As I Lay Dying

Critics often describe As I Lay Dying as a stream of consciousness novel. The term was first used by the American philosopher William James in his 1890 work The Principles of Psychology and is defined largely by the stylistic choice to capture a character's thoughts as they go through their consciousness, resulting in snatches of thoughts and imagery that appear to float through the character's head, following their thought process. Faulkner’s novel, which is written in the first person from multiple characters’ perspectives, uses such techniques to varying degrees for each character, each of whom have a completely distinctive voice.

For example, the narrative style of the chapters in thoughtful, brooding Darl’s voice differs completely from those narrated in the voice of Jewel, the fiery, action-orientated brother he is obsessed with. Darl’s voice, which is the most syntactically correct of all the voices and uses the most sophisticated diction, is the reader’s introduction into the world of the novel. He observes his familiars with a writerly distance, for example, describing his brother Cash in the act of making Addie’s grave, thus: “He is fitting two of the boards together. Between the shadow spaces they are yellow as gold, like soft gold, bearing on their flanks in smooth undulations the marks of the adze blaze: a good carpenter, Cash is” (3). Darl’s thoughtfulness and sensitivity is shown in his desire to be precise about the color and texture of the wood and to convey the care with which Cash is making the coffin. The lofty descriptions of color and texture give the impression that Cash is going about his sad job in the spirit of devotion.

In contrast, Jewel’s style uses colloquial language and is far more visceral and direct, as he says, “it’s because he stays out there, right under the window, hammering and sawing on that goddamn box. Where she’s got to see him. Where every breath she draws is full of his knocking and sawing where she can see him saying See. See what a good one I am making for you” (10). In referring to the coffin as “that goddamn box” that will soon enclose his mother, Jewel reads bad intentions into Cash’s allegedly helpful enterprise, pointing out the indelicacy of making someone’s coffin within earshot of their deathbed. The repetition of the words “where” and “see” heighten the proximate nature of the endeavor and emphasize the obvious connection between Cash’s carpentry and Addie lying sick in bed. The repetition and short sentences also mimic the rhythm of Cash’s axe.

Faulkner also conveys character in his individualized accounts by using repetition to show what preoccupies, and therefore shapes, their minds. In some cases, an individual’s mental preoccupation crosses over into speech and feeds into the thought stream of another character. For example, Anse’s preoccupation with the $3 that necessitate Jewel and Darl’s wagon errand prior to the grand trip to Jefferson, fills the consciousness of those who judge Anse, especially Cora, who talks of “those men not worrying about anything except if there was time to earn another three dollars before the rain came and the river got too high to get across it” (15). She judges that Jewel, Addie’s favorite, was single-mindedly after “that three extra dollars,” whereas Darl is a nobler character because he visits Addie’s deathbed before he goes and has more than money on his mind when “his heart is too full for words” (15). This cross-pollination of the $3 motif, from Anse’s head to his speech, to Cora’s judgement, shows how the characters operate in a network of perceptions as opposed to individually. The reader thus has an active role in judging character both from the content of individual minds and the way their preoccupations land in the minds of others. While at the beginning of the novel, the reader might think that Cora judges Anse harshly and inaccurately, by the end, when he has exploited his children for his own gain, they may agree with her.

The characters’ physicality, which is an important part of a novel where manual graft plays a big role, is also most convincingly conveyed through others. For example, striking, tempestuous Jewel has very few chapters narrated by him; however, his is a vivid presence in the novel owing to other characters’ descriptions of him. Darl describes how Jewel stares “straight ahead, his pale eyes like wood set into his wooden face” as he “crosses the floor in four strides with the rigid gravity of a cigar-store Indian dressed in patched overalls and endued with life from the hips down” (3). Here, Jewel has the upright posture of an equestrian; the “rigid gravity” of his movements give him a solid, still presence which contrasts with the bodies of other family members (3). He is also remarkable for uniting the opposites of woodenness and agility, and for having “pale eyes like wood” (3). This is an unusual simile to describe eyes, which are generally thought of as liquid, mobile and expressive—rather, Jewel’s wood gaze indicates that he is determined and single-minded. Darl continually refers to Jewel’s wooden eyes, thus stamping them as a consistent motif in the narrative, while Vardaman offers a variation when he states that “Jewel’s eyes look like marbles” (60). Although marbles share the smoothness of wood, they have a luster and animation that wood lacks. They also tend to be parti-colored rather than singularly pale. The slight difference in the image of Jewel’s eyes as we move from one character’s perspective to another’s, indicates that observation of character is shifting and partial. While a Jewel with wood eyes is assured to a fault, one with marble eyes is a more vulnerable and unpredictable element.

Faulkner is flexible with time and narrative style in two of the chapters, departing from the consistency of first-person accounts delivered by characters who are still alive. Chapter 40 is narrated by Addie long after the reader and the other characters have considered her dead. She is in a liminal state, where she is not in her coffin or on the journey with the rest of the Bundrens, but she is conscious of her approaching death. This chapter is crucial in imparting the information that only Addie knows—such as her reluctant duties to Anse, her idea as death as a cure for the clamor of motherhood, and her affair with Reverend Whitfield, which resulted in Jewel’s conception. Its sentiments also link her to the other mothers in the novel, as death as a cure for motherhood was the course of Vernon Tull’s mother, while the sense of “aloneness” being violated links her to Dewey Dell’s feeling that pregnancy is a terrible “process of coming unalone” (105, 38). Thus, this central chapter, narrated by the novel’s dying protagonist, sets the universal precedent that motherhood is a state of endless despair, which is repeated throughout the novel.

Finally, Faulkner’s other exceptional chapter is the one narrated by Darl in third person, following his capture and internment in prison. The third-person narrative encapsulates that this formerly most eloquent of narrators has had his subjectivity hijacked. However, the laugh which he emitted when the Bundren’s first departed on their journey is repeated and multiplied following his capture and descent into a mental health crisis. This is also the chapter in which we learn that “Darl had a little spy-glass he got in France at the war” (156), a detail that revealts that Darl has fought in a war and potentially returned with PTSD. Here, Faulkner’s last-minute insertion of new character information, just as Darl's story is about to close, destabilizes the reader’s judgement and indicates that the job of character interpretation is never complete.