insightful, almost paranormal, understanding of the absurd context of everything. In the beginning, he laughs as the family embarks because he feels it is really absurd to haul his already 3-day decomposing mother through multiple obstacles over several days in the July heat to bury her in a place where none of the rest of the family has any connection whatsoever.

Near the end of the novel, his laughter struck me as far more complicated in my most recent reading. He laughs in response to his family's decision to ship him off to Jackson to be committed to a mental ward. This is the most pervasive outburst of laughter, the highest concentration of the use of the word in the text. It is easy to assume that this is also absurd to him. But, perhaps it isn't that simple.

The final section of the novel from Darl is mostly told in third person perspective. It is the only time in the novel where a character breaks the traditional stream of consciousness intimacy and refers to himself as if he is outside himself, that is, Darl refers to himself as “Darl.” In this short chapter he seems to be in conversation with himself, with one part of the conversation referring to the usual “I” like all the other perspectives in the novel and the other half referred to as “Darl” (sort of like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings). After becoming accustomed to the way Faulkner writes the rest of the novel, it is rather shocking and disorienting that Darl adopts, albeit only partially, an omniscient perspective that suggests, to me, that his entire psychic orientation has shifted. These few paragraphs oddly (and ironically) read like a “normal” way of storytelling.

From my kindle edition of the novel.  Kindle is a terrific tool for analyzing any novel.  Its search features are immensely helpful and foster additional insights.

There is some debate as to whether Darl truly becomes mentally ill or he is simply the most articulate and reliable narrator trapped in a hopeless world of ignorance and hatred, the trip to Jackson being his only means of escape. This most recent reading leads me to believe his situation does, in fact, make him mentally unstable, if not downright crazy. What a shame that the most intelligent and promising character with the most potential to perhaps escape the festering swamp of his family and their world ends up in a mental institution while the rest of his nearly worthless relations freely return to living their shallow and hopeless lives. But that's Faulkner.

Darl's profound introspection and his ability to perceive the world in ways beyond that of others ultimately leads to his tragic fate. His family and community, unable to comprehend his insights, view his behavior as increasingly erratic and threatening. Darl's attempts to articulate his complex understanding of reality through language often result in statements that appear nonsensical or mad to others.

Moreover, Darl's acute awareness of the absurdity (see Part Four) of the family's journey to bury his mother (who he always refers to as “Addie” throughout the novel, not something like “maw”) and his willingness to act on this understanding - such as his attempt to burn the coffin in the barn to resolve everything - further alienate him from his family. His insights, rather than being valued, are are a direct threat to the family's equilibrium and to the social order.

Darl's commitment to the asylum in Jackson represents society's rejection of a mind that sees too deeply and questions too much. In a world that values practicality and conformity, Darl's philosophical ponderings and actions based on his unique perceptions are interpreted as lunacy. His provides harsh commentary on the price of insight in a society ill-equipped to understand or accommodate minds that think beyond conventional boundaries.

Darl’s profound insights, far from being appreciated, are met with incomprehension and even fear. Darl has a grave short-coming, he lacks the ability to communicate his experiences to anyone, so his family and community, unable to grasp the depth of his thoughts, view him as increasingly erratic and dangerous. His act of burning down the barn, an act of sanity instead of craziness, an obvious attempt to end the absurdity of their journey, seals his fate. Society, which values conformity and practicality, has no place for a mind like Darl’s.

As I have said, Darl’s commitment to a mental institution in Jackson is a tragedy for the price of his insight. In a world that cannot tolerate those who think beyond the surface, Darl’s philosophical ponderings are deemed madness, by people who have no idea what philosophy even is, before it was a was, to be playful with Faulkner here. Haha.

Faulkner uses Darl to explore the thin line between genius and madness, between profound insight and the societal need for order. With this reading, I experienced Darl’s fate as a poignant reminder that in a world content with superficial understanding, those who see too deeply are often cast out, their insights feared rather than valued.

Darl Bundren’s character offers us a profound exploration of the existential crises that arise when one questions the very nature of reality and identity. His tragic fate brings to the foreground the great gamble and consequences of possessing a mind that probes into the mysteries of existence.

Faulkner’s portrayal of Darl challenges readers to consider the cost of insight in a world that prefers the comfort of ignorance. Darl’s story is not just one of personal tragedy; it is a commentary on the human condition, the fragility of identity, and the societal rejection of those who dare to think beyond the accepted norms. In Darl, Faulkner creates a character whose depth and complexity resonate with the existential struggles that define the human experience.

For many decades now, I have asked the same type of questions as Darl does in the novel. Many of my ponderings are posted on this blog. That's why I invested in him. I liked Darl. And, in liking him, I felt the deep stabbing agony of his tragic end.

(to be continued)