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Literary devise example in 'As I Lay Dying', analysis tips
Literary devise example in 'As I Lay Dying', analysis tips
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As I lay dying is a phenomenal novel written by William Faulkner. Throughout the entire literature Faulkner uses pathos to appeal to his audience. This was a descriptive piece of literature describing the lives of a broken family from each member’s point of view. In the story there was a no good husband, a dying wife, four sons and a daughter. The dying wife had one wish that her family had intentions of fulfilling, or so it was perceived. Each family member grieved their mother so bad but they all expressed their grief differently causing the family to be dysfunctional and disaccord. This novel was full of twist and turns but every character dealt with one conflict in common, man vs self. Man vs self, allowed Faulkner to reveal through his
William Faulkner, a Nobel Prize winning author, wrote the novel "As I Lay Dying" in six weeks without changing a word. Considering the story's intricate plot, not changing a single word seems like it would take a literary genius to complete. Many people agree that Faulkner could very well be a genius due to the organization of this story. Faulkner uses fifteen different characters to narrate and allow the reader to analyze each of their point of views. Through the confessions of each character, the reader is able to form his or her opinion about different characters and issues. Since some narrators are unreliable for different reasons, it could be confusing to form opinions. One character that is easily understood is Dewey Dell Bundren. She is the only daughter in the Bundren family and ends up being the only woman in the family. "As I Lay Dying", the story of a family's journey to bury their mother and wife, is also the story of Dewey Dell's journey toward maturity. Along their journey to bury their mother, the characters, like Dewey Dell, seem to evolve through their encounters with other people. Faulkner depicts Dewey Dell as a very monotonous person in the beginning of the book. In the beginning, Dewey Dell is seen fanning her mother, picking cotton, or milking cows. However, towards the end of the book, her repetitiveness is lost. Towards the end of the novel, Faulkner specifically shows Dewey Dell in numerous situations becoming a mature individual.
A horrific aspect of life that many people have a difficult time dealing with is death. The thought of death scares people because as humans we do not have a way to comprehend something that we cannot test, see or even have a grasp of. When a person loses a loved one they get scared by this reality of that they do not know where they are going and when they make it there how will it be for them. In William Faulkner's book, As I Lay Dying, we go through the process at which a family loses a “loved” one and we follow the family all the way until the deceased, Addie Burden, is buried in Jefferson. In As I Lay Dying you see the steps of grieving are different for many people and some of the people will come out destroyed and others without a scratch. The character Cash goes through a process of grief, odd to most in his way of grief we do not see pain because of the pressure he puts on himself to finish the journey for the family. Cash’s brother, Jewel, seems to snap from the pain of losing his mother and he let the pain ingulf his life. Finally, the last
William Faulkner in his book, As I Lay Dying, portrays a Mississippi family which goes through many hardships and struggles. Faulkner uses imagery to illustrate an array of central themes such as the conscious being or existence and poverty among many others. From the first monologue, you will find an indulgence of sensual appeal, a strong aspect of the novel. Each character grows stronger and stronger each passage. One of the themes in As I Lay Dying is a human's relations to nature. Faulkner uses imagery to produce a sense of relation between animals and humans.
“As I Lay Dying, read as the dramatic confrontation of words and actions, presents Faulkner’s allegory of the limits of talent” (Jacobi). William Faulkner uses many different themes that make this novel a great book. Faulkner shows his talent by uses different scenarios, which makes the book not only comedic but informational on the human mind. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is a great book that illustrates great themes and examples. Faulkner illustrates different character and theme dynamics throughout the entire novel, which makes the book a humorous yet emotional roller coaster. Faulkner illustrates the sense of identity, alienation, and the results of physical and mental death to show what he thinks of the human mind.
In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Faulkner portrays the death of Addie Bundren and her family's quest to honor her dying wish to bury her in the town of Jefferson. Faulkner utilizes humor in the novel to lighten the mood of death and as an act of transgression against the orthodox Christian views of death as it relates to good souls dying and becoming angels. Addie Bundren’s son, Vardaman, relates to the orthodox Christian views of death, and the synonymous use of humor with these views ultimately creates an idea about humanity’s perception of death and how they should live, which is enhanced through John Morreal’s “Humor in the Holocaust: Its Coping, Criticizing, and Superiority” and “‘The Abject’- A Brief Definition.”
In As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner uses the characters Anse and Cash, and a motif/symbol in "My mother is a fish," to reveal the psychological and societal problems of the twenties and thirties. Written as soon as the panic surrounding the stock market in 1929 started, Faulkner is reported as having, “took one of these [onion] sheets, unscrewed the cap from his fountain pen, and wrote at the top in blue ink, 'As I Lay Dying.' Then he underlined it twice and wrote the date in the upper right-hand corner"(Atkinson 15) We must take care to recognize Faulkner not as a man of apathy, but one of great compassion and indignation at the collapse of the economic foundation of the U.S. This is central in appreciating the great care with which he describes the desolation and poor landscape of Yoknapatawpha County, which is where As I Lay Dying takes place.
One of the main themes in As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is the concept of isolation and loneliness of not just the characters in the book, but humanity itself. Each character is essentially isolated from all the others, as the plot is told through each of the characters’ perspectives through stream of consciousness. As a result of Faulkner’s use of multiple narratives, the reader does not attain an objective third person viewpoint of everything that occurs. The closest the reader gets to an omniscient narrator is Darl Bundren as he is able to relate events that occur while not having been present at the time. Although the Bundrens live together as well as make the journey to Jefferson, it is through their inherent isolation and loneliness that they cannot effectively communicate with each other which ultimately leads to Darl’s fateful actions.
The use of a symbol has the potential to add depth and meaning to a work of literature. With symbols, a writer can convey a complex idea using a single world. When used in a work of literature, a symbol has the ability to express the characters of the work as a whole. In his novel As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner uses an enveloping symbol of Cash’s tools in order to underline the development of the characters throughout the novel.
Many mothers, regardless of age or situation, share sympathetic life ideals. They all share the common goal of raising their children wholesome; they want to create an environment of love, nurture, and support for their children as well. A mother’s effort to implant good values in her children is perpetual; they remain optimistic and hope that their children would eventually become prosperous. However, some women were not fit to be mothers. Thus, two different roles of a mother are portrayed in As I Lay Dying written by William Faulkner. Faulkner uses the literary technique of first person narrative with alternating perspectives. By doing so, Faulkner adds authenticity and the ability to relate (for some) to the two characters Addie Bundren and Cora Tull. The first person narrative acts as an important literary technique because it allows the reader to experience the opposing views of Addie and Cora; they are both mothers who act as foils to each other because of their diverse opinions and outlooks on motherhood, religion and life.
Irony and inversion mark the central themes to As I Lay Dying. Faulkner uses these significant themes to challenge the classical quest and invert characters and events to the opposite of what readers would cfonsider normal. The basic plot of the Bundren family travelling from their home to Jefferson portrays as a pointless and destructive quest. Many readers may expect the characters to reach a goal such as finding a valuable treasure or receiving a prize at the end. But in this novel, the quest remains pointless and destructive as the characters bury a dead body. As a modernist writer, Faulkner uses irony and inversion to collapse the hierarchy of a quest, giving readers a need to constantly reevaluate their knowledge of the novel.
It is evident in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying that both of the Bundren women, in their own way, reject typical social norms for women in the south.
In the early 1900s, the American South had very distinctive social classes: African Americans, poor white farmers, townspeople, and wealthy aristocrats. This class system is reflected in William Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying, where the Bundrens a poor, white family, are on a quest to bury their now deceased wife and mother, Addie in the town of Jefferson. Taking a Marxist criticism approach to As I Lay Dying, readers notice how Faulkner’s use of characterization reveals how country folk are looked down upon by the wealthy, upper class townspeople.
Emily Dickinson wrote, “Much madness is divinest Sense/ To a discerning eye-“. Authors continually utilize the concept of madness or mental delusion as a tool to show how a certain character’s ideas and thought differ from the normalcy of society. In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Darl Bundren’s family mischaracterized his “eccentric behavior” as madness. In reality, Darl’s ability to perceive and comprehend surrounding situations at a much higher level than his family and friends lead him both to realize that the family’s journey to transport Addie’s coffin to Jefferson was fruitless and debilitating as well as determined that his family’s chaotic disorder was breaking them apart and their relationship was in dire need of mending.
As I Lay Dying is a book that has been banned from schools due to inappropriatelanguage. In my defense it shouldn’t be banned due to we all have once been opposed to thatlanguage and other inappropriate images in the book that it has to offer.William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize winning novelist of the American South who wrotefictional. He is best known for such novels as 'The Sound and the Fury' and 'As I Lay Dying’.William Faulkner the American writer was born in New Albany, Mississippi, in 1897. Hisparents, Murry Faulkner and Maud Butler Faulkner, named him after his paternal great-grandfather, William Clark Faulkner, an adventurous and shrewd man who seven years prior wasshot dead in the town square of Ripley, Mississippi. Throughout his life, William Faulknerworked as a railroad financier, politician, soldier, farmer, businessman, and lawyer. Much of hisearly work was poetry, but when he became famous for his novels set in the American South,with works that included The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom! Hiscontroversial 1931 novel Sanctuary was turned into two films, 1933's The Story of TempleDrake as well as a later 1961 project.
In Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying (1930), the chapter that Addie narrates from beyond the grave serves as a turning point in that the chapter because it extrapolates on the ideas of mortality and eternity, while also causing the reader to question what it means to be a narrator, to have a point of view, and to be limited by one’s perceptions.