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As I Lay Dying Setting Analysis

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Andre Bleikasten asserts the setting of the novel As I lay Dying is an integral force on the same standing of the characters and constitutes more than an inactive scenery for them to perform their action. People lose their foundations and meld into the setting, as the setting sprouts into animated existence and places within the movement. As a result, boundaries between the setting and man are fluid, and the distinction between them blurs. Bleikasten contends the fable’s world is trapped in a continuous pendulum between activity and stagnation. Physical animation takes place within the animated existences of the novel, and the setting. This animation takes place through the Bundren’s traveling wagon, Jewel’s horse and the buzzards flying over; nature engages in related animation by the agency of a storm, river and a flushing rain. Although the novel’s journey is an active physical migration, he contests Faulkner juxtaposes mobile components in the novel as immobile. He denotes that …show more content…

The world is not locked, all is brief and running. The sphere of the fable and the characters are subject to transubstantiation. Water is the representative of the potential change demonstrated by Darl’s interpretation of the river as a dormant beast posed to perpetually rouse and be dormant. This is representative of Bleikasten’s assertion of quiescent life being personified into live beings and human qualities obscuring with beasts and objects. This is further illustrated by entities such as floating timber, buzzards and Jewel’s horse all described to have human-like qualities and alacrity while humans are characterized as animals. He continues on to observe a distinction between the world’s elements as intertwined beings and change as the uniting

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With the exception of Anse, the end of As I Lay Dying leaves all of the Bundrens worse for wear. Darl has been exiled because he is believed to be insane. Similarly, the skin has to be removed from Cash’s leg, Jewel has lost his horse and his last connection to the family, Vardaman is more confused than ever, and Dewey Dell remains pregnant. Despite all of this, Anse’s condition is better than it has ever been. He has purchased teeth, has visited a barbershop, and has come out of all of this with a new wife.

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In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner uses wood as a symbol to demonstrate the degree to which each character grows and changes over the course of the novel. On one hand, wood can be seen as a representation of rigidity and a refusal to change. On the other hand, due to the fact that wood exists in many different forms – as a vertically oriented tree or as horizontally oriented planks – it is also used to outline the distinction between horizontal and vertical movement. Whereas horizontal motion represents progress, vertical orientation signifies fixation to one place and retaining a connection to one’s background. Anse is a character associated solely with vertical orientation, preventing him from experiencing any significant change.

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He employs a reminiscent tone to appeal to the emotions of the readers, making them, too, yearn to relive their childhood days of family car rides. Louv writes, “In our useful boredom, we used our fingers to draw pictures on fogged glass as we watched the telephone poles tick by. We saw birds on the wires and combines in the fields” (lines 62-65). This imagery paints a picture of the nature one sees as a child and helps the reader relive the experience. Louv ends the piece with the statement, “We considered the past and dreamed of the future, and watched it all go by in the blink of an eye” (lines 71-73).

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