How was it?

Reading truly can be an extremely enjoyable activity, wether it be because of great characters or an intense story line. Personally, I read all the time back in elementary school - chapter books, I should add - but since I've had trouble finding interest in reading, and I've little understanding of as to why. Occaissionally I found a book I loved, such as Fahrenheit 451, but then I'd have trouble finding something of equal caliber of interest. I essentially had yet to find myself as a reader. Throughout this past half-year or so, I have however think I've found the key to the mystery: writing style.

I've read Mrs. Dalloway earlier and As I Lay Dying incorporates some similar techniques, most predominantly stream of consciousness. I think this may be my favorite device used by any author and it adds a lot to reading experience by giving us greater character insight. The added complexity is also nice for someone like me who likes solving puzzles of various sorts. It always brings me excitement to connect the dots and figure out hidden secrets that other characters don't know about, such as Dewey Dell's pregnancy.

In addition to having helped me find myself as a reader, As I Lay Dying is possibly my favorite book of all time - if it's possible to have one. This mostly relates to my paragraph above, but I also find the specific story line to be of intrigue and absurdity, in a sense. Despite my love for the stream of consciousness and this book, I still missed out on several key ideas, primarily as the book is so dense in detail and analysis. Missing a single page worth of information could potentially leave you stranded in understanding the characters. For example, while I understood that Darl was a very insightful character, I never picked up the fact that he knew the other characters' secrets. In fact, I didn't detect the secrets of half of them myself!! It was a shocking revelation when talking with Mrs. LaClair about the ending earlier today.

And this is one of the reasons as to why the book is AP worthy. The characters are hugely complex, changing in subtle, yet dramatic ways throughout the novel, to the point where they seem like different people at the beginning and end. It was impossible to uncover everything the novel had to offer when reading it the first time - especially on my own. I couldn't bounce off ideas and I missed many details (if you didn't catch that earlier in the post). Rereading the novel would help me pick up on these specific, yet integral pieces of information. The novel can also be read on multiple levels, from just following the Bundren's journey to Jefferson to analyzing every last character's single thought.

As I Lay Dying is a challenge, but in all the right ways. The characters, the plot line and the unique stylistic choices all make this a worthy book, both in AP and outside. I would recommend reading it in a group, however, if you so choose to read this. Which you should, because the book just opens your mind to a greater possibility for a novel can be. It's not constrained to a certain format, as it constantly evolves new devices throughout the novel, such as unusual spacing in sentences and an evolution in the characters' narrations. I'd highly recommend the book, if for nothing else, just the experience of something different to the traditional novel.

What does Faulkner want to say with this piece of literature?

The short answer to the question that is the title of this post is: I don't know. What is the meaning of As I lay Dying? The book seemed to go on a certain track at the beginning when the selfish Anse and his children were bringing Addie to her grave, but then…stuff happened and I just don't know what to make of everything.

So, to start answering this question, I might as well try to find some motifs. Certain characters repeat certain phrases a lot. A lot. Take Vardaman, who completely obsesses over the fact that his mother is a fish. That's right - he continues with this understanding through to the end of the book, and by the last 30 pages it just seems like jargon, because he doesn't seem to be saying much about it. Anse is also constantly mentioning that he promised Addie he's get her to Tennessee. This seems like motivation, however. Cash almost doesn't comment on anything other than the coffin, which seems to show more of who he is. So this basically isn't giving me any answers.

I could think about the ending for each character. Addie goes through probably the most lively experience of her life when she's dead. I mean, being swept away by water in a stream and having your corpse rot in a coffin for nearly two weeks before being buried is much more lively than baking or working on a farm. Cash is possibly disabled for the rest of his life. Anse has a new wife and new teeth. He can now eat. Funnily enough, Anse has rid himself of a disability while Cash gained one. Dewey Dell will probably be shunned from her family because of her pregnancy, but we don't actually know, because no one else knows of it when the book ends. Vardman is pretty consistent a character, but he's also young and is mostly there to give a different perspective on the situation at hand, I do think. Jewel actually grows up a little in my opinion. He did, after all, sacrifice his horse to receive money to buy new mules to transport the wagon. He's still impulsive and inconsiderate, though, as he verbally attacks a man when entering Jefferson.

Darl is…well, how to phrase this…completely insane!! I don't know what to think about this. He literally just turned a corner into Crazyland and "set fire to [a barn]" (232). Oddly enough, this was an act of vengeance for his brother having to sell his horse, one of Jewel's selfless moments, and the two almost switch places with Jewel kind of, sort of, but not really entirely being helpful and a team player, and Darl being destructive and compulsive. Many have throughout the story hinted at downright stated that Darl is different from everyone else, as he is secluded in his own little world. Proving his insanity, Darl narrates about himself in the third person at the end of the novel: "They pulled two seats together so Darl could sit by the window to laugh" (254). He doesn't even live inside himself anymore. Maybe this is how Addie stole a child from Anse. He's clearly headed to a mental asylum, dead. Dead to himself, dead to society, dead to his family.

So what is the meaning as a whole? It would make sense for it to center around death. It could have to do with secrets. It could have to do with caring for others. But then again, I don't really know what this book is about. I don't quite understand the ending, and there are many loose ends that allow for many interpretations. But as almost everyone changes drastically in the end or reveals some giant secret to us, the readers, I can say that the conclusion I've come to isn't completely farfetched.

Perhaps best put: Death is a state of being during which people cannot or do not communicate with others thereby resulting in a misperception of who people truly are.

WHAT!?!?

So last time I said I would say something regarding characters' views the following day, which I didn't get around to, so I'll just start off today by saying something quick about that. My main point I wanted to discuss was the children's views of their mother, specifically those of Vardaman, Jewel and Darl. According to Vardaman, his "mother is a fish" (84). I've already discussed some of that and I shall do more so later on in this post. According to Darl, "'Jewel's mother is a horse'" (101). This would indicate that Jewel views his mother as a pack animal or servant or something of that kind; she is a useful asset in his life, but not worthy of an equal value to his own. As for himself, Darl thinks that if he had a mother, "it is was. And if it was, it cant [sic] be is" (101). In other words, because Addie is dead, Darl sees it so that he no longer has a mother at all. This makes Darl seem complacent about his mother's death, but I still don't know how he felt towards her when she was alive. How much did Darl actually care for Addie?

Moving on to today's section, we get a peaceful stroll across a torrential, flooded river with great mishaps and misery - what a fun day! You see, Anse and family plus Vernon Tull are finally taking Addie to Jefferson, Tennessee, but the bridge they need to cross to get over a river has been torn down by the waters. Logically speaking, the only option is to find a bank to use instead of a bridge, so Dewey Dell, Anse, Tull and Vardaman cross over some logs while Cash and Darl on the carriage and Jewel on his horse find another location at which to make their way over (or through) the river. So let's discuss Anse for a while. I find it admirable that Anse is fulfilling Addie's wish to be buried in Jefferson and it makes him seem significantly less selfish than he apparently has been throughout his life. However, he still a very passive person, as he refuses to wield the carriage across the river himself and leaves his sons to do it for him.

Which brings me to Cash. He's very focused on balance of Addie's coffin, constantly remarking on it. "'It aint on a balance'" is repeated almost to a nauseating degree (145). The sad fact of this, however, is that he is focused on the coffin and not on his mother. It is not of little significance whether or not Addie is OK; only the coffin needs to be on balance. Jewel also thinks little of his mother - or his other family member's for that. He rides separately on his horse, signifying a sense of superiority. He only does what he needs to because the rest of his family pressures him into saving Addie after she falls into the water when a log causes Cash to lose control of the wagon. Vardaman showcases his childish self in one of my favorite passages of the book when he is following the action of saving his mother:

Cash tried but she fell off and Darl jumped going under he went under and Cash hollering to catch her and I hollering running and hollering and Dewey Dell hollering at me Vardaman you vardaman you vardaman and Vernon passed me because he was seeing her come up and she jumped into the water again and Darl hadn't caught her yet (150)

 This passage gives a sense of urgency and despair because of its composition: four entire paragraphs are written in this manner without any periods or breaks between sentences. Vardaman just follows the action and wants everything to turn out all right in the end. Oh, and he still thinks his mother is a fish, which makes sense, as she's about to float down a stream. In a coffin. Which is totally normal… Right?

Anyway, Addie actually narrates this time around. From inside her coffin. When she's dead. And rotting. Well, at least she takes the reader's mind off of that with her back story. Upon reading this I was excited to get to know her past: how Anse didn't like her, how she  did everything for her children - NO! That's not how her life was, despite everything precluding that it was like that. My mind blew when I read this section, which is very uncommon to happen to me when reading. I often may be intrigued or perplexed, but not downright frazzled. Addie's father taught her that "the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time" (169), and once she had Cash, she "knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it" (171). She's an incredibly pessimistic person with bottled up rage (She would "look forward to the times when they [her children] faulted, so [she] could whip them" (170)) and hatred for everyone around her. In a sense, she is almost as Anse has been portrayed - selfish, uncaring, dead - while Anse is finally doing something selfless by returning Addie to Tennessee.

She also doesn't love her children. She only really shows affection to Jewel, and she "gave Anse Dewey Dell to negative Jewel. Then [she] gave him Vardaman to replace the child [she] had robbed him of" (176). She doesn't think that she and Anse had chidden together. Instead, the children to only one parent each. I don't understand though, if it is Cash or Darl that she robbed Anse of. I'm just happy that Addie isn't my own mother. It would not have been a fun life. Then again, she doesn't seem to have revealed any of her thoughts to anyone else. She must have been a good actress.

And now her family had no mules to bring her back to Tennessee.

Some Statements on Style

Margaret Atwood uses a contrasting long-sentence, short-sentence writing style to emphasize certain sections of her books and Zora Neale Hurston writes in dialect to give a more realistic idea of the setting and characters in her books. William Faulkner, on the other had, is more of an ignore-punctuation-sometimes, don't-always-make-pronoun-references-clear, switch-between-ideas-without-any-transition type of writer. Seriously, I have never before read a book that incorporates so many subtle little details in the writing to add to character development and to steer the writer's focus in a specific direction. Let me give you some examples below.

One of the first things I noticed when I started reading the book, is the lack of apostrophes in certain words, but not others. For example, in As I Lay Dying, the words dont, cant, and wont never have apostrophes, but the words I'll and we'll among others always do. At first I thought it was to give the characters a sense of being somewhat uneducated. But then I noticed the words that do include apostrophes. These words with apostrophes, however, become entirely different words if the apostrophe were omitted, which could change the meaning drastically. For example, I'll and ill are the exact same save the apostrophe and could potentially cause confusion if in some case they would both fit in a sentence, albeit the likelihood of that is slim. Regardless, I do still as a result stand by my original thought that this writing characteristic makes the characters seem uneducated. It also helps accentuate the southern accent.

All the characters in the book have slight differences in the writing to differentiate them and their backgrounds. Vardaman sounds young and Darl speaks in circles, for example. Tull stands out to me as having a poorer standard of spelling than his counterparts in the book. For example, he says "'She has hern'" (92) and often times makes unusual contractions with the words him and her, as well as saying setting instead of sitting. This makes him seem uneducated to me. However, at the same time it might just be my northern prejudices coming into play here, as the book gives no reason for us to believe that Tull should be any more or less intelligent than Darl, Anse or Cora. Most likely, it is simply dialect.

Faulkner does however go a bit overboard crazy with his style when Dewey Dell is riding on the wagon from Samson's place. She makes the observation that "Cash's head turns slowly as we approach [the road sign], his pale empty sad composed and questioning face following the red and empty curve" (121). No commas are in place, despite a list being present. This gives a very odd effect, forcing the reader to slow down and more carefully observe the sentence. Upon closer inspection, Dewey Dell's observations go from being pure description, pale, to giving insight to Cash's state of mind, composed and questioning. The stream of consciousness device used here also may explain the lack of commas, as we get Dewey Dell's thoughts in real time. This continues further down the page, where we come to a paragraph entry composed in italics. Let me show some of it before I say anything. The paragraph reads as follows: "When I used to sleep with Vardaman I had a nightmare once I thought I was awake but I couldn't see and couldn't feel I couldn't feel the bed under me and I couldn't think what I was I couldn't think of my name I couldn't even think I am a girl…" (121). As you've probably recognized now, this entire paragraph is completely void of periods. Entirely. Including at the very end. This gives a very frantic feeling to the paragraph, combined with the words, making Dewey Dell seem vulnerable and panicked. Her thoughts are racing, slightly incoherent and flowing right into one another without pause. The lack of periods specifically accentuates this last point.

Similarly, on this page, the use of italics allows us to more easily separate Dewey Dell's thoughts. For example, she thinks "I saw Vardaman rise and go to the window and strike the knife into fish, the blood gushing, hissing like steam but I could not see. He'll do as I say. He always does. I can persuade him to anything. You know I can. Suppose I say Turn here. That was when I died last time" (121). She first recalls Vardaman slaughtering the fish he had dropped on the ground, then considers her relation with Vardaman before finally again coming back to the scene of him slaughtering the fish. While the italics are not completely necessary, they do help the reader differentiate between thoughts, which can be incredibly important given the complexity of the characters' thoughts in this book.

Finally, I simply have to share probably the most unique device I have ever seen in a book: a picture as a part of a sentence. Not on a separate page. Not as an insert on the page. Actually part of the sentence!!! It reads as follows, with Tull narrating: "Cash made [the coffin] clock-shaped, like this [...] with every joint and seem bevelled and scrubbed…" (88). Instead of having the three dots in the brackets is the picture of a coffin. This adds to the feel of the stream of consciousness style and helps put the reader in the moment. Also, because of the picture, an entire paragraph of description could be eliminated from the book and adds a sense of simplicity to Tull's thoughts.

Well, that's all for now. Tomorrow I'll talk about character relations and plot points.

How many people are dead? Maybe we don't yet have an answer...

Perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising that a book called As I Lay Dying includes images of death and deals with the subject, but the number of possibly dead people is larger than one would expect from the singular pronoun in the title. Death is one of the more common motifs in this reading section.

One image of death is when Vardaman, Jewel and Darl's little brother, is told by his father to clean a fish. The fish "slides out of his hands, smearing wet dirt onto him, and flops down, dirtying itself again, gap mouthed, goggle-eyed, hiding into the dust like it was ashamed of being dead…" (31). Vardaman is a young a boy, which I will prove later, and it would not be unlikely that this is his first encounter with death in his life. He would therefore view death as shameful, like the fish was, and perhaps also uncleanly. It's as if the fish has lost all its dignity in its death and Vardaman is could potentially hold this connection with death later on in his life.

Addie Bundren actually dies in this section. At the end of her life, Addie sits up in her bed and yells "'You, Cash!' …her voice harsh, strong, and unimpaired" (48). It is interesting that her voice should be unimpaired when she's literally two seconds away from death. This raises a couple of questions, the most pressing one being How alive was she during her life? As we in our class have read in Song of Solomon, people who are alive aren't necessarily living. I wonder if this could be the case with Addie, too. Why did she then make that choice if it was a decision? Is this why she wants to be buried in Tennessee; did she feel more alive at her old home? Regardless, she seems to be very strong in these final moments, despite a lack of physical health, which indicates a great deal of endurance in life and a strong personality. This would contrast Rudy in Song of Solomon who was complacent and quiet, unable to show her true feelings to anyone. Hopefully answers will arrive later.

It also becomes clear during Addie's death that Vardaman is young because he is peers "from behind pa's leg…" (49). He is clearly traumatized by this experience as he runs away to a barn, where a cow "nudges [him], snuffling. [The cow] moans deep inside, her mouth closed" (55). This cow appears to be attempting to comfort Vardaman, but could in fact also be a symbol. It is through this cow that Dewey Dell, a sister, finally finds Vardaman to bring him to supper. The cow cannot communicate well with either person, but can even so bring Vardaman and Dewey Dell together. It understands them on an emotional and deep level that the Brunden family as a whole seems to be lacking according to Cora, which I covered in my last post.

This link between quietness and emotional understanding may also be evident in Darl. As I mentioned in my previous post, Cora thinks that Addie and Darl are the only two people in their family who can truly love and they do this even without speech. According to Tull, however, "the matter with dark [is] he just thinks by himself too much" (71). Tull also recognizes Darl's quiet behavior but views this much more negatively. Darl has not given too much away about himself yet, but the views that Cora and Tull hold of him, quiet, loving, and lonesome, combined with cow's role in unifying role between Dewey Dell and Vardaman, may prove the cow to be a metaphor for how Darl is: lonesome, but emotionally considerate of others. This may seem like a long stretch at the moment, but in the Bundren's disconnected lives and inherently greedy nature, Darl may prove to be the unifying person that can put them all past this.

Not even Anse is particularly close to Addie. When Anse "touches the quilt as he saw Dewey Dell do, trying to smooth it up to the chin, but disarranging it instead" (52) it becomes all the more apparent that the two lack a personal connection and Anse cannot treat others gently. Knowing that Cora thinks that Jewel is like his father, I simply put all the more hope that Darl will grow and help end this negative way of thinking his family holds.

Faulkner's craft is starting to come together a bit, with motifs starting to appear, death and family connections, as well as the possible use of metaphors for certain characters in the novel, not to mention the stream of consciousness method to allow multiple character's views. It will be interesting to see how the family member's reactions to Addie's death will develop in the coming pages. Questions are just burning to be answered.

What Interesting Dynamics

The beginning of As I Lay Dying provides very little in plot detail - all we know is that Addie Bundren is on her deathbed while observing her coffin being built outside her house - but some peculiar and tense family relations are put in place. Firstly, though, I should probably introduce the characters featured at the beginning of the book.

There is of course Addie, a sick mother who is watching her coffin being built; Anse, Addie's seemingly selfish and unempathetic husband; Jewel, Addie's oldest, tall son, equally as self-concerned as his father and quite greedy; and Darl, Addie's second son, shorter, and more quiet and reserved as his mother. Next-door neighbor Cora must also be mentioned - she, so far at least, has given more insight to the Bundren's family's dynamics than anyone else. Of course, as most of the traits listed above for other characters are given from Cora's perspective, we should maybe caution ourselves as to how accurate her descriptions are, as they are biased.

Perhaps at this point, you're thinking that Cora is narrating the story. This is, however, only partially correct. The book has multiple narrators, including previously mentioned people in the post and others who have yet to be introduced, and they switch back and forth among each other every two to five pages. We've actually yet to introduce all characters mentioned in this section!! One of the most unique is Cash, the carpenter who is building Addie's coffin. Nothing really is known about him, except that Addie entrusts him with this task. Then there is Tull, who will drive the horse carriage from Mississippi to Tennessee with Addie so that she can be buried with her family. Also a minor character is Kate, who appears to be Cora's co-worker in a bakery.

Cora and Kate are very different from each other. When we first meet them, they are discussing what to do with all the cakes they have baked for a rich lady who, after canceling her party, has decided to not pick them up. While Kate continuously repeats the line "She ought to taken those cakes" three lines curing the conversation (Faulkner 7-9), Cora instead turns to her deep Christian faith to rationalize the situation and make the best of what she has. For example, while Kate thinks the rich lady should have bought the cakes even if she weren't to proceed with her party, Cora reckons it may have been more honest and up front to simply say the party was off and not buy the cakes despite a previous promise, as the "Lord can see into the heart. If it is His will that some folks has different ideas of honesty form other folks, it is not my place to question His decree" (8). In essence, Cora thinks that both the rich lady and Kate could have correct assessments of the situation, but their different perspectives suggest that each is more correct than the other. This passage furthermore defines how Cora views her faith, as she believes that the Lord is so just that more than one answer is correct to life's problems. She believes that God will  accept both Kate and the rich lady as viewing the their perceptions as honest and fair even thought they are different.

The above passage also shows one of the most prominent literary devices in use during this novel: stream of consciousness, hence the multiple narrators in the story. This allows us to get inside the characters heads during their current thoughts throughout the novel as events unfold before them. Stream of consciousness is what has allowed us as readers to know of Cora's religious beliefs, as well as her view of the Bundrens.

This first section of the book, albeit it very small, offers a huge set-up for character relations and personality. We've yet to learn anything about Addie, really, which is interesting as her seemingly upcoming death is the driving force in the book. It will be interesting to see where the book goes form here, how people will develop, and who Addie is. I can't wait to continue reading to find out what all this is about. Although nothing has happened besides Jewel falling off a horse and Cora baking some cakes, the book has be hooked. These characters don't seem to really get along, and when they do, they keep it secret. I wonder what will happen when their true feelings for each other come out...