William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying And The Sound And The Fury

William Faulkner is an author of unusual prestige, as his writing is held in an extraordinarily high standard and causes the powerful combination of admiration and frustration to no end. Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, and had an interest in writing from an early age. He had little appreciation for school, and in fact dropped out in high school. His early works were more poetic, as he was influenced heavily by Keats. When his parents lost their financial power, he moved to Oxford, Mississippi. In his years as a young man, he served in the military for a brief period, which influenced some of his earlier works. Faulkner watched his first love wed to another man, but later divorce him and marry Faulkner himself.

In 1949, Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for literature. He died on July 6, 1962. His experience with poverty in the south is reflected in many of his works, as is his experience with loss, particularly in As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury. Using the techniques of stream of consciousness and multiple narrators, Faulkner is able to demonstrate the degradation of morals as a result of hardship in the late 1920’s.

Faulkner illuminates the ultimate failure of humans to maintain a standard moral code in the face of extreme difficulty. For example, when Anse is thinking about the trip to take his wife (Addie) to be buried in another town, he says, “‘God’s will be done... Now I can get them teeth” (Faulkner, As I lay Dying 48). Anse’s almost humourous insensitivity to the death of his wife reveals the

For instance, the impact of being able to have direct access to a character’s thoughts can be seen in Quentin’s musings: “Father will be dead in a year they say if he doesnt stop drinking and he wont stop he cant stop since I since last summer and then theyll send Benjy to Jackson I cant cry I cant even cry” (Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury 142). Quentin’s inner turmoil is made that much more powerful and tumultuous, especially with the repetition of words and ideas in his thoughts, as it is presented as though his thoughts appear on the page; there is an intimacy that comes with that, which highlights Quentin humanity more than if this were simply a passage narrated in the first person When a person thinks, they think unedited, and what matters to them floats to the forefront of their thoughts, as is the case with Quentin, allowing his character to be furthered. Another example can be found with Benjy, a mentally disabled man, and his perception of his own reality. “He went on and we stopped in the hall and Caddy knelt and put her arms around me and her bright cold face against mine” (Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury 9). Benjy is a reflection of his surroundings, so his thought process is different than that of Quentin, particularly because of his disability. His perception of sensations can be taken to a new, more