Analysis Of ' As I Lay Dying '

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your vision is clear, your whole body will be full of light” (). Ever since the creation of mankind, the eyes exist as the window to the soul. Taking one look into a person's eyes can leave you with more knowledge than ever thought imagined. Love, anger, lust, hatred, sympathy and guilt can all express themselves in just one glance. William Faulkner knew of this interesting trait and applied it to his 19___’s novel “As I Lay Dying”. Each character possesses their own unique traits and personalities which drive them to fulfill their end mission: burying their mother in Jefferson. To express their personalities, Faulkner incorporates a variety of similes and metaphors all relating to the eyes. This technique sheds light of their selfish ways. These selfish qualities, not the love for their mother, cause the Bundren children to succeed in their mother's dying wish.

In William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, the reader is encouraged to sympathize with Dewey Dell on account of her quickly waning life. We are given multiple circumstances in the book where Dewey Dell’s life is noticeably described in a negative way, not as a person, but rather how bad of a situation she is in. She is an impregnated seventeen-year-old girl who is unable to find proper treatment to relieve her of a child she doesn’t want. While she is dealing with her own catastrophic incident she is also dealing with the numerous other problems her family is unsuccessfully dealing with. Due to the rest of the Bundren family’s understandably more serious dilemmas taking priority over Dewey Dell’s, she is forced to put off her own extremely urgent predicament.

In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying the story is told from different characters creating many different perspectives. All though every character has a voice, they are not all created to intelligent and sympathetic voices. Faulkner controls which characters we closely identify with by the amount of time he devoted to the characters, the number of entries the person had and the attitude that is given to these characters.

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.

It is commonly believed that the best way to influence people to act is through encouragement and positivity. This notion is dispelled throughout “As I Lay Dying”, as numerous characters are guided to function based off of the cruelty that was completed upon them. All together, the Bundren family met by various cruel events on their mission to bury their dead mother. The inhuman and wicked acts, however, do not bind the family together in an attempt to achieve one goal, but rather proves that the family values their own personal objectives more than that of the the entire group.

Throughout William Faulkner's’ novel "As I Lay Dying", he portrays a Mississippi family that goes through many different hardships and struggles such as death, poverty and existence from different character's point of view. Faulkner uses imagery to illustrate existence and poverty among these characters and how they are perceived by outsiders. From the first monologue, one can see that everything is in relation to an animal, natural force or human nature. As each character progresses, a pattern of the natural forces often becomes correlated with events throughout the novel. Although Addie Bundren dismisses the word love when used by her husband, Anse, as "just a shape to fill a lack," her other relationships are not as empty (Faulkner 172).

William Faulker’s “As I Lay Dying,” tells the story of the Bundren family traveling to bury their dead mother. The Bundren’s embark on a quest through the north Mississippi countryside to take the corpse of Addie, wife and mother, back to her hometown, Jefferson, to bury her with family. Whatever dignity found in keeping a promise, to a dead wife and mother mocked by the selfish desires of each family member. Throughout the novel, every family member exhibits some degree of selfishness, but none more than Anse. Anse’s extreme selfishness and a poor example of a father are the underlying factors for the Burden family’s dysfunction.

Though the world keeps on turning, the death of a loved one always has lasting and sometimes surprising effects on those who loved the ones who died. It changes a person by making them deal with their own mortality, morality, and grief. However that is not the case in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. The effects of the death of Addie Bundren are very evident in the Bundren family through their actions and thoughts throughout the book. Though they love Addie, they use her dying wish to be buried in Jefferson as an excuse to head into town to fulfill their own agendas. This love and selfishness show the two sided nature of the family. On one hand they are genuinely grieving Addie’s death and on the other they are using her desire for their own gain. A majority of the family members grow out of their grief in their own ways through their individual suffering. Some of them choose to replace Addie in some regards with an animal or decide to deal with their grief in small segments, giving them more character depth, and uniqueness. Though the resolution of the family’s character development is not always ideal, the process to that outcome reveals that above everything else, that they are perfectly human.

The novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is filled with moments of great heroism and with struggles that are almost epic, but the novel’s take on such battles is ironic at best, and at times it even makes them seem downright absurd or mundane. The Bundren family is on a mission to bury Addie. In the midst they defeat water and fire on the way to Jefferson where Addie is to be buried. Their take on these engagements seem heroic, but they come to the point where the family’s’/ family member(s) actions are more foolish than anything.

William Faulkner’s, As I Lay Dying, is a story of the Bundren family making their way to Jefferson to bury Addie Bundren. Along the way they come across many problems that delay their journey. Fifteen different characters narrate providing different viewpoints of the events that occur. Cash’s communication evolves from action to language when he becomes unable to act.

William Faulkner's novel, As I Lay Dying is the story of one family's experiences of the death of their mother and wife, Addie Bundren, and the experiences the family members go through in an attempt to fulfill what they think is a simple wish she had for her funeral arrangements. Addie Bundren's dying wish is to return to her homeland of Jefferson, where she grew up to be buried with "her people" as William Faulkner says in the opening of As I Lay Dying. Faulkner's novel is set over a six day period in the state of Mississippi.

Faulkner uses a distinct type of narrative style called stream-of-consciousness to go about his story. The technique of stream-of-consciousness allows for the narration to be introduced as if the thoughts are being read as the characters are thinking them. Unlike conventional novels that write from a narrator or one character’s perspective, As I Lay Dying is written from all the characters’ perspectives. Every thought they have is uncensored, chaotic and lacking the presence of an objective narrator. In addition, because it is the character 's thoughts rather than dialogue with another, the first instinct is to believe since the thoughts are usually unfiltered. The idea of the streams of consciousness comes from psychology, turning character psychology into a very important idea that is more complex than traditional writing. However, this style of text makes the readers have to formulate connections with the book in order to understand and follow it. This creates the multiple ideas that Faulkner presents,

William Faulkners reveals to us a family who is in neediness, and have a few inconveniences and battles. William Faulkner utilizes mental pictures to exhibit a request of focal subjects like being mindful of and financial condition among a few others. From the essential monologue, you may recognize and allowance of sensual appeal, they're an influential prospect all through the novel. One in the majority of the subjects in "As I Lay Dying" is a relationship between human and nature. Nature plays a vital role in this Novel; William Faulkner uses mental images to disclose a number of the character to animals.

As I Lay Dying is a novel I enjoy not because it is regarded as a great work of literature, but because the novel is blunt and captured me with its simplicity, yet perplexity. While reading the first section of the novel I became intrigued by the details Darl was describing as he set the scene (Faulkner 3). The details help me step into the world being narrated. The language used by the characters is simple, but it is useful in portraying the story, as well as, allowing the reader to get lost in the novel. Although the dialogue of the characters is written based on southern pronunciation, it intrigues me as a reader (Bleikasten 23). The intriguing part is while I am reading

As Robert Kennedy once said, “I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil” (Kennedy). Money and wealth contribute to the image a person presents. In a world based on standards such as those, the wealthy will seem to be superior to the poor and that almost never ends in a positive way. William Faulkner, author of As I Lay Dying, was aware of the effects of poverty and took the opportunity to use his characters to depict poverty 's effects. The novel takes place in Yoknapatawpha County, which is inspired by Lafayette County in Mississippi, an area close to where Faulkner spent a majority of his life. The novel is depicted as being similar to events encountered by Faulkner in his own life, one being the