Alienation in As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner Essay

Loyalty should be considered a quality that is supposed to keep family ties together and use the shield of bravery to protect it. It is proven that devotion in families of today, are lost and bravery shows no character in a person. It is a personality that each individual has in them only to be used in the most courteous way and should not be used selfishly. Loyalty cannot be purchased and must be earned. If it used in the wrong way, it can climax to a disaster.

Most works of literature often use events and objects to display a deeper meaning to the current situation. In As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, there are many references that connect the Bundren family to mythological, Biblical, and classical allusions. Faulkner’s use of various types of allusions emphasizes the characters’ behavior and relationship to each other.

As I Lay Dying is a novel by William Faulkner that chronicles the journey of the Bundren family (Anse, Dewey Dell, Darl, Jewel, Cash, and Vardaman) to bury their recently deceased mother, Addie, in Jefferson. Throughout As I Lay Dying, Faulkner treats Darl as the de-facto narrator of the novel, endowing Darl with the most passages in the novel and endowing him with an omniscient perspective of the events chronicled in the book. Jewel, however, gets the opposite treatment from Faulkner; he only is designated one passage in the entire book and is known for being self-centered and close-minded. In terms of the motivation of traveling to Jefferson, Darl has none, while Jewel’s sole purpose is to give Addie a proper burial. By the end of the novel,

man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening. And that was the last we saw of

In As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner the reader gets to see how hard life is for the Bundren family. The Bundren’s face many obstacles throughout the book and somehow manage to come through most of them okay. The family fulfills their desires along the way to relieve them of these struggles. The main theme in As I Lay Dying is family dysfunction, and this family dysfunction leads to Darl’s insanity.

Exploring the Layers of Maternity and Southern Womanhood in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

Individuals are not born with the conception of vicious intentions. They are simply taught that the concept of betrayal is acceptable throughout the course of their lifetime. Many novels, movies, and tv shows focus on the concept of betrayal because it adds depth and drama to the plot. William Faulkner manipulates this idea in his fictional novel As I Lay Dying by using different perspectives of characters to display acts of betrayal and the outcomes that they develop. Dewey Dell, the daughter of Anse and Addie Bundren, double crosses multiple people throughout the novel, including her own father and brothers Darl and Vardaman. Over the duration of the novel, characters tend to utilize betrayal to promote oneself

In 1930, As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, was published and the audienceimmediately started to question about it. Faulkner wrote this book over the course of six weeks.He wrote every day from midnight to 4:00 AM and said that every word he wrote stayed and hedid not change anything. As I Lay Dying is about Addie Bundren who is a mother and is ill andabout to die, two of her sons leave town and right after they leave, Addie dies. Her oldest son,Cash finishes the coffin he was making for her and when they are going to bury her where shewished to be buried, they get injured due to a flooding. As I Lay Dying has been banned inseveral school districts. It first started when the mother of a student read the book after her childcame home telling

It would seem that the primary struggle that Darl faces in the novel is the differentiation between “being” and “not-being” and the value, meaning, and importance of his own self. In the same way that Vardaman does not understand mortality, Darl does not understand himself, and this severely clouds his judgment when it comes to coping with the death of his mother. Darl seems to be a rational person at the beginning of the novel, but he plagues himself with questions regarding the fact that, “In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know if I am or not” (Faulkner 80). Darl cannot navigate his own identity, and it seems that this, combined with his subpar relationship with Addie, leads him to attempt to cope by repressing his despair in multiple failed attempts to understand himself. Butchart notes that “By dissociating himself from his mother and employing dangerous defense mechanisms, Darl’s sanity atrophies” (Butchart 60). The descent to madness that Darl endures is a sympathetic plight to most readers, since Darl is arguably one of the more sympathetic characters in the novel, but this decline is ultimately guided by his inability to come to terms with himself and his actions, especially concerning the fact that he was not present at the death of his mother. Jewel copes with the death of his mother in a way that is similar to the method that Darl utilizes, in that he represses his feelings, despite the fact that his close connection with Addie allows the reader to assume that he is the most hurt by her death. Jewel then uses his grief to fuel his devotion to heroic duty, which is primarily seen in his efforts to save Addie from the burning barn and

    Analyzing character in a Faulkner novel is like trying to reach the bottom of a bottomless pit because Faulkner's characters often lack ration, speak in telegraphed stream-of-consciousness, and rarely if ever lend themselves to ready analysis.  This is particularly true in As I Lay Dying, a novel of a fragmented and dysfunctional family told through fragmented chapters.  Each character reveals their perspective in different chapters, but the perspectives are true to life in that though they all reveal information

Faulkner uses every detail in an abstract manner to paint a vivid image to the reader of the plight she endures. The summer following her fathers' death, the community began the

In the novel, As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, two characters ,Darl and Jewel Bundren, each cope with their mother’s death and deal with their isolation from their family by expressing their feelings in deeply emotional behavior. Darl, the second eldest sibling out of five, questions his existence because of his isolation and the lack of love he received from his mother growing up. Jewel, on the other hand, was his mother’s favorite of all five of her children. Jewel was the bastard son of Addie Bundren and the minister she had an affair with, Whitfeld. Due to the violent situation by which he was conceived, Jewel expresses all of his actions, including love, through violence and hatred. Both Darl and Jewel Bundren, convey their

As an author establishes the characters he simultaneously attempts to develop the theme of the story. An author uses various elements such as point of view, the setting, and symbols to work toward the expression of one central idea. In looking at "A Rose for Emily." a short story by William Faulkner, it is evident that Faulkner successfully carries one main idea throughout the piece, the idea of being isolated from society.

The author of As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner, really contributes to the aspects of literature through his ability to tell a seemingly incredible story through only the “stream-of-consciousness” technique. Faulkner takes his insight beyond the piece, through other’s views and thoughts. Although the characters might be acting differently upon each subject or handling each action in opposite ways, the tone and theme that he uses really brings the whole piece to a perfect balance. In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner displays contradicting elements through the reactions of the family members towards the mother’s death with the use of dialogue, tone, imagery, and internal conflict.

The narrators alternate, showcasing the fluctuating levels of coherence, understanding and emotional strength. The dialect differs from character to character and the language each character uses, varies on level of intensity and subjectivity. Each character’s speech varies from being confessional to teetering on the line of awareness and consciousness. The characters each have their own view on life and on the way Addie Bundren lived her life: through these alternate character’s eyes, we can piece together the bits and pieces of Addie’s life, death and the haulage of her decaying body to Jefferson. The narrative seems to be fragmented however, it also exhibits a type of unity. The story takes place over the course of a few days yet the differing “sub-plots are logically and skillfully interwoven” (Ross 309). Faulkner forces the reader to see the narrative from multiple perspectives.