As I Lay Dying is a remarkable illustration of [the fusion of form and content], for in this tour de force the author blends the architectonic structure of a wheel within a wheel with subject matter based on the age-old quest resulting in geographically, psychologically, and philosophically cyclical movement. Two antithetical perspectives are represented in this novel, that of Bundrens and non-Bundrens toward the journey to Jefferson. These perspectives can be conceived of architectonically as the rims of two concentric wheels moving in opposite directions through time and space. The Bundren perspective is the inner wheel with the somewhat varying viewpoints of the individual family members represented as points on the wheel directed toward the hub of the wheel, Addie Bundren, the primary motivation for the journey. An outer rim, that of non-Bundrens, constitutes a different perspective toward the Jefferson trip. This rim of perspective views Addie and the Bundrens themselves in the process of their peregrination and regards the trip as absurd. (pp. 101-02)

Despite the fact that Addie has but one segment, written as though she were still alive and yet significantly placed after her death, her consciousness suffuses the entire book. (p. 108)

[All] of the Bundrens, in one way or another, sense and acknowledge Addie's continued presence, just as the entire family has internalized Addie's distrust of words—"the high dead words in time."… Thus the Bundren perspective focuses on Addie and her will to be buried in Jefferson…. (p. 109)

Those outside the Bundren family do not share this perspective. Addie's lover Whitfield does violence to Addie's central concern—the matching of word with deed. (p. 110)

The Bundrens seem oblivious to the spectacle their journey elicits and to the stench which Addie's unembalmed body produces…. Hence, the outsiders, the non-Bundrens, view the family and their journey as some kind of grotesque and ridiculous joke. To them the Bundren quest, although it cannot be ignored, is not to be taken seriously. Thus, the two perspectives—a wheel within a wheel—move through time and space to help reveal the complexity of modern consciousness in regard to life and to death.

Addie serves not only as the hub of the inner wheel but as the central metaphor of time and space. (pp. 111-12)

Another way in which Faulkner achieves this fusion of time and space is by stopping or elongating time. We have already noted how Addie's dying is elongated. Darl, who is Faulkner's chief spokesman regarding time, compares Addie's continuing consciousness to a road, one of Faulkner's favored time-related analogues. (p. 112)

However, there is one more aspect to be considered, that of the reader's perspective; for Faulkner, in his novels, relied on the reader's creative energies to form a heuristic concept. Thus, the reader's view toward the Bundrens' journey (a quest in many ways analogous to that of the reader's own journey through life to death) may not coincide with the Bundren perspective of heroic necessity or with the non-Bundren perspective of grotesque absurdity. The reader's perspective may encompass more than that of Bundrens and non-Bundrens so that the fusion of parts, by means of the heuristic process, results in a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. Subtly, Faulkner acknowledged the creative role of the reader when, near the end of the novel, he has Cash say "It was like he [Darl] was outside of it too, same as you."… (p. 113)