Diction In As I Lay Dying

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is about the Bundren family of six on their journey to Jackson to bury the matriarch of the family, Addie Bundren. The family consists of Anse Bundren, the patriarch of the family, Cash, the oldest son who makes Addie’s coffin, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. Faulkner writes this novel with fifteen different viewpoints, each chapter narrated by one character, including Addie, who expresses her thoughts after her death. The characters’ chapters, except for Darl’s, are all jumbled and hard to read due to the absence of an objective narrator. Instead of being presented with a framework of events, the jumble of images, memories, and unexplained allusions by the alternating narrators, force the readers to take the pieces each character gives

It pushes the readers to work hard to understand the text. Throughout the fifty-nine chapters, titled only by the narrators' names, the characters’ diction gradually becomes clearer as they develop a mature perception of their life, while Darl’s diction slowly turns muddled. This unique stylistic technique is called a stream of consciousness, also known as an interior monologue, which is a narrative mode or device that depicts numerous thoughts and feelings through the minds of the characters. Faulkner was known for his experimental style with careful diction and cadence choices, so it was inevitable that he would choose this type of writing. Reading a novel with this certain stylistic technique was hard to adjust to because of the narrators rotating constantly. Because this was the first time I had seen this technique, I had to go back to previous chapters consistently to remember what the character’s opinion was previously. Being able to organize the events in chronological order and match characters’ opinions to the certain character was difficult, but gradually became easier as I got to know the characters