William Faulkner 's As I Lay Dying

Family Dysfunction is the main theme in As I Lay Dying. The reader can see this from the beginning when Cash is building a coffin outside his mother’s window, where she can see it. Surprisingly, Addie does not seem offended of her son building her casket outside the window. Right before she dies, she asks her husband to do her a favor and

"A Rose for Emily" is a fictional short story written by 1949 Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner. Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is about an aristocratic woman who lived a very secretive and unusual life. Miss Emily had always been very sheltered by her father. He was the only man in her life and after his death, her behavior became even more unnatural. However her father's death cannot be seen as the only cause of Miss Emily's insanity. Miss Emily's behavior was also influenced by her own expectations of herself, the townspeople's lack of authority over her, and her neighbor's infatuation with her.

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.

William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying presents a broken family whose members are not all sound of mind. They all present different ways in which their sense of self can be viewed as broken. Even though there is no forefront hero depicted within the novel there is definitely evidence that suggests that some of the heroes are capable of heroic characteristics. Though there is rampant selfishness and immorality some redeeming qualities of the Bundren family shine through.

A Rose for Emily was Faulkner 's first short story to be published in a national magazine. It was then published in a collection entitled These 13 in 1931 and went on to become one of the most collected American short stories. This short story is a Gothic horror and a tragedy. It is about a lonely Southern woman who has become mental ill after having an unfortunate childhood and being isolated from reality. We can see in the quote from William Faulkner about how “you can be more careless, you can put more trash in [a novel] and be excused for it. In a short story that 's next to the poem, almost every word has to be almost exactly right.” that Faulkner had mixed feelings about the short story as the best form for his narrative. A Rose for Emily has a complex plot and good pacing. Faulkner only gives information needed to foreshadow the murder at the ending or to allow the audience into Miss Emily’s life, so that we could further understand her.

In As I Lay Dying, the Bundren family travels from Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi to Jefferson. Addie’s family hails from Jefferson, the “big city”, and her wish is be buried with them. Yoknapatawpha County is a fictional county in Mississippi based closely on the people and places of Faulkner's native Lafayette County. As I Lay Dying is set in the 1920s where it’s located in the typical southern atmosphere with a generally humid and hot climate. It is rural, dirty, poor, and worn down, and is the source of much turmoil for many of Faulkner's characters. The setting enhanced the mood of the family and lack of motivation to properly respect their mother’s wishes. Faulkner also depicts a natural environment that is at best indifferent and at worst actively hostile, bringing floods, heat, and intrusive buzzards. The novel hails not only as a voyeuristic eye into the rural slums of Mississippi, but as a pastoral novel

Throughout the novel, we see that almost every person’s name in the Bundren family has a meaning, and every person has a symbol. The last name has a meaning itself. Bundren sounds like burden, and that is exactly what the family is to almost everyone. Starting with Anse, Faulkner uses his name to define the word “anserous”. Anserous means resembling a goose; silly; simple. In Addie’s chapter, she describes him as “a tall bird hunched in the cold weather” (pg. 170). This explains Anse’s goose like stature. His symbol throughout the novel is self-greed. Anse states after Addie’s death, “But now I can get them teeth” (pg. 111). This just proves how selfish he is and does not care about his wife’s passing, only about his new teeth. Addie’s name is very simple and does not have a meaning, but her symbol is deep. She is always looking out of the window at her coffin being built while she is lying in her bed. I believe Faulkner was showing how badly Addie wants to go to the other side. Faulkner uses powerful imagery, “It was nigh toward daybreak when we drove the last nail and toted it into the house, where she was laying on the bed with the window open and the rain blowing on her again” (pg. 73). This shows how sad Addie is

Death is recognized and handled differently by many cultures. William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying puts insight into how one family in the middle of the Great Depression deals with their mother’s death. Addie’s death characterizes Darl and Cash, illuminating Cash’s need for order and Darl’s hungry curiosity and deep thought. These two men show how grief can affect people differently.

The conversation to redefine gender roles is often dominated by polarized extremes. In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner explores the social and psychological effects of the traditional southern female gender role with the character Addie Bundren. Through Addie’s narrative, Faulkner presents the struggles of a woman as she lives the oppressive consequences of expressing her sexuality: childbearing and motherhood. The same consequences are reflected in the destruction of the life of Addie’s unwed daughter, Dewey Dell. Through these women’s stories ,Faulkner reveals the damaging effect of institutional patriarchy in women’s lives as storyteller rather than feminist.

Faulkner’s use of southern gothic writing style helps the reader build a mental depiction of Miss Emily. When the town sent their ambassadors to discuss the taxes that were owed, Faulkner described Miss Emily as “bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water” (2182). This description gives the reader the sense that the character is not well. Faulkner’s description that Miss Emily looked bloated achieves the desired effect on the reader to show how hideous she appears. This graphic description, combined with the author’s depressing description of the parlor (2182), makes the reader think of death. The reader gets the sense of being in a funeral parlor which helps to strengthen Faulkner’s narrative.

Marc Hewson's article “'My Children Were of Me Alone'”: Maternal Influence in Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying'” demonstrates Addie Bundren's affect on her family members even after her death, particularly with negative undertones. The author claims that most important character is Addie. I agree with this as the main conflict revolves around her. Anse Bundren exemplifies these negative effects of her death.

William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying is a series of interior monologues told in the perspective of fifteen narrators. While most of the narrators are on a journey together with a common purpose to bury Addie Bundren, as the story unfolds through each narrator’s unique perspective, each one’s hidden agenda and self-interest is exposed. The author can achieve a greater depth of individual character development through each narrator’s own voice. Faulkner’s literary approach of using multiple voices to tell the story, which is itself fractured, underscores the characters lack of unity.

William Faulkner is a writer from Mississippi. Faulkner is a very famous writer with most of his most famous works being short stories. Two of his most popular short stories are “A rose for Emily” along with “Barn Burning”. Faulkner has many other popular works, but “Barn Burning” was one of his well-known stories because of the many different of elements of literature in which Faulkner chose to include. Faulkner was known as a writer who could properly convey many different elements of literature, such as symbolism, conflict, tone, and many other elements of plot within his stories. In “Barn Burning”, William Faulkner most commonly uses symbolism and conflict to emphasize the obstacles that Sarty has to face in his youth years.

Alexis Rosko Eng. 352 Dr. Frechie March 25, 2015 William Faulkner, American prose author, revolutionized narratives in the modern era of literature. He became known for his experimental use of narrative voice and inventive techniques utilizing the mind and memory in monologue-esque storylines. With his use of multiple single character accounts or perceptions, Faulkner casually merges together several different voices to develop the story as a whole similar to Thomas Wolfe’s “The Lost Boy.” Readers see this in Faulkner’s

William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is a novel originally published in 1930 depicting a rural family of seven from Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, who are awaiting the impending death of the mother figure, Addie Bundren. She has procured a promise from her husband, Anse, to take her body to her hometown of Jefferson, Mississippi for burial, a forty-mile distance. Upon her death, the family places her body into a homemade coffin, loads it onto a mule-pulled farm wagon, and carts it to Jefferson in the July heat. Every inconceivable obstacle occurs during the journey magnifying the family’s dysfunctions to the point where the book borders on being comedic. Eventually, Addie gets interred in Jefferson; however, the journey brings the entire family’s imperfections and secrets to light. Dysfunctional verbal and physical communication amongst the Bundrens, most notably the parents, is a salient theme. Both Addie and Anse Bundren have opposing ways of demonstrating both actions and words that contributes to their dysfunctional marriage.