As I Lay Dying Reading Response

As I Lay Dying

Published in 1930, As I Lay Dying is a southern gothic novel written by William Faulkner. The novel was written over six weeks in the early morning without changing a single word of it. I was written while Faulkner worked at a power house at the University of Mississippi. As I Lay Dying has frequently found itself listed as one of the best novels of the twentieth century literature and contributed to William Faulkner’s award of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. The novel has inspired many different pieces of media, such as Suzan-Lori Park’s Getting Mother’s Body, Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, and influenced the metalcore band As I Lay Dying to name themselves after the novel. Altogether, the novel has influenced many

The book gives no description of character apart from the descriptions the characters give themselves throughout the novel. The only real descriptors you get concerning other characters from a narrator are descriptions of Addie as she lays in her bed dying. The rising action of As I Lay Dying is the family’s attempt to ford the river when the bridges for the river are washed out. The attempt causes the family to lose their team of mules. The aftermath of the crossing causes Darl to question if transporting Addie’s body to Jefferson is a good idea. The beginning of the novel leads to the rising action of the novel because we know that Addie is dying and wishes to be buried in Jefferson with her family which causes the family to have to transport her body to Jefferson once she dies. The fact that Addie is dying is explicitly stated but is also implied by Cash building a casket for Addie. The river crossing is the rising action of the novel because it leads to the climax of the novel which is Darl burning down the farm the family is staying at overnight with the intention of burning Addie’s corpse along with the farm. The corpse is rescued by the family apart from Darl and doesn’t get burned in the process. This is motivated by Darl’s doubts about the family’s trip that occured after the river

Darl being taken to an asylum is relevant to the climax because Darl burning down the farm is what caused him to be admitted to the asylum. While Anse, who was married to Addie prior to her death, remarrying isn’t exactly relevant to the other big events in the plot leading up to the conclusion but it was foreshadowed by Kate Tull. Kate Tull early on in the novel predicted that Anse Bundren would quickly remarry once Addie Bundren had passed away. The plot of the novel leads up to the burial of Addie because it’s the driving force of all the events of the novel. The novel is centered around the journey of the family to get Addie to where she wished to be buried in Jefferson, so it’s the cause of all the events in the novel. If not for Addie’s wish or Addie’s death in the first place, the events of the novel wouldn’t have happened because the trip wouldn’t have been pursued in the first