William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is the story of a family, but only if one uses the word family loosely. It is the tale of the Bundren’s and centers on the dying and death of Addie Bundren. She is the mother of Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman and wife of Anse. After Addie’s death the story centers on the family trip to bury her in Jefferson and the events that ensue because of the trip. What is most unique about this story is Faulkner’s use of stream of consciousness and switch in point of view of the characters. The question is: why does Faulkner use stream of consciousness and why does he switch point of view? “Stream of consciousness is a narrative form in which the author writes in a way that mimics or parallels a character’s

Because it is given after her death. “Addie is at the center of As I Lay Dying, and it is in her lone monologue that we catch the essentials of the problems of being, knowing, and-particularly-saying: "Words are no good… words don’t ever fit even what they are trying to say at (Pierce) (W. W. Norton & Company 759).”” Addie felt trapped her whole life because of the way that women were forced to live, always in service to a man and because of the nature of life itself, Addie found no point or happiness in life. First, her father who was cruel to her and then after his death there was Anse whom she detested. Her hate for Anse is part of the reason why she wanted to be buried in Jefferson because she did not want to be buried with his people and because she wanted to force the trip on him. With Addie’s point of view the reader sees how Faulkner makes up words to better convey her consciousness. “I could no longer think of myself as no longer unvigin, because I was three now… (W. W. Norton & Company 760)”. “Addie’s chapter is full of musings about the uselessness, or inadequacy, of words, certain words like ‘motherhood’, ‘fear’, ‘pride’, ‘love’, ‘sin’, and ‘salvation.’ These words for heavily weighted concepts strike Addie as so far from adequate that those people who had never experienced the concepts embodied by those words must have made them up

Walter J. Slatoff is quoted in “As I Lay Dying An Ironic Quest” by Elizabeth M. Kerr saying:
One is uncertain about the qualities of some of the important characters and about how to feel toward them; one is puzzled by the meanings of many of the events; one is far from sure what the book is chiefly about, and above all one is uncertain to what extent one has been watching an epic or tragedy or farce (Kerr).
The reader is left to come to their own conclusions about each member and their choices and where they each end up. Can one call Darl insane after reading his inner-most thoughts? Can one question Jewel being the favorite and his mother being his favorite? Can one feel sorry for Dewey Dell? These are the questions that Faulkner leaves the reader. He managed to show the phenomenon of death in a distinctly Faulkner way. Each narrator infuses their own subjectivity into their parts of the story. To identify the true account of the story the reader has to pick apart each bit they read and put themselves in the place of the narrator. Each section relies more on the narrator’s thoughts than anything else causing the reader to become a part of the Bundren family and if this is not achieved a true conclusion cannot be