Insanity In As I Lay Dying

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.

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.

“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.

His family wasfinancially stable, but his father, Murry, was an alcoholic. Their family dinners were done silentand Murry unexpectedly left town for a couple of days and then came back. Faulkner’s mother,Maud, was an independent, hardheaded woman. Murry and Maud fought really often. WilliamFaulkner’s books explore family dynamics, race, gender, and social class. Faulkner was somewhat misfit. It is said that he used to invent stories about himself. (“As I Lay Dying Analysis”).As I Lay Dying was a required to read in Pulaski County High School, a high school inSomerset, Kentucky as a reading assignment in an advanced English class. The book waschallenged because the book contains profanity and a part about masturbation. School boardmembers were concerned for the book’s language and dialect. Central High School in Loisville,Kentucky decided to ban the book for profanity and confusion on the existence of God (“Bannedand/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20thCentury”). Some of the bans were quickly reversed, but some remained banned (Baldassarro,“As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner”). “Then I would wait until they all went to sleep so I could lie with my shirt-tail up,hearing them asleep, feeling myself without touching myself, feeling the cool silence blowingupon my parts and wondering if Cash was yonder in the darkness doing it too, had been doing itperhaps for

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

She becomes a wife and a mother. She loves her children and they adore her. When she grows old they will take of her, and when she dies, they long for her the rest of their days. The concept of such a desired and completed journey of motherhood and womanhood is dismantled in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. On a spectrum of maternity, characters Cora Tull, Addie Bundren and her daughter Dewey Dell each represent a different degree. Cora is a dedicated mother, Addie struggles to accept the idea of motherhood, and Dewey Dell rejects the role altogether. Through these female characters, Faulkner also aims to point out the absurdity of the universal experience of womanhood.

Despite the fact that human beings are oftentimes reluctant to admit it, it is a fact of life that one of the most fundamental aspects of human nature is self-interest. Selfishness pervades everyday life, no matter what efforts are made to deny and rationalize its existence. In the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, the unique method handling the death of Addie that each character uses exemplifies the inherent selfishness apparent in human nature and outlines the various emotions that accompany the death of a loved one.

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.

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 I Lay Dying covers the story of a family as they journey to bury the mother, Addie, in her hometown after her death. They all go through the same situations but each experience different emotions and thoughts. They express these through the language they use. What each character says as well as how he/she says it lets the reader see the

William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, tells the story of a family that journeys cross-country with the intentions to find a proper resting place for their mother, Addie Bundren. After reading for only a short time, it becomes clear that two of her sons, Jewel and Darl, play a much larger role in the story than the other siblings. One could find many good points to support either character being labeled as the protagonist of the story, such as the various tensions that can clearly be seen between them. That being said, Darl is, without a doubt, the best possible choice. He is forced to overcome more obstacles, including alienation from his entire family, than any other character, and is truly a changed person by the end of the novel.

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.

Many mothers, regardless of age or situation, share sympathetic life ideals. They all share the common goal of raising their children wholesome; they want to create an environment of love, nurture, and support for their children as well. A mother’s effort to implant good values in her children is perpetual; they remain optimistic and hope that their children would eventually become prosperous. However, some women were not fit to be mothers. Thus, two different roles of a mother are portrayed in As I Lay Dying written by William Faulkner. Faulkner uses the literary technique of first person narrative with alternating perspectives. By doing so, Faulkner adds authenticity and the ability to relate (for some) to the two characters Addie

In As I Lay Dying, an important question the reader grapples with is simply why? Why all of these unnecessary hardships just to get to Jefferson? Is the Bundrens’ journey to Jefferson driven by familial duty, or familial love? It’s really driven by neither. Familial duty is the guise in this novel for each family member to get to town—namely, Anse—for some sort of ulterior motive. Anse is the driving force for the other members of the family to find a reason to go to Jefferson. The only person in the Bundren family to convey actual familial love is Darl, who tries to burn his mother’s body—which, we are reminded—makes him insane. Yes, they get to Jefferson and bury Addie’s body, but was she even really a person anymore, or

William Faulkner’s unconventional writing style is widely renowned for his disregard of literary rules and his keen ability to peer into the psychological depths of his characters. His novel As I Lay Dying is no exception to his signature style. This book sets forth the death of Addie Bundren, her family’s journey through Yoknapatawpha County to bury her with her relatives in Jefferson, Mississippi, and examines each character in depth from a variety of perspectives. While this journey wreaks havoc among members of the family, As I Lay Dying serves as a dark reminder that life is to be lived and that happiness is within reach.