Preview

Critical History of "As I Lay Dying"

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
3001 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Critical History of "As I Lay Dying"
Nashia Horne
28 November 2011
English 290
Critical History Assignment

Many of William Faulkner’s books, especially ‘As I Lay Dying’ focused on the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. The themes of his and other Southern authors included: a common Southern history, the significance of family, a sense of community and one’s role within it, the Church and its burdens and rewards, racial tension, land and the promise it brings, one’s social class and place, and, sometimes, the use of the Southern dialect. The criticism of the novel has changed over the years with critics using everything from Psychoanalytic theory to Marxist theory to explain the importance of language and the historical content behind the novel. In his article, “Voice in Narrative Texts: The Example of As I Lay Dying,” Stephen M. Ross investigates the use of voice through the perspective of the fifteen first person narratives in As I Lay Dying. Ross highlights the use of two distinct types of voice: mimetic and textual. Ross goes on to examine mimetic on three levels of discourse, the first being dialogue. Dialogue represents the narrative voice that is heard, so to speak, by other characters. Ross also concedes that dialogue can never completely be represented as it is being portrayed in an entirely new medium, the written, as opposed to the spoken, word. The second mimetic discourse examined by Ross is the use of narrative. However, Ross argues that the narrative discourse is inconsistent and implausible, and aids in the breaking down of the actual voice of the narrator. There is a disconnect between what the narrator could portray as a person versus as a narrator. The third and final mimetic discourse is authorial discourse. This authorial discourse disturbs and confuses the relationship between creator and speaker. In these ways, Ross argues that As I Lay Dying both enhances and challenges mimetic voice. The second part of Ross’s article investigates textual voice. This



Cited: Adamowski, T. H. " 'Meet Mrs. Bundren ': As I Lay Dying--Gentility, Tact, and Psychoanalysis." University of Toronto Quarterly 49.3 (1980): 205-227. Atkinson, Ted. “The Ideology of Autonomy: Form and Function in As I Lay Dying.” The Faulkner Journal. 21.1/2 (2005/2006): 28-50. Bergman, Jill. "This Was the Answer to It ': Sexuality and Maternity in As I I Lay Dying." Mississippi Quarterly 49.3 (1996): 393-408. Hale, Dorothy J. "As I Lay Dying 's Heterogeneous Discourse." NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 23.1 (1989): 5-23. Hewson, Marc. " 'My Children Were of Me Alone ': Maternal Influence in Faulkner 's As I Lay Dying." Mississippi Quarterly 53.4 (2000): 551-567. Lester, Cheryl. "As They Lay Dying: Rural Depopulation and Social Dislocation as a Structure of Feeling." Faulkner Journal 21.1/2 (2005/2006): 28-50. Palliser, Charles. "Predestination and Freedom in As I Lay Dying." American Literature 58.4 (1986): 557-573. Pettey, Homer B. "Perception and the Destruction of Being in As I Lay Dying." Faulkner Journal 19.1 (2003): 27-46. Pierce, Constance. "Being, Knowing, and Saying in the 'Addie ' Section of Faulkner 's As I Lay Dying." Twentieth Century Literature 26.3 (1980): 294-305. Ross, Stephen M. " 'Voice ' in Narrative Texts: The Example of As I Lay Dying." PMLA 94.2 (1979): 300-310. Slaughter, Carolyn Norman. "As I Lay Dying: Demise of Vision." American Literature 61.1 (1989): 16-30.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In As I Lay Dying, author William Faulkner introduces the audience to Jewel Bundren, a violent and harsh bastard who is no less than a “jewel” to his mother. He is an outcast, a third son, and the product of an affair. However, his mother Addie, who has been stifled by her lackluster marriage and the conformity of the church, sees Jewel as a gift. She finds joy in the sin and rebellion that created her son, and the more Jewel sins and rebels, the more she feels linked to him. However, Jewel is much deeper, emotionally, than his “wooden-face”. Though Faulkner leads the audience to misperceive Jewel as immoral and evil, the author later shows that the character is actually very emotional and caring; Jewel just reveals his affections in strange ways.…

    • 1560 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The novel As I Lay Dying, is a story about a family with conflicting agendas are leaving town to grant their mother’s wishes to be buried in Jefferson. Suggesting that each character is motivated by greed, the author, William Faulkner tells the story in a way reveals that ulterior motives of each character as they embark on journey. Which sheds light on the selfish perspective of the world in which even the respect and well being of a loved one is sacrificed for individual accomplishments…

    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Toni Morrison and William Faulkner are two of America’s most successful writers who seem to share many similar themes and motifs, Especially between Morrison’s Beloved and Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Both of these novels use multiple narrators, present their characters with struggles of their own identity, and show the difficulties of the people born into the lowest social class.…

    • 1271 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    As I Lay Dying, a novel written by William Faulkner, illustrates the harrowing journey of a family as they travel across Mississippi to bury their dead mother. Faulkner introduces multiple characters throughout the book, each with definite personalities and mannerisms. The complicated portrayal of each indivdual is achieved through the unique stream of conciousness style of speech that accompanies every character. Faulkner uses specific language and stylistic choices to characterize the various family members and define their personalites.…

    • 1106 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner each chapter is written through a different character's perspective. The book follows the Bundren's family on their journey to fulfill Addie's dying wish. There were many motifs and themes throughout the book but one of the most important ones was the use of symbolism. Cash's tools and Anse's farm equipment symbolizing their stability becomes threatened from the carelessness of the Bundren's journey. The coffin stood the burden of dysfunction the Addie's death put on the family. There were also a couple instances where Faulkner used animals to symbolize emotions and as a comparison to a couple of the characters.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As I Lay Dying Symbolism

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, is a story about the Bundren family’s journey to bury Mrs. Bundren. Most of the family, however, has another reason to go to where Mrs. Bundren is being buried. The book itself is not meant to be taken seriously; Faulkner intended the book to be somewhat humorous. Because of the conflict between how the book is written and the book’s story, many scenes in the book that normally would be taken extremely seriously are now not as serious due to the book’s ‘dark humor.’ The comic aspects of the book tone down the grotesque scenes in the book. Three examples of these modified scenes include Cash’s broken leg, Anse’s teeth, and Vardaman’s understanding of death.…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying centers on the absurd journey that the Bundren family takes to Jefferson to bury their dead mother, Addie. Faulkner frames this journey through the lens of various narrators with a specific focus on the characters’ innermost thoughts and deep interior monologues. Although the novel’s plot revolves around the Bundren family, characters outside of the family are essential to provide an objective view. Without these outside characters, much of Faulkner’s commentary would be lost. One of the most important characters outside of the Bundren family is Cora Tull. It is through her character that Faulkner makes his most potent commentary on the ideas of sin, salvation, and hypocrisy. With the strong irony that is employed throughout the novel, Faulkner twists Cora’s seemingly ideal moral character and uses her instead as an example of what not to be. Through the juxtaposition of Addie and Cora, Faulkner seeks to highlight religious hypocrisy and show that Cora’s idea of religious salvation is faulty. Instead, Faulkner believes (as demonstrated through Addie) that true salvation consists of an enlightened state of self-awareness and concrete understanding of one’s own sin.…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is a Modernist comedic tragedy about the Bundren family’s difficult journey to Jefferson to bury the matriarch of their family, Mrs. Addie Bundren. Mr. Faulkner separates this story into fifty-nine sections with fifteen different narrators in order to emphasize the characters’ relationships with one another, as well as each character’s perspective on their current circumstances. Darl, the second of Addie’s five children, narrates nineteen of these sections, making him a very important character. Towards the end of the story, he burns a barn, attempting to burn Addie’s body in the process, getting…

    • 1610 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cited: Miller, Richard E. “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Ways of reading: an Anthology for Writers. Ed. David…

    • 1224 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    <br>This statement is not adequate in connection with William Faulkner's novel, As I Lay Dying. Though many points of view are expressed through the use of interior monologue, even when compiled, they cannot serve as an "objective" view of what really happened.…

    • 1077 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    Gogolʹ, Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich, Constance Garnett, and Clifford Odets. Dead Souls. New York: Modern Library, 1936. Print.…

    • 3137 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is narrated by Death who tells the story of Liesel Meminger. The reader can learn a lot about Death through his narration. Consequently this essay focuses on the question: what effect may Death’s narration in The Book Thief have on the reader and what does the reader learn about Death? Death is a metafictional and omniscient narrator who sometimes speaks in first person. The different styles make up a freestyle narration, which is unique. The metafictional narrative catches the reader’s attention since it directly addresses the reader. The omniscience of…

    • 3915 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bibliography: Modern American Literature. "Because I could not stop for Death". University of Illinois. 14 Apr 2007.…

    • 1454 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although almost every character in the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner could be considered morally ambiguous , or seen as having mixed morals, Addie Bundren tops the list. She narrates only one chapter in the book which is juxtaposed by the description of her by other narrators in preceding and following chapters. Faulkner makes a strong point this way concerning moral ambiguity as it seems, in the novel, that she is the pivot point on which other characters’ morals lie.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    • Thornborrow, J & Coates J. (2006) The Sociolinguistics of Narrative. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company…

    • 2963 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays

Related Topics