As I Lay Dying Essay -- essays papers

As I Lay Dying In "As I Lay Dying" William Faulkner uses multiple points of view to explore the theme of existence as a motionless and meaningless cycle. The cycle is motionless because it is inescapable and unchangeable. One can never leave the cycle of life and death. People perpetuate the cycle by creating life, but in creating life they are creating death, for life irrevocably leads to death. Faulkner depicts existence as meaningless. Nothing really changes in the story. On the surface the characters appear to change, such as Addie dying, Darl going crazy and Anse getting a new wife, but none of these changes are really as relevant as they seem. By using multiple points of view Faulkner lets us into each character’s mind. We see how each person thinks about the cycle of existence. This insight could be accomplished with an omniscient narrator, but Faulkner’s way is much more effective. Faulkner allows us to see a ten-year-old’s perspective on life and death from the perspective of a ten-year-old, instead of from the perspective of some all-knowing narrator that doesn’t really know what it’s like to be a ten-year-old. Also, the actual sequence of narrators is in a cycle. We don’t just hear all of Darl’s point of view, and then Anse’s, and then Peabody’s. Faulkner cycles through his characters, returning again and again to people like Darl and Dewey Dell and Vardaman, while having characters such as Jewel and Addie speak only once. Addie Bundren is in many ways the central character of the story. The plot revolves around her as her family tries to get her body to Jefferson for burial. Her single monologue comes in the exact middle of the book, making her geographically the central character. Most importantly howeve... ...and what his place is in life, and the fact that he goes crazy is simply the next step in his identity crisis. Again, it is because we are given Darl’s thoughts that his craziness makes sense to us. We are brought into his confused mind, and so when it finally cracks we understand why. So nobody in the story really changes. They are all in a motionless state of existence, moving slowly towards death. Faulkner’s use of point of view helps us understand how the characters feel about their cycle of existence, and how much of it they truly understand. If Faulkner had told this story any other way, we would not understand the cycle as well as we do. We wouldn’t feel a part of they story and the characters. We would be distant from their emotions and thoughts. But as it is, we feel like a part of everyone in the story, and we can relate to and understand their thoughts.