"Cliff Notes - As I Lay Dying" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

One of the major themes of the novel is that because facts are subjective, truth is elusive. It's not easy to make sense of the action with so many competing points of view. You must sift the evidence and make up your own mind about what happened and why.

Faulkner surely has an opinion of each character. But even when his characters are most vile--when Anse, for example, takes Dewey Dell's money, or MacGowan seduces her--Faulkner refuses to criticize them. He portrays his characters, warts and all, with affection.

The use of multiple narrators is an effective substitute for an omniscient (all-knowing) narrator. Omniscient narrators allow novelists to present several perspectives on events. The fifteen narrators in As I Lay Dying permit Faulkner--and you--to work with fifteen perspectives.

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: FORM AND STRUCTURE

As I Lay Dying is divided into 59 soliloquies, or interior monologues--the characters' thoughts expressed as if they were spoken. They are delivered by 15 different people.

The basic plot and the controlling image of the novel is that of a journey--in this case, the journey from the Bundrens' home to the cemetery plot in Jefferson. As some readers have pointed out, the story echoes many of the well-known journeys in history and myth. The story of Odysseus wandering for years before he reaches home is suggested by the novel's title, a quote from Homer's Odyssey. Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece is another epic voyage called to some reader's minds. Also, in 1290, England's Edward I made a famous funeral journey from Nottinghamshire to London with his dead queen, Eleanor of Castile.

Faulkner's story of a poor family's funeral journey wasn't intended to compete with those grand tales. Yet they form the backdrop against which Faulkner plays out his story.

For the most part, the story is told chronologically. It begins just before Addie's death and proceeds, after a three-day delay, with the tortuous journey to Jefferson. Later, flashbacks fill in some of the pieces that are missing from the puzzle of the Bundrens' lives.

The novel's form is an expression of its content. The characters work together and live together--if not in the same house, at least in the same community. Yet their isolation from one another is almost total, and it is exemplified by the 59 monologues. For the most part, the fifteen soliloquists are unable to make meaningful contact with one another. They cannot penetrate each other's "aloneness."

^^^^^^^^^^AS I LAY DYING: THE STORY

Not numbering the 59 monologues is Faulkner's effective way of suggesting continuous action, but it makes any section-by-section discussion of the novel difficult. To eliminate that problem, you might want to number the monologues in your own copy of the novel to make it easier to match your text with the discussion that follows.

1. DARL

In this opening section, Faulkner carefully establishes the setting of As I Lay Dying and introduces you to one of the novel's central conflicts--the rivalry between Darl and his younger brother, Jewel. You also get your first impression of Darl's mind, another major focus of the novel.

NOTE: AVOIDING CONFUSION Expect to be somewhat disoriented at the outset, much as you would be if you overheard a snippet of conversation between two strangers. You will find few identifying labels attached to the people named in this section. Yet, as the novel develops, the identities and motivations of each character will become clear through clues which Faulkner drops and which you, as a detective, must interpret.

As the story opens, Darl and Jewel are tramping silently across a cotton field toward their house. Faulkner doesn't tell you that they are brothers, or even how old they are. (Darl, you will learn much later, is about 28, and Jewel is about 18.) Faulkner does tell you that Jewel is a head taller than Darl and that, for some reason, they are rivals.

Their silent march is loaded with tension, as if the two were actually competing. Darl is 15 feet ahead of Jewel as the section opens. But when they reach the cotton house, exactly in the center of the field, Darl walks around it. Jewel, however, steps through it--in one window and out another--and emerges five feet ahead of Darl. They keep this pace all the way to the spring, where Jewel pauses for a drink.

Jewel has quit the race--if race it was. Darl continues on, and as he reaches the top of the path, he comes upon a carpenter named Cash. (Cash, we will learn, is at 29 the oldest of the four brothers.) Cash is making a coffin for someone named Addie Bundren. He is completely absorbed in his work, kneeling alongside the coffin to squint at the fit of two planks. Darl's words of admiration--"a good carpenter, Cash is"--suggests no rancor between these two. He walks by Cash up to the house, which holds (though we don't know it yet) the cause, and the object, of the rivalry between Darl and Jewel.

Various clues in the section make it clear that these are poor country people. The section also provides some insight into Jewel's character, or at least Darl's perception of it. He seems unsmiling and stiff, with a "wooden face" and the "gravity of a cigar store Indian... endued with life from the hips down." He seems undaunted by obstacles, too. He "steps in a single stride" through one window of the cotton house and exits, four strides later, out the other.

NOTE: JEWEL AND IMAGERY OF WOOD Darl frequently describes Jewel with imagery of wood, here and elsewhere. Some readers think that in so doing, Faulkner is trying to associate Jewel with Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility and wine who was also a god of trees. Dionysus was conceived in the woods at Nemi. Jewel was also conceived in the woods, as you will learn in section 40.

Dionysus was both violent and cruel--two primitive characteristics that Jewel will exhibit in both thought and action. He was also very manly. Jewel's virility is hinted at with the reference to his being "endued with life from the hips down," and in section 8 it is suggested that he is somewhat of a ladies' man.

You can choose to ignore this interpretation. Most readers do. If you follow such parallels, however--even if they lead to dead ends--you will learn something about Faulkner's method of weaving references to ancient myth into his works. You'll learn more about this method in the discussion of sections 3 and 11.

Finally, the opening section gives you a glimpse of Darl's mind and of his special powers as an observer. He describes with geometric precision the setting of the silent race, almost as if he were in a helicopter looking down at the scene. The path runs "straight as a plumb-line" and goes around the "square" cotton house "at four soft right angles." He is aware of everything--the spaces between the coffin planks "yellow as gold" and the "chucking" sound of Cash's adze (a curved, handled tool used to dress timber and planks). He even knows what's going on behind him!

What sort of a person is Darl, judging from the way he sees things? Here, he will probably strike you as someone whose mind is uncluttered, despite its capacity to accumulate details. His vision seems absolutely clear. He appears to be an accurate reporter, someone whose perceptions you can trust.

Be careful, however. Darl will narrate almost a third of the book. As the novel progresses, he may not always appear rational and trustworthy.

NOTE: TONE AND COMIC EFFECTS Before leaving this opening section, assess its tone. Darl's attitude seems matter-of-fact, accepting. He doesn't criticize Jewel, or even comment on the tension between them. His entire tone is one of understanding and sincerity. He makes no obvious attempt at humor.