William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" Essay

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.

William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is a story that uses flashbacks to foreshadow a surprise ending. The story begins with the death of a prominent old woman, Emily, and finishes with the startling discovery that Emily as been sleeping with the corpse of her lover, whom she murdered, for the past forty years. The middle of the story is told in flashbacks by a narrator who seems to represent the collective memory of an entire town. Within these flashbacks, which jump in time from ten years past to forty years past, are hidden clues which prepare the reader for the unexpected ending, such as hints of Emily's insanity, her odd behavior concerning the deaths of loved ones, and the evidence that the

     William Faulkner is one of America's most talked about writers and his work should be included in any literary canon for several reasons. After reading a few of his short stories, it becomes clear that Faulkner's works have uniqueness to them. One of the qualities that make William Faulkner's writings different is his close connection with the South. Gwendolyn Charbnier states, 'Besides the sociological factors that influence Faulkner's work, biographical factors are of great importance…'; (20). Faulkner's magnificent imagination led him to create a fictional Mississippi county named Yoknapatawpha, which includes every detail from square mileage of the county to the break down of

Vardaman and Jake had their lives completely changed by an identity crisis that was caused by personal tragedies. In the novel, As I lay Dying by William Faulkner, a young boy named Vardaman experiences the death of his sick and fragile mother. Jake, from the novel, The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway also experiences a loss when his penis was shot off in the war. Jake and Vardaman do not relatively experience the same events nor react in the same manner, but they both experience the feeling of identity loss. A person who experiences a loss of identity often has a change in personality and feels that they do not have a full understanding of who they are. The authors of these two characters were able to present this idea of identity loss,

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

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.

    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

Another symbol Faulkner unobtrusively introduces is the crayon portrait of Emily's father looking down at her during the funeral. Throughout her whole life and even now in death her father had been and always would be there, watching, judging and influencing her life, knowing she had been daddy's little girl to the end. Taking some perverse pleasure in

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

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.

William Faulkner released his famous book, As I Lay Dying, in 1930 (Eldridge x). The thirties were a hard time for everyone involved; citizen, soldiers, government workers no one was excluded from the hardships of this excruciating time in America. The reason Americans were suffering so much was due to very recently coming out of the First World War, and then shortly after, falling into a nationwide state of economic depression. In 1932 employment rates were only “sixty percent of what they once were in 1929” (Eldridge xxi). Not only was the depression looming over American citizens, but many were still recovering from the effects WWI had on the world. World War I ended in 1919, which seemed to lead to prosperity in the United States of America,

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.

The birth of the modernist movement in American literature was the result of the post-World War I social breakdown. Writers adopted a disjointed fragmented style of writing that rebelled against traditional literature. One such writer is William Faulkner, whose individual style is characterized by his use of “stream of consciousness” and writing from multiple points of view.

Addie Bundren in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying Woman is the source and sustainer of virtue and also a prime source of evil. She can be either; because she is, as man is not, always a little beyond good and evil. With her powerful natural drive and her instinct for the concrete and personal, she does not need to agonize over her decisions. There is no code for her to master, no initiation for her to undergo.

William Faulkner, the eldest son to parents Murry and Maud Butler Falkner, was born in New Albany, Mississippi in 1897. Although Faulkner was not a keen student in high school, which eventually lead to his dropping out before graduation, he was very enthusiastic about undirected learning. After years of studying independently, Faulkner allowed a friend of his family, Phil Stone, to assist him with his academic vocation. This relationship inspired Faulkner and after a short period spent with the Royal Air Force in 1918 he decided to go to university where he began writing and publishing poetry. In 1924 Stone’s financial assistance helped Faulkner publish a