Wikipedia

As I Lay Dying

For other uses, seeAs I Lay Dying (disambiguation).

As I Lay Dyingis a 1930Southern Gothic[1]novel by American authorWilliam Faulkner.Faulkner's fifth novel, it is consistently ranked among the best novels of the 20th century.[2][3][4]The title is derived fromWilliam Marris's 1925 translation ofHomer'sOdyssey,[5]referring to the similar themes of both works.

As I Lay Dying
First edition cover
AuthorWilliam Faulkner
GenreModernist,southern gothic,black comedy
PublisherJonathan Cape& Harrison Smith
Publication date
1930
Preceded byThe Sound and the Fury
Followed bySanctuary
TextAs I Lay Dyingonline

The novel uses astream-of-consciousness writingtechnique,multiple narrators,and varying chapter lengths. The work will enter the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.[a]

Plot summary

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The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her poor, rural family's quest to honor her wish to be buried in her hometown ofJefferson, Mississippias well as the motives—noble or selfish—they show on the journey.

In the novel's opening chapters, Addie is alive but in ill health. She expects to die soon and sits at a window watching as her firstborn child, Cash, builds her coffin. Anse, Addie's husband, waits on the porch, while their daughter, Dewey Dell, fans her mother in the July heat. The night after Addie dies, a heavy rainstorm sets in; rivers rise and wash out bridges that the family will need to cross to get to Jefferson.

The family's trek by wagon begins, with Addie's non-embalmed body in thecoffin.Along the way, Anse and the five children encounter various difficulties. Stubborn Anse frequently rejects any offers of assistance, including meals or lodging, so at times the family goes hungry and sleeps in barns. At other times he refuses to accept loans from people, claiming he wishes to "be beholden to no man", thus manipulating the would-be lender into giving him charity as a gift not to be repaid.

Jewel, Addie's middle child, tries to leave the family after Anse sells Jewel's most prized possession, his horse. Yet Jewel cannot turn his back on his father and siblings through the tribulations of the journey to Jefferson. Cash breaks a leg and winds up riding atop the coffin. He stoically refuses to admit to any discomfort but the family eventually puts a makeshift cast of concrete on his leg. Twice, the family almost loses Addie's coffin—first, while crossing a river on a washed-out bridge (two mules are lost) and then when a fire of suspicious origin starts in the barn where the coffin is being stored for the night.

After nine days, the family arrives in Jefferson, where the stench from the coffin is quickly smelled by the townspeople. In town, family members have different items of business to take care of. Cash's broken leg needs attention. Dewey Dell, for the second time in the novel, goes to a pharmacy, to obtain an abortion that she does not know how to ask for; clerk Skeet MacGowan coerces her into sex in the cellar in exchange for "abortion pills" which are just talcum powder. First, though, Anse wants to borrow some shovels to bury Addie, because that was the purpose of the trip and the family should be together for that. After that happens, Darl, the second eldest and thoughtful, poetic observer of the family, is seized for the arson of the barn and sent to the Mississippi State Insane Asylum in Jackson.[6]With Addie only just buried, Anse forces Dewey Dell to give up the money from Lafe (the man who got her pregnant) for an abortion, which he spends on getting "new teeth" and quickly marries the woman from whom he borrowed the shovels.

As are many of Faulkner's works, the story is set inYoknapatawpha County,Mississippi, which Faulkner referred to as "my apocryphal county", a fictional rendition of thewriter's homeofLafayette Countyin the same state.

Characters

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  • Addie Bundren – Addie is married to Anse and the mother of Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman.
  • Anse Bundren – Anse is Addie's husband, later her widower. He is the father of all the children but Jewel.
  • Cash Bundren – Cash is a skilled and helpfulcarpenterand the eldest son of the family. In his late twenties, he builds Addie's coffin. Throughout the novel, he builds an attachment to his tools and proves to be heroic, but to a fault.
  • Darl Bundren – The second eldest of Addie's children, Darl is about two years younger than Cash. Darl is the most articulate character in the book; he narrates 19 of the 59 chapters. Much of the plot is fueled and narrated by Darl as, throughout the book, he descends into insanity.
  • Jewel Bundren – Jewel is the third of the Bundren children, most likely around nineteen years of age. A half-brother to the other children and the favorite of Addie, he is theillegitimateson of Addie and Reverend Whitfield. No one, other than Addie, seems to know this.
  • Dewey Dell Bundren – Dewey Dell is the only daughter of Anse and Addie Bundren; at seventeen years old, she is the second youngest of the Bundren children. She was impregnated by Lafe and, as the family journeys to Jefferson, she unsuccessfully seeks an abortion.
  • Vardaman Bundren – Vardaman is the youngest Bundren child, somewhere between seven and ten years old.
  • Vernon Tull – Vernon is a good friend of the Bundrens, who appears in the book as a good farmer, less religious than his wife.
  • Cora Tull – Cora is the wife of Vernon Tull. She is very religious and judgmental.
  • Eula Tull – Cora and Vernon's daughter.
  • Kate Tull – Cora and Vernon's other daughter.
  • Peabody – Peabody is the Bundrens' doctor; he narrates two chapters of the book. Anse sends for him shortly before Addie's death, too late for Peabody to do anything more than watch Addie die. Toward the end of the book, when he is working on Cash's leg, Peabody candidly assesses Anse and the entire Bundren family from the perspective of the community at large. Dr. Peabody is also a recurring character in theYoknapatawpha Countyuniverse.
  • Lafe – Lafe is a farmer who has impregnated Dewey Dell and given her $10 to get anabortion.
  • Reverend Whitfield – Whitfield is the local minister with whom Addie had an affair, resulting in the birth of Jewel.
  • Samson – Samson is a local farmer who lets the Bundren family stay with him the first night on their journey to Jefferson. Samson's wife, Rachel, is disgusted with the way the family is treating Addie by dragging her coffin through the countryside.
  • Other narrators: MacGowan, Moseley, and Armstid

Background and literary techniques

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Faulkner said that he wrote the novel from midnight to 4:00 a.m. over the course of six weeks and that he did not change a word of it.[7]Faulkner spent the first eight hours of his twelve-hour shift at theUniversity of Mississippi Power Houseshoveling coal or directing other works and the remaining four hours handwriting his manuscript on unlinedonionskinpaper.[8]

Throughout the novel, Faulkner presents 15 points of view, each chapter narrated by one character, including Addie, who expresses her thoughts after she has already died. In 59 chapters titled only by their narrators' names, the characters are developed gradually through each other's perceptions and opinions, with Darl's predominating.[9]

As I Lay Dyinghelped to solidify Faulkner's reputation as a pioneer, likeJames JoyceandVirginia Woolf,ofstream of consciousness.He first used the technique inThe Sound and the Fury,and it givesAs I Lay Dyingits distinctly intimate tone, through the monologues of the Bundrens and the passers-by whom they encounter. Faulkner manipulates conventional differences betweenstream of consciousnessandinterior monologue.For example, Faulkner has a character such as Darl speak in an interior monologue with far more intellectual diction (and knowledge of his physical environment) than he realistically possesses. This represents an innovation on conventions of interior monologues; asDorrit Cohnstates inTransparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction,the language in an interior monologue is "like the language a character speaks to others... it accords with his time, his place, his social station, level of intelligence..." The novel represents a progenitor of theSouthern Renaissance,reflecting onbeing,existence,and otherexistentialmetaphysicsof everyday life.[10]

Significance

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As I Lay Dyingis consistently ranked among the best novels of 20th-century literature.[2][3][11]The novel has been reprinted by theModern Library,[12]theLibrary of America,and numerous publishers, includingChatto and Windusin 1970,[13]Random Housein 1990,[14]Tandem Libraryin 1991,[15]Vintage Booksin 1996,[16]and theFolio Societyin 2013. Faulkner was awarded theNobel Prize in Literaturein 1949 for his novels prior to that date, with this book being among them.[17]

The novel has also directly influenced a number of other critically acclaimed books, including British authorGraham Swift's 1996Booker Prize-winning novelLast Orders,[18]Suzan-Lori Parks'sGetting Mother's Body,[19][20]andJesmyn Ward'sSing, Unburied, Sing.[21]

The Grammy-nominatedmetalcorebandAs I Lay Dyingderived its name from the novel.[22]

The character of Darl Bundren later appeared in Faulkner's 1935 short story "Uncle Willy".[23]

Theatre adaptation

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An adaptation of the novel byEdward Kempwas staged by theYoung Viccompany in May 1998.[24]

References

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  1. ^"As I Lay Dying Genre".www.shmoop.com.Retrieved2017-01-13.
  2. ^abThe New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major, Collins, 1999.
  3. ^abThe Western Canon: The Books and School of the AgesbyHarold Bloom,Riverhead Trade, 1995.
  4. ^Peter Ackroyd.Foreword to1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die,Peter Boxall (Editor). Universe Publishing, 2006.ISBN0-7893-1370-7.
  5. ^Homer(1925) [8th century BCE].The Odyssey of Homer.Translated byMarris, William.Oxford University Press.p. 195.
  6. ^As I Lay Dying,Norton Critical ed. Michael Gorra, ed. Footnote p. 134... "Jackson: Here, not the state capital per se but the Mississippi State Insane Hospital, which was located there".
  7. ^W.Faulkner made the claim in the introduction toSanctuary,(Modern Library ed. 1932) cited A. Nicholas Fargnoli, Robert W. Hamblin, Michael Golay,William Faulkner; A Critical CompanionInfobase 2008, pp. 43–56 [44]
  8. ^Hurst, Luke (27 July 2020)."Here's how William Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in 48 days".medium.com.Retrieved3 July2022.
  9. ^Hale, Dorothy J. (Autumn 1989)."'As I Lay Dying's' Heterogeneous Discourse ".Novel: A Forum on Fiction.23(1): 5–23.doi:10.2307/1345576.JSTOR1345576.Retrieved3 January2023.
  10. ^Cohn, Dorrit (1978).Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction.Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 161–173.ISBN9780691063690.
  11. ^1001 Books You Must Read Before You Dieby Peter Ackroyd (Foreword), Peter Boxall (Editor) Universe Publishers, 2006.
  12. ^Modern Library's list of the top 100 recent novelsArchived2010-02-07 at theWayback Machine,accessed Jan. 2, 2009.
  13. ^Faulkner, William (1970).As I Lay Dying.London: Chatto & Windus.ISBN0-7011-0665-4.
  14. ^Faulkner, William (1990).As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text.ISBN0-679-73225-X.
  15. ^Faulkner, William (30 January 1991).As I Lay Dying.ISBN0-8085-1493-8.
  16. ^Faulkner, William (2000).As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text.ISBN0-09-947931-1.
  17. ^"The Nobel Prize in Literature 1949".nobelprize.org.Archivedfrom the original on 2024-05-16.Retrieved2024-06-13.
  18. ^"A Swift rewrite, or a tribute?"by Chris Blackhurst, The Independent (London), March 9, 1997.
  19. ^Schneider, Dan(2005-04-30)."Review ofGetting Mother's Body,by Suzan-Lori Parks ".Cosmoetica.Archivedfrom the original on 2009-01-07.Retrieved2009-01-02.
  20. ^Craig, Carolyn Casey (2003).Women Pulitzer Playwrights: Biographical Profiles and Analyses of the Plays.McFarland & Company.p. 270.ISBN978-0-7864-2691-1.
  21. ^Chase, Greg (Fall 2020)."Of Trips Taken and Time Served: How Ward'sSing, Unburied, SingGrapples with Faulkner's Ghosts ".African American Review.53(3): 201–216.doi:10.1353/afa.2020.0031.S2CID235024559– via Project MUSE.
  22. ^"Interview With Tim Lambesis From As I Lay Dying – in Interviews".Metal Underground.com.Retrieved2010-02-10.
  23. ^Faulkner, William (1958).Uncle Willy and Other Stories.Collected Short Stories of William Faulkner. Vol. 1. London:Chatto & Windus.pp. 122–123.OCLC1151833961.OL26553406M.Retrieved2024-06-13.
  24. ^"Hellfire behind the old saws".Times Higher Education.26 June 1998.Retrieved9 February2020.
  1. ^Copyright renewed with R202471
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Preceded by Novels set inYoknapatawpha County Succeeded by
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