Southern Influence in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

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The novels of William Faulkner are amongst some of the most important books of the twentieth century. In 1949 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for all of his great works. Most of his novels were based on his own surroundings and where he grew up (Faulkner, william, 2009). In his novel, As I Lay Dying, Faulkner uses his own southern influence to create the setting, characters, and motifs to develop the narrative behind this poor southern family.
As I Lay Dying is set in the 1920’s between two parts of Mississippi. One area is a rural part of Mississippi called Yoknapatawpha County. Faulkner is known to use this place in many of his novels. It is a fictional version of his own home town Lafayette County, Mississippi. This poor, dirty, run down county is where the Bundren family live (Hubbs, 2008). Yoknapatawpha County has a country life feel to it and it is the Bundren family’s heart, home, and soul. However, during the course of As I Lay Dying, the Bundren family is on a voyage to Yoknapatawpha’s capital, Jefferson, to bury Addie Bundren (the mother and wife of the family). They make this day and a half endeavor by horse and wagon, carrying Addie’s body in a homemade coffin. Jefferson is a big city where Addie’s blood family is from, and it is her wish to be buried with them within the city limits.
Although there are well over ten characters in As I Lay Dying, there are three that play a major part of the novel. The first character, Addie Bundren, though she is dead most of the story, is one of the most important characters in this novel. Her unusual wish to be buried near her blood family instead of her own family is the basis of the novel. Upon reading the novel, Addie seems to be a strong-minded and clever woman ...

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Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.
Hubbs, Jolene (2008, July 01). William Faulkner's Rural Modernism. Mississippi Quarterly, (3), 461, Retrieved from http://elibrary.bigchalk.com.prx-keiser.lirn.net
Kerr, E. (1962). "as i lay dying" as ironic quest. Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 3(1), 5-19. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1207376?uid=3739600&uid=2134&uid=2478538313&uid=2478538303&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21103400198303
Urgo, J. (1988). William faulkner and the drama of meaning: The discovery of the figurative in “as i lay dying". South Atlantic Review, 53(2), 11-23. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3199910?uid=3739600&uid=2134&uid=2478538313&uid=2478538303&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21103400198303

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