Analysis
As I Lay Dying has no fixed narrator,
and is instead composed of a number of different protagonists’ successive
interior monologues, the rendition of a character’s inner thoughts
and feelings. Each voice is subjective, shaped by the particular
character’s views and perceptions, but also makes factual observations
about events, moving the story along in a staggered but continuous
narrative. While some characters, particularly Darl, narrate in
a straightforward, storytelling fashion, others, such as Cora and
Jewel, express their thoughts in a confused and contradictory jumble.
We have none of the simple comfort of an entirely objective narrator
who can reveal the truth—when the various voices present the same
character or event in different lights, we have to make decisions
about which voice to trust. Faulkner’s approach is challenging,
but by employing a narrative in which events are described, judged,
and interpreted from several different perspectives, he is able
to probe his characters’ minds deeply. We are not passive observers
of dialogue and events; rather, we experience the characters as
they experience themselves. When Darl encounters Anse and Tull on
the porch, for example, an eternity of thought passes in Darl’s
mind during the pause between his father’s mundane question about
Jewel’s whereabouts and Darl’s equally mundane reply. In Faulkner’s
world, what a character thinks is frequently more relevant to the
story than what a character says.
Faulkner helps us get a grasp on his characters by associating them
with objects: before we meet Tull, we encounter his wagon; before
we hear Cash speak, we hear the roar of his saw and the chucking
of his adze, a cutting tool used for shaping wood; and, of course,
before we meet Addie, we see her coffin being assembled. These objects
come to stand for the individuals themselves, as symbols of, and
clues to, their respective identities. Tull’s wagon implies that
he is a man of wealth and industry, Cash’s saw and adze signify that
he is a skilled craftsman, and Addie’s coffin signals that her primary
role in the novel is played out in her death. We also learn from what
the characters do not say. When Darl comes upon Cash, they exchange
no words, leaving us to ponder the dull chops of the axe. This tendency
toward mute interaction, which is certainly not limited to Darl
and Cash, demonstrates how thoroughly the characters in As
I Lay Dying are cut off from each other. Again, the use
of multiple points of view underscores this separation, with the
characters so isolated from each other that even their thoughts
cannot be mixed.
Faulkner appears to make a sly reference to his own narrative technique
with Darl’s reflection on the voices “out of the air about your
head.” While this comment refers specifically to the sound of many
voices mixing in the hallway, we can also read Darl’s words as an
indirect reference by Faulkner to the mosaic of individual voices that
constitutes As I Lay Dying. When Darl’s reflection
ends, for example, Cora’s monologue begins, describing Darl’s good-bye
to Addie as “the sweetest thing I ever saw.” The tone of these two
characters’ perspectives is quite different, but the second picks
up seamlessly where the first ends. These fluid transitions from
one passage to the next allow the story’s narrative to progress
rather than become inextricably mired in the same incident.
