As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner is a writer who appreciated good writing. He wanted to be judged at least as much by the skill of his phrasing as by the themes or ideas dealt with in his works. He was, in fact, a...

On a literal level, the buzzards that follow the Bundrens' wagon in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying are a constant reminder that Addie's body is decaying. The number of buzzards increases as time...

Several literary devices are used in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. The most obvious is the title’s allusion, or reference, to The Odyssey by Homer. The novel’s title alludes to Agamemnon’s...

Impassioned and wild and set apart from the family, Jewel has a special connection to a horse just as his mother has a special connection to him. "Jewel Bundren, Preacher Whitfield’s illegitimate...

Modernism has come to be identified with a few specific stylistic methods and a few over-arching themes. Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying exemplifies the hallmarks of modernism in both of these areas as...

William Faulkner’s decision to use the “stream of consciousness” technique in his novel titled As I Lay Dying gives the novel a number of different tones, since the separate consciousness of each...

Although race is an overwhelmingly important theme on William Faulkner's work, it is more of a background issue in As I Lay Dying than in his other novels. However, racial inequality for Faulkner...

In As I Lay Dying William Faulkner tells the tragic story of the Bundren family’s quest to bury their mother. The Bundrens are a poor family in the rural South, and there are a few details from the...

This is a very difficult question. The answer is not necessarily "out there" to be found, as Faulkner's use of italics in this novel are not entirely consistent. We can see some relationship...

As I Lay Dying blends elements of tragedy and comedy. Tragically, the Bundren children are reared by their lazy and selfish father (Anse) and by their mother Addie. Addie loves only her son Jewel,...

One of Faulkner's themes in "As I Lay Dying" is that of identity. Vardamen, the baby of the family, seeks to identify himself in relation to other members of his family. He repeats these...

Considering how Faulkner’s use of language makes each of his words feel seeped with meaning, there are multiple arguments to consider when formulating a thesis on As I Lay Dying. When crafting your...

William Faulkner's darkly comic novel, As I Lay Dying, all of the action of the narrative finds its focal point in the death of Addie Bundren. Thus, the motif of death is recurrent throughout the...

Through Cash's description of making his mother's coffin, the reader can tell that he is very meticulous and also has a difficult time dealing with her death. Instead of engaging directly with his...

A salient theme in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is selfishness versus selflessness. Various characters in the novel are motivated by either. Anse Bundren is a character who is very motivated by...

Just to add to the strong points of the above response: Addie is so perverse in her hatred of Anse that she dislikes all of her children but the "love child" that she has had with the minister,...

Faulkner's As I Lay Dying features both literal and figurative forms of decay. The most literal decay we see in the novel is the decay of Addie's body over the course of the journey to Jefferson....

An allusion is a term used by literary critics to describe an author referring to elements from literature, the arts, history, or popular culture within a text. Another term sometimes used to...

In addition to what the other educators have shared, I'll argue that Anse's complete helplessness and uselessness as a person make him need other people—and for those people, such as his neighbor,...

Reverend Whitfield is the man with whom Addie has an affair during her marriage to Anse, and he is also the father of Jewel. Whitfield gets to narrate one chapter, and, during this section, we...

Dewey Dell and Darl share a trait: both have the ability to "talk without the words," although Darl possesses the trait more acutely than his sister. When he sees Dewey Dell, he knows she is...

Cora and Addie are discussing the relative challenges of womanhood, and it is here that we think Cora realises that Addie has a secret she will not reveal. Cora grumbles about Addie that- You’d...

Jewel and Cash see themselves in very different ways; Cash is a responsible son who sacrifices himself for his mother, while Jewel is the prized son who always receives his mother's attention....

With fifteen different narratives in the form of stream of consciousness, the reader of As I Lay Dying understands that there are fifteen different realities--no absolutes. In this way, the reader...

I see the bananas as something longed for which shows the limitations of the Bundren's imagination and/or aspiration. Anse only longs for teeth and a new wife, Dewy Dell not to be pregnant and...

As I Lay Dying is rife with selfish and senseless characters. However, Cash Bundren stands out as a character whose dedication, compassion, and sacrifices contrast with the rampant self-interest in...

In keeping with the air of Southern Gothic grotesquerie that pervades the book, Addie’s burial is a highly unusual affair, to say the least. As one would expect with the highly dysfunctional...

In Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Cora indicates that Darl has a different relationship to his mother Addie than his brothers and sisters do that she, for some reason, can sense: It was like he would...

The deep vile self absorption of the characters is balanced by the ridiculous ends they pursue for ultimately selfish goals. The horrific treatment of Addie's coffin, the effects of the water, the...

Darl is the most perceptive and intuitive of the novel's narrators, and the reader hears his voice more than any other character. The other characters are in some way limited in their narrations...

Darl's narration on page 97 of As I Lay Dying is a recursive account of Jewel's cursing rant. It echoes his only narration on page 14 in which he likewise curses about Cash building the coffin:...

Addie calls Jewel her salvation because he seems to be the one thing in life she got to choose. He is the bastard child of Whitfield, the minister. Having the religious leader be the father of...

We can say that the two concepts that anchor this novel are family and psychology. These concepts are intertwined in some complex ways and we can see this exemplified in the chapter that depicts...

Darl is responsible for telling more of the story than anyone else, and we should sympathise with the burdens which he carries, as he is the character who has the most empathy for others. In this...

An underlying theme in both As I Lay Dying and To the Lighthouse might be that life is disappointing. In each case, we have a group of people whose interactions are strained and confused, and who...

William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying contains many elements of the grotesque, primarily involving Addie Bundren’s corpse. After Addie dies, her youngest son Vardaman is confused. Vardaman believes she...

Dewey Dell rationalizes that her pregnancy was not her fault. She and Lafe were picking cotton near the woods "and the secret shade," and she said, "will I or wont I [have sex] when...

One of the main allusions to the Greek literary tradition comes when Darl burns down the barn to honor his mother's death. The Greeks believed in a quick and dignified burial. For example, in...

This is an interesting question requiring us to engage in some conjecture. We can only surmise about what the reasons for this might be. Some evidence we might consider: Jewel and Addie are...

This particular quotation illustrates one of the book's main themes, that of the nature of mortality. In this part of the world, with its grinding poverty and chronic lack of opportunity, death can...

I think that Darl deserves to be free of the burdens of his family, and it is touching that Cash is able to see that Darl deserves something better. However, I concur with #2 in that he does not...

There has always been a great deal of debate as to where Darl stands in the narrative of As I Lay Dying; you could make cases for him playing many roles, from protagonist to antagonist to a vehicle...

In As I Lay Dying (and The Sound and the Fury as well), Faulkner uses an experimental free-style narration to reveal multiple consciousnesses and shifts in time and space. The novel is comprised...

First we must understand that Dewey Dell is pregnant with Lafe's child, at 17, out of wedlock, in a strict Christian southern home and time era. Mosley is a pharmacists that Lafe advised Dewey Dell...

The bulk of the novel concerns the journey the Bundrens take to Jefferson to bury their dead matriarch Addie. The family is ignorant and grotesque. However, the term "grotesque" in literature...

Addie's influence on the children is more toxic than Anse's because, while he is indifferent to them, she actively dislikes most of her children and has a preference only for Jewel. Cora notes that...

This is a challenging question because Modernism complicates how we define heroism, and Faulkner tends to be rather tricky in how he presents character. In a traditional sense in which the hero...

In addition to the superb answer above, you may want to focus on the style of Cash's narrations, his tools, and their relationship to his mother. Cash's duty toward his mother is utilitarian and...

I would say that none of the Bundren’s get what they deserve. Selfish, lazy Anse has a new set of teeth and a new wife. It could be argued that this is in some way deserved as he has travelled so...

When the Bundren's reach Jefferson, Mississippi, on their journey to bury Addie Bundren in her hometown, they have been carrying the coffin that holds Addie's body for seven days. Within these...