As I Lay Dying Final Project Explanation

1. Which are the most intelligent and sympathetic voices in the novel? With whom do you most and least identify? Is Faulkner controlling your closeness to some characters and not others? How is this done, given the seemingly equal mode of presentation for all voices?

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

My Jeff Wall inspired photo is entitled “The Everlasting Search”. I chose to center my photo around the themes of identity and visibility vs. invisibility. Identity plays a key role in the narrator’s life from the beginning of the novel when he tells his the story of his grandfather, until the end of the novel when he is willing to live in a hole until there is a change made to the racial oppression. My photo was taken in the dark to represent the narrator’s thoughts that often occur in the dark. For example, when the narrator contemplates his life, he thinks, “For the first time, lying there in the dark, I could glimpse the possibility of being more than a member of a race” (355).

Foster shared that in pieces of literature the quest is one of the most fundamental conventions. Typically reader's view quests in scenarios involving a knight in shining armour, a dragon, and a damsel in distress. However, once those layers are peeled back, the reader is exposed to the deeper meaning of the journey. Foster reveals that the reason quests are vital in literature is that they often depict a discovery, such as self-knowledge. In William Faulkner’s novel this concept is mirrored to share the story of the Bundren family and their challenging journey to lay Addie Bundren to rest in Jefferson. If a person were to merely skim “As I Lay Dying”, they would initially assume the family’s main focus is to peacefully put their mother to rest, although as the storyline progresses you can detect that the remaining Bundren family

    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

The relationship of Addie and Anse Bundren in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying contrasts Anne Bradstreet’s To My Dear and Loving Husband. The contrast of emotion in these literary works shows a perfect foil in these couples. Faulkner characterizes the Bundren’s relationship as dysfunctional, there isn’t any true love in their marriage. Whereas, Bradstreet writes about the abundance of love she has for her husband.

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).

In William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, trying to find and express your identity and individuality amongst a large, dysfunctional family can prove difficult, especially with a society that forces its standards and expectations on you as well. Addie Bundren possessed qualities and viewpoints most others did not. She found words useless while actions are what held real meaning, yet her whole life had seemed to be made up of words. As her dying wish, she asked her husband to perform an action – taking her to Jefferson to be buried. Darl Bundren was considered the queer one among the family.

William Faulkner’s use of interior monologue in as As I Lay Dying allows the reader to experience the story from more then one persons perspective. Through the thoughts of Darl Bundren the reader comes to understand what is going on within the family. On the other hand Anse Bundren allows the reader to get a different perspective on the family. The reader gets the perspective of an outsider through Cora Tull’s narration. The make up of these characters as well as others allows the reader to see all sides of the story.

Each female character in As I Lay Dying question what it means to be a woman, and how it affects their place in society. William Faulkner carefully incorporates issues of sexuality and gender roles into his novel, which were also common themes discussed during the 1900’s. By examining Addie Bundren, Dewey Dell Bundren and Cora Tull one can see that each of their gender roles was clearly defined. All three women search for the meaning of life while exploring ideas of religion and sin. Faulkner shows the expectations placed on women and how it affected each of their individual identities. By using topics such as pregnancy, marriage, motherhood and sex one can easily view As I Lay Dying from a feminist lens, and see the difficulties women faced in the rural south during this time period.

I found the image describing the little girls to be the most vivid because of the words used. The descriptive words used give the sense of a clear image in my head.

Ever since the election season of 1972, presidential primaries have become “the dominant means of selecting the two major party candidates.”i[i] The primary system is one in which the eligible voters of each state do one of the following: 1) Vote for a presidential candidate to run for their party in the general election. 2) Vote for a delegate pledged to vote for a certain candidate at the party’s national convention. As intended, this process would bring the candidate selection processes out into the open and “let the people vote for the candidate of their choice.”ii[ii] On the surface, this may look very democratic (and admittedly, in some instances it was/is), but upon closer

In William Faulkner s As I Lay Dying, the reader meets all seven members of the Bundren family, along with others in their town, while confronted with the death of Addie Bundren. Prevalent to the story, the psychological critical reading theory is the understanding of a character's thoughts and feelings. As a reader, acknowledging those thoughts can create a better understanding of the novel and explain the characters actions. The novel's multiple narrators allow the audience to see each character's perspective and grief that impacts their individual psyches. These multiple perspectives confirm that reading William Faulkner s, As I Lay Dying through the psychological reading theory allows the readers to understand the characters true motivations

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.

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.