Analysis Of Faulkner’s Writing Style In As I Lay Dying
Imagine the traumatic event of losing someone close to you. What would you do? How would you react? The death of a loved one can shape an individual and their life majorly, whether it was sudden or not. While it seems like Addie Bundren’s death should’ve brought the rest of the family members together, it actually tears them even further apart. The lack of connection between the Bundren family is partially the reason why Addie’s death was not genuinely mourned by the family as a whole. As I Lay Dying takes place in the made up county of Yoknapatawpha after World War I. An issue of the time was separation between the town and country folk. When the Bundren’s finally reach Jefferson, you can clearly see this separation. For example, Jewel is on edge as they walk into town and almost gets in a fight with a townsman, who pulls out a knife. Another time is when Vardaman keeps wanting a train set. Dewey Dell silences him by saying that “Santa will not let a townsboy get it”. In the post World War I period, women were starting to realize they could do things on their own too, so they began asserting their individuality. Yet, with the location of the Bundrens, this sense of change did not reach them yet. This period was also leading up to the Great Depression, so times were starting to get hard. The Bundrens would have already been tight on money based on being a country family in the middle of almost nowhere, but it got tighter because of the national economic crash. “I gave Anse the children. I did not ask for them”. This quote demonstrates that Addie felt obligated to give Anse children during the Great Depression because many women felt obligated to. “She [Cora] would tell me that I owed it to my children and to Anse and to God”. Cora represents what most women represented during the Twenties; the proof that men depend on women. Faulkner uses Addie and Cora to show two different types of women during this time. “The novel suggests that the economic difficulties that structure their lives, prompt an increased preoccupation with the privacy of human experience, and an increased skepticism toward the possibility that language might mitigate this privacy”. Addie Bundren’s isolation is what causes her skeptical theory of language. The consequences of her attitude transfer to her children; such as Dewey, Darl, and Vardaman. They all feel alienated from their society because of their remote location. In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner uses speakers for poetry to affect the meaning of the novel, such as greek mythology, biblical allusions, and animals to give depth to the characters. He also uses literary devices throughout the book to contribute to the meaning of the text, for instance; stream of consciousness, biblical allusions, and repetition. Some of the characters in As I Lay Dying are strong-minded and stubborn, such as Addie Bundren, who represents symbols of feminism throughout the story based on her personality. Death shapes lives; the living are the ones who experience death and react to it.
Faulkner writes about darker themes, such as how death affects the lives of many because of the time period of his writing.
In As I Lay Dying, Faulker creates the characters based off of greek mythology. For example, Dewey Dell represents Persephone, goddess of fertility and spring, because she was used as a toy and is fertile. “Squatting, Dewey Dell’s wet dress shapes for the dead eyes of three blind men those mammalian ludicrosities which are the valleys and horizons of the earth”. This quote demonstrates how Dewey Dell’s soaked dress was seemingly shaping parts of the earth, further showing how she represents Persephone. “And don’t tell me it ain’t going to bother you to have to limp around on one short leg for the balance of your life - if you walk at all again”. This excerpt expresses how Cash symbolizes Hephaestus, the god of fire and craftsmanship, because both characters are crippled and excellent at crafting, yet both judged and neglected by their mother.
Faulker also creates the characters with biblical allusions. For example, “You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance”. “He is my cross and he will be my salvation. He will save me from the water and from the fire. Even though I have laid down my life, he will save me”. In these two quotes, they reveal that Addie Bundren is alike to Christ, because they are both inverted, compared to a fish, and have a blood reference. “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him”. Darl is also compared to Christ because he is prophetic, eloquent, and rejected for his ideas.
William Faulker uses animals to reflect upon the characters; for example, he uses the horse and fish as objects for the characters to connect to, revealing their inner feelings. He also uses the buzzard, cow, and mule to represent the characters and give insight into their personalities. Faulkner connects to his theme of religion and how it can be somewhat hypocritical through the animals. For instance, in the bible, cows represent birth and fertility and seen as work animals. Dewey Dell is a representation of the cow because of her pregnancy. How her family treats their cow reflects on how they treat Dewey. “‘You got to wait a little while. Then I’ll tend to you.’ The cow breathes upon my hip and back… I said you don’t know what worry is. I don’t know what it is”. This quote illustrates that Dewey sympathizes with the cow and yet she ignores it, just like her family ignores her; which reveals how confused she is. “I jerk my hand, cursing her like Jewel does”. In this excerpt, Vardaman shows he is young and impressionable by taking after Jewel, but also he doesn’t sympathize with the cow the way Dewey does. Her family neglects her because they don’t know what she is going through. Another example of an animal representing the characters is the mule. In the bible, mules are used to carry burdens. The mules represent the Bundren kids because Anse gives them all of his work because he’s lazy, the kids can be very stubborn, and they’re given the hard work no one else will do. “‘Come up, mules,’ pa says. The mules walk hard; the wagon creaks. Darl and Dewey Dell and I walk behind the wagon, up the hill”. Anse makes the Bundren kids do all of the work, the same as the mules.
“Whether Addie be considered the center of the novel or not, she is surely a psychological force acting upon the rest of the family”. This excerpt reveals that the children react in terms of Addie’s attitudes for them. For instance, Jewel acts out through his horse – his strong, intense love for Addie, but also the hostility. “She manipulates husband and children as objects to justify her own sanctity, the children to be born in sin mostly out of vengeance or in wedlock as compensation for the sin”. This quote demonstrates that Addie has too much pride and vanity; she’s obsessed with violations of herself and her privacy that results in her cruelty to her family in order to avoid the dangers of affection. “As I Lay Dying represents the consequences of an overly narrow emphasis on the capacity of language to capture truths about the world”. The words Addie repeats, such as motherhood and sin, relate to the connection between her philosophical views and her deepest lived frustrations. “Through the process of Addie’s monologue and the combined actions and thoughts of her children, the dynamic feminine and maternal principle which she maintains negates the solid and unmoving male principle, and Addie herself becomes a possible source of female power in the book”. By making her children extensions of herself, Addie refuses to acknowledge the masculine dominance which attempts to silence her. The trip to Jefferson thus becomes a form of education for Addie’s sons. By mourning and contemplating their relationships with her, Cash, Darl, Jewel, and Vardaman learn to imitate her and maintain her suspicion of “patriarchal constructs.”
William Faulker uses stream of consciousness in As I Lay Dying to place readers inside the characters’ heads. “I am I and you are you and I know it and you don’t know it and you could do so much for me if you just would and if you just would then I could tell you and then nobody would have to know it except you and me and Darl”. This excerpt shows that Darl’s thoughts are very complex and he is ‘all knowing,’ which provides perspective into other characters’ thoughts.
Faulkner also uses repetition in many different ways. For example, “The shirt across Pa’s hump is faded lighter than the rest of it. There is no sweat stain on his shirt. I have never seen a sweat stain on his shirt”. The author’s use of repetition sets a certain mood of nothing really being accomplished by the characters in this novel, Obstacle after obstacle, prayer after prayer, disaster after disaster, yet all is for naught.
Overall, Faulkner’s writing style in the 1900s was formed because of the grim events leading to the Great Depression; therefore causing his writing to be dark themed. For example, the Bundren family had gone through a great loss of their mother, Addie, and their long journey had involved many dark topics such as broken bones, burning barns, chaotic storms, and mental asylums. William Faulkner used the literary devices in As I Lay Dying to enhance the reader’s understanding of the novel and why certain events are of much importance.
