William Faulkner was born on September 25th, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. He was named after his paternal grandfather, who was also a writer himself. Not long after, he moved to Oxford, another town of Mississippi, where he resided for most of his life. Although Faulkner grew up to be an eloquent writer, he did not go to school very often in his youth and often played “hooky”. Instead of completing his schooling, he dropped out and worked for his grandfather’s business as a bank bookkeeper.
Faulkner later joins the Air Force, yet returns home, without ever witnessing air combat. Back in Mississippi, Faulkner attends the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), where he became the postmaster. However, after only three years, he is fired. At the age of twenty-eight, William Faulkner’s first novel is published, entitled, Soldier’s Pay, which was based on events from World War I and what its results were. Unfortunately, critics said this first attempt was simply “mediocre” and Faulkner did not receive the success he intended to.
Nevertheless, Faulkner did not give up and continued writing several other novels. Some of Faulkner’s most famous are The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Santuary, and many more. Along with composing novels, William Faulkner wrote short stories, including A Rose for Emily, which turned out to be a huge success. In the year of 1949, Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. Just one year later, he was also awarded the National Book Award, which he won twice (once in 1951 and another in 1955). Not only that, but he was also given the award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1955, for his book, The Fable. Faulkner died in 1962 in Byhalia, Mississippi.

Historical Background

In the novel, As I Lay Dying, the Bundren family lived in the Southern region, in the fictional town of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. During this actual time period, Southern farmers did not make a lot of money at all. This contributed to the status of the Bundren family in the novel, as it portrays real farmers and their families’ struggles financially. The average income for farmers during the 1920’s through the 1930’s ranged roughly between one hundred to three hundred dollars per year.

Making this amount of salary, in addition to the large number of kids in the Bundren family had, certainly was a struggle. However, several of them did work in the farm, helping as much as they could. This was another common trend during this time period. Children were often sent out to work in the fields, in order to keep productivity at an ongoing rate.

Additionally, the Great Depression was taking place in this time frame, which was another setback for American families. This Depression was reflected in the economic class of the Bundren family in As I Lay Dying as well.








Characters

In this novel, there are many different characters, and they all play the narrator at least once in the story, even Addie, who is dead, before her narration even begins. The parents of the Bundren family are Anse and Addie Bundren. Anse, although he is the father of these children, does not portray a fatherly image, because of his laziness and lack of leadership. Addie Bundren, before passing, led the family and kept everything sane and in line, although she did favor some children over others. The whole plot of this novel is about getting Addie to the city of Jefferson, so that she can be buried with her own family. Peabody is the doctor who checks on Addie and Cash’s leg. Cora and Vernon Tull are the Bundren’s neighbors, who often help them out.

The children of Addie and Anse are Darl, Dewey Dell, Jewel, Cash, and Vardaman. Cash plays the oldest son, who is a talented carpenter and takes on the role of building Addie’s coffin. He later breaks his leg, and Anse tries to repair it by putting it in a “cast” made of cement. Darl is the second oldest son, who portrays an omniscient narrator throughout a majority of the book and is later sent to mental institution on account of trying to burn Addie’s coffin in a fire, to end the craziness. Jewel, the third oldest son, is in fact the child of Addie and the priest, Whitfield. Addie favors Jewel more than any of the other kids, due to the fact that he isn’t a child of Anse. Dewey Dell is their fourth child and only daughter, who becomes impregnated and spends most of her focus on attempting to get an abortion, rather than focusing on her dead mother. Vardaman is the youngest Bundren child, who is hot-tempered and does not quite understand the death of his mother, due to his young age. His compared her death to the death of his fish frequently throughout the book.
Symbols
One symbol in As I Lay Dying, is the death of Vardaman’s fish. In Vardaman’s second chapter of narrating, all he says is, “My mother is a fish.” (Faulkner 84)
The fish that Vardaman is referring to, symbolizes the death of Addie Bundren. Vardaman had a fish that he took with him everywhere. Then his fish suddenly dies, just like Addie dies, and Vardaman looks at the loss of his fish, similarly to the loss of his mother.
Another symbol of this novel is Addie’s coffin, which is built by Cash, with great skill and efforts, and then it becomes messed up already by Addie’s placement in the coffin being upside down and Vardaman drilling holes in it, to give Addie air to breathe. This represents the Bundren family as a whole and all the chaos that they go on throughout their whole journey to get Addie to Jefferson.
The breaking of Cash’s leg is another symbol, which represents his sacrifice and dedication when their wagon is turned over in the water of the river. Cash stayed dedicated to properly constructing his mother’s coffin when she needed it and he stayed devoted to his mother the entire time. Here, when the wagon tipped over, Cash does his best to try to save the coffin, and remains loyal to the coffin and his mother, just like he stayed loyal to both of them as he was constructing the coffin. Cash didn’t even know how to swim, as it reveals on page 154.
“…so I started running along the bank, trying to catch sight of Cash because he couldn’t swim, yelling at Jewel where ash was like a durn fool…” (Faulkner 154).


Themes

A major theme of this book is death and what results from death. Certain people handle death in different ways and each character of this book handles the passing of their mother differently. Vardaman and Jewel both are very hot-tempered and rage because of Addie’s death. Vardaman blames Peabody for Addie’s death and takes it out on Peabody’s animals. Darl begins to question his mother’s existence, and Cash focuses completely on the building of her coffin, to draw his mind elsewhere. Dewey Dell, however, seems to be too absorbed in her own problems with being pregnant, that she barely pays any attention to her dead mother. Anse, like his daughter, does not act as if he is too affected by Addie’s death, and in fact, marries another woman at the end of the book, proving he isn’t too upset about her death.

Another theme in this book is that having a child a bringing it into the world, may lead to bringing death, mentally, as well. This is shown through Dewey Dell and Addie. Dewey Dell’s pregnancy causes her mind to go blank over any other issue because she is so fixated on the fact that she is bearing a child now, causing her to be brain dead, in a sense. In Addie’s situation, after the birth of Cash, she called Anse dead.







Motifs

A reoccurring problem for the Bundren family all throughout this book is their economic status. They could not afford to put Addie in a nice coffin, but rather had to build one, which smelled terrible, the more it aged, causing them to be forbidden to stay, because of the stench.

Another example of this is when Anse takes the money from Dewey Dell, given to her by Lafe (the man that got her pregnant), that was originally supposed to be used so that Dewey Dell could get an abortion. In Dewey Dell’s section it says, “When he saw the money I said, ‘It’s not my money, it doesn’t belong to me.’” (Faulkner 255)
However, because of their financial situation, Anse takes her money from her, causing her to not have the money for an abortion, plus a feeling of resentment towards her family. “Don’t you touch it! If you take it you are a thief!’” (Faulkner 255)
Anse, along with taking Dewey Dell’s money, takes Jewel’s horse from him, in order to get a new team of mules, which causes Jewel to feel resentment towards his father as well.








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