Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying in constructed as such where each narrative of an event overlaps, showing bits and pieces of what actually transpired, and the ways characters choose to construct a memory.

The most obvious example is Peabody’s visit to Anse’s home. In Anse’s account, he explicitly tells the doctor: “I never sent for you, I take you to witness I never sent for you,” to which the doctor agrees. (37) In Peabody’s account, which is a more detailed and trustworthy memory of the event, he explicitly comments that he realized the gravity of the visit, considering the fact that Anse himself (a man who passively has his neighbor Vernon Tull handle all of his responsibilities) would call for the doctor.

Anse automatically becomes an unreliable narrator and the readers must question his habits and views. The most notable description of Anse given by the other characters in the story is that he is constantly rubbing his knees and gazing off into the distance. The rubbing of the knees could mean calling attention to his injury and a reminder that he cannot work because of this injury. He is often looking into the distance, and admits that it “seems like [he] can’t get [his] mind on nothing” and that he “just cant seem to get no heart into anything.” (33,38)

The father’s passivity changes after the death of his wife. The change is almost immediate: he starts ordering his children around taking on responsibilities that he had never took part in before. Perhaps, Addie’s strength and ability “to make them right, man and boy,” when she was physically and emotionally alive, had intimidated and kept Anse quiet. (38) Perhaps, Anse’s own theory of horizontal creatures being made to move and vertical beings made to stay static is being represented by the bedridden Addie, who is lying horizontally.

The passive father and bedridden mother is reminiscent of Faulkner’s Jason and Caroline Compson in The Sound and the Fury. Furthermore, on the surface, Jewel’s anger towards others who he thinks is coasting off his hard work is like the younger Jason Compson, the speculative Darl is like Quentin (both are slight stand ins for Faulkner), Dewey Dell, the girl who shouldn’t be pregnant is Caddy, and the cow that keeps mooing is Benjy (just kidding on that one – though an essay could be written on how the cow is Benjy). Of course these character similarities are only on the surface and a deeper analysis on the extreme differences of these characters is possible, but one can’t deny the similarity of the pregnancy crisis and how in each novel, the speculative brother has gotten himself so intertwined in the sister’s troubles.

In each case, his sister’s pregnancy has set Quentin and Darl into an existential crisis contemplating ethics. The female characters however don’t experience the same emotional and intimate revelations or meditations. Perhaps its not that Faulkner does not allow for his female characters to have such developed ideas, and perhaps its not even that Faulkner doesn’t feel comfortable writing the intimate perspective of a female. Instead, maybe it is that Faulkner realizes that during a pregnancy, the woman, compared to the man, has a lot more to tend to. Dewey Dell tells the moaning cow, “You got to wait a little while, then I’ll tend to you…you got to wait, now. I got more to do than I can tend to.” (61)

As I Lay Dying presents its readers with a multitude of different characters. No two characters are the same, each has a distinct personality and voice. One extremely distinct character is Darl Bundren. Darl is strange, distant, and extremely sadistic. Throughout the story, Darl tortures his siblings, Dewy Dell and Jewel and he doesn’t seem to have any motivation behind it .

“It was Darl, the one that folks say is queer, lazy, pottering around about the place no better than Anse…(p. 24)” Early on in the novel, we learn that society views Darl in a certain way. Cora, who is not a reliable narrator but gives the impression of being involved in the town gossip states herself, it is Darl whom the town finds strange. One of the characters who is at war with Darl is Jewel. It is stated often Addie, the dying mother, favors Jewel. Addie and Jewel share a deeper connection which everyone in the family is aware of, “He is a head taller than any of the rest of us, always was. I told them that’s why ma always whipped him and petted him more. Because he was peakling around the house more. That’s why she named him Jewel l told them (p.18).” On what is believed to be Addie’s last day, Darl convinces Anse, he and Jewel must go to town to make three dollars. Money is important to Anse, because of this Darl knows Anse will say the boys need to go to town knowing Jewel will want to be by Addie’s side and she will want Jewel there. Dewey Dell notices Darl’s actions and questions him about it. “‘When is she going to die?’ I say. “Before we get back,’ he says. ‘Then why are taking Jewel?’ I say. ‘I want him to help me load,’ he says (p.28).” While on the road, Darl taunts Jewel, “‘Jewel’ I say, ‘do you know that Addie Bundren is going to die? Addie Bundren is going to die (p.40)?” Darl some how seems to take enjoyment from the pain he is causing Jewel. He also shows no remorse to his mother’s death.  

It is mentioned by most characters in the book in reference to Darl’s oddities. Dewey Dell says, “And I did not think that Darl would, that sits at the supper table with his eyes gone further than the food and the lamp, full of the land dug out of his skull and the holes filled with distance beyond the land (p.27).” Darl is often  to referred to as staring out into a distance. He is on a different plane from the other characters and is never fully present. In one scene, Darl is the one who tells the readers about Addie dying and the events occuring at home. The question is, how does Darl know what is happening.

As I lay Dying is a novel with many interesting characters. One of the most controversial is Darl Bundren. He is a distant, pensive character who takes enjoyment from causing those around him pain.

Okay, so Natchez is not technically in Yoknapatawpha (Adams Co., not Lafayette Co., which is the “real” county that Yoknapatawpha refers to), but it’s close enough.  Those who have read Go Down, Moses will instantly recognize the uncanny return of Faulkner’s plot elements in this story from the Adams County Democrat.  Others may simply appreciate that the reporter’s name is Vershal Hogan, the judge’s name Forrest “Al” Johnson, and the town’s dog catcher knows of a “secret sanctuary” for omnivores with a taste for fiberboard.

I’ll also point out the obvious, that not all Faulkner students in major metropolitan areas get access to freshly pressed examples of Southern grotesquerie.  Whatever they’re paying me, it’s not enough.  For those whose appetites are whetted, check out the excellent Pop South blog from Karen Cox, a historian of popular culture and/in the South.

Deceptively, the title As I Lay Dying, would suggest a first person narration from the dying character. However, midway through the novel we are yet to hear from Addie Bundren directly. Her death is still obviously central to the novel and the entire Bundren family. It is clear through the descriptions provided by multiple narrators that she is indeed dying but the cause of her illness isn’t mentioned. When the doctor is finally called to her aid, he is too late to help her and it seems as though his visit in fact brings on her death.

Upon arriving Peabody observes that Addie “has been dead these ten days. I suppose it’s having been a part of Anse for so long that she cannot even make that change, if change it be” (43). The idea that death might not even be a change from life is jarring and not only suggests that Addie’s life was less than fulfilling but also challenges the value of life in general. Peabody’s observation also implies that once Addie married Anse, she ceased to be a single entity and became a part of him, fundamentally changing her identity. The idea of identity or personhood is further worried by describing her as already dead. Peabody seems to be dividing Addie’s body from her mind, suggesting a disconnect between corporeal and cerebral identity.

This distinction between body and mind is furthered in Peabody’s narrative: “I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind—and that of the minds of the ones who suffer the bereavement” (44). This passage suggests that death is a mental decision and not even necessarily a personal one, an idea that is particularly strange coming from a doctor who should be preoccupied with the physical manifestations of Addie’s illness. It is interesting to note that Peabody can already hear the sound of Cash’s adze as he approaches the Bundren home, which ties into the idea that death is ‘a function of the minds of the ones who suffer the bereavement.’ It seems as though there is a cause and effect connection between Addie’s family believing she is dying and Addie’s death.

To further the division between mind and body, Peabody’s descriptions of Addie lack a description of her body almost entirely: “Beneath the quilt she is no more than a bundle of rotten sticks” (44). Addie is obviously emaciated as a result of her illness, but doctor provides descriptions in metaphors rather than medical observations, diminishing the importance of her physicality. Similarly, Jewel describes Addie’s hands as dirty roots: “her hands lying on the quilt like two of them roots dug up” (15). Before death, her body seems to lack normal corporeal characteristics and instead seems to be composed of the same wooden material with which Cash is building her coffin.

There are a number of other examples in the novel of people being described as or likened to things and animals. Jewel compares Addie to a tree, Anse equates man to trees, Tull sees Anse as a tree, Jewel is often described as wooden. The differences between animate and inanimate and man and animal are blurred. Darl calls Addie a horse, while Vardaman calls her a fish. It is difficult to determine if the novel is trying to diminish the significance of the body or of human life, or if Addie’s body is a site for cultural inscription. As a wife and mother, her body was limited to those interpretations. Her dead body seems to become a site for the selfish desires of the members of her family, even more of a violation of her identity.

Peabody also examines the meaning of death: “The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town” (44). This description of death as a form of relocation or movement and the body as a space to inhabit, suggestions that perhaps Addie’s body does act as a site for her family to play out their individual desires. Perhaps the novel is suggesting that even in death Addie continues to be violated by the expectations of her family and perhaps patriarchal society in general.

Laura Nuzzo

The aspect of death in As I Lay Dying is similar to the aspect of time in The Sound and The Fury. In The Sound and the Fury Quentin tells us “Because no battle is ever won…They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory us an illusion of philosophes and fools” (Faulkner 76). Time in this novel is found to be an inevitable truth, and in As I Lay Dying so is death. Although they knew that their mother was dying it seemed like just another inevitable truth. They were creating her eternal resting place because they seemed to just be accepting it. Of course it’s sad when a family member dies, and the family was distraught but they accepted the death as truth. In one of the first scenes expressing her death they all harbored their own sorrow but they weren’t hysterical. They’re not sociopaths, of course they were upset, but they didn’t seem to break down. “God’s will be done” (52) Pa says. This shows that time and religion can be tied together as well. In a Christian viewpoint time, illness, death, and any bump in the road is out of mortal control. The only difference between the two is that time is a mortal creation. But like death we cannot fight it.

If you want to go further into this there is the fact that a storm is coming that is constantly looming over their heads. Which is another matter that is so out of their control, and like this death, all they can do is prepare for the worst. This particular storm can be representative of many things, sorrow, anger, unpredictability. Storms can be soft, storms can be violent, and storms can create and destroy life. We can’t stop rain from coming, all we can do is wait until it passes, and be grateful if it doesn’t destroy us. After Addie’s death, Vardaman is drowning his sorrow in the rain, helping Cash build this coffin. Vardaman seems to be the only one furious and sorrowful of this death. He just kept working on the coffin in the rain, not caring about the unpredictably of the storm. When the coffin is finished its dawn, the rain is over. They made it to see another day, no matter what happens, the sun will always rise and set. Under all this chaos and randomness of this world, it seems that we can always count on the sun rising and setting. At dawn it’s a new day and everything is just more peaceful. All the sorrow was put into another days work.