"As I lay dying" by William Faulkner

Gliederung

• The author and his times
• Growing up
• The southern tradition
• Literary apprenticeship
• The plot
• Anse Bundren (9, 26, 28)
• Addie Bundren (40)
• Cash Bundren (18, 22, 38, 53, 59)
• Darl Bundren (1, 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 21, 23, 25, 27, 32, 34, 37, 42, 46, 48, 50, 52, 57)
• Jewel Bundren (4)
• Dewey Dell Bundren (7, 14, 30, 58)
• Vardaman Bundren (13, 15, 19, 24, 35, 44, 47)
• Whitfield (41)
• Vernon Tull (8, 16, 20, 31, 33, 36)
• Cora Tull (2, 6, 39)
• Doc Peabody (11, 51)
• Samson (29)
• Armstid (43)
• Moseley (45)
• Skeet MacGowan (55)
• Setting
• Themes
• 1. Death shapes life
• 2. Life is absurd - a journey with no meaning
• 3. Humans have an obligation to be involved with others
• 4. All humans live in solitude and solidarity at the same time
• 5. Language is vanity while action - even "sinful" action - is the test of life
• 6. Truth is elusive, since facts are subjective
• 2. Darl's preoccupation with jewel
• 3. The power to act
• 4. The power to love
• Style
• Point of view
• Form and strucutre
• The story
• 1. Darl
• 2. Cora
• 3. Darl
• 4. Jewel
• 5. Darl
• 6. Cora
• 7. Dewey Dell
• 8. Tull
• 9. Anse
• 10. Darl
• 11. Peabody
• 12. Darl
• 13. Vardaman
• 14. Dewey Dell
• 15. Vardaman
• 16. Tull
• 17. Darl
• 18. Cash
• 19. Vardaman
• 20. Tull
• 21. Darl
• 22. Cash
• 23. Darl
• 24. Vardaman
• 25. Darl
• 26. Anse
• 27. Darl
• 28. Anse
• 29. Samson
• 30. Dewey Dell
• 31. Tull
• 32. Darl
• 33. Tull
• 34. Darl
• 35. Vardaman
• 36. Tull
• 37. Darl
• 38. Cash
• 39. Cora
• 40. Addie
• 41. Whitfield
• 42. Darl
• 43. Armstid
• 44. Vardaman
• 45. Moseley
• 46. Darl
• 47. Vardaman
• 48. Darl
• 49. Vardaman
• 50. Darl
• 51. Vardaman
• 52. Darl
• 53. Cash
• 54. Peabody
• 55. MacGowan
• 56. Vardaman
• 57. Darl
• 58. Dewey Dell
• 59. Cash
• Old testament vision
• Tour de force
• A dissenting opinion
• Levels of consciousness
• Testing Addie's children

The author and his times

No one who knew William Faulkner in high school would have voted him "most likely to succeed." He dropped out in the eleventh grade. "I never did like school," he said, "and I stopped going as soon as I got big enough to play hooky and not be caught at it."

Failure seemed attached to him like a tin can. His girlfriend married a man whose prospects were better than Faulkner's. The U.S. Army Air Corps wouldn't take him during World War I - he was too short.

In his twenties, he seemed incapable of applying himself to anything. He went to the University of Mississippi, did miserably in English, and quit after a year. Though he managed to get a job running the university's post office, he was so incompetent he was forced to resign. He was even removed as the local scoutmaster because he drank too much. The litany of his shortcomings stretches on: his almost paralyzing shyness, his inability to write memorable poetry, his years as a problem drinker.

And yet, this "failure" produced 90 short stories, 19 novels, and a play that was performed on Broadway. In 1950 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the highest recognition any writer can get. Today, he is considered one of the greatest writers the United States has ever produced.

How did this happen? A complete answer would have to take into account Faulkner's special gifts as a writer, developed over a long period of apprenticeship. As I Lay Dying, his fifth published novel, will give you an excellent chance to appreciate those gifts and his unique view of the world. That view stems, partly, from what critics call the Southern Tradition - the myths about the South as a defeated nation that he shared with other Southerners of his time.

Growing up

William Cuthbert Falkner (he added the u when he became a published writer) was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. For the first four years of his life, he lived in Ripley, a nearby town whose cemetery is dominated by a statue of Faulkner's great-grandfather, Colonel William Clark Falkner. Faulkner never knew his great-grandfather - he had died in 1889. But Old Colonel Falkner, as he was called, remained a legendary figure to his descendants.

After the Civil War, Colonel Falkner refused to lick his wounds. He built a railroad, became rich, and wrote several novels, one of them a best-seller. He was shot and killed in Ripley's town square by his former partner in the railroad venture.

The Old Colonel's son, John, was a lawyer and a banker. When John's son Murry and his wife moved to Oxford in northern Mississippi, they already had three sons: William, who was four; Murry, three; and John, just one. A fourth boy, Dean, would be born in

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