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As I Lay Dying 20954 Views


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Description:

A family goes on a quest to bury their family member. Yeah, sounds simple...except it never is. ‘Cause mom’s dead, and people have issues which are seen from 15 different perspective and, oh look a bird, yeah issues and it’s really difficult to understand because stream of consciousness, wait, did that cat just eat the bird? Did you get that? No, maybe, yes? Well that’s William Faulkner for you, keeping it confusing since 1930.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

As I Lay Dying, a la Shmoop. William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is the

00:09

story of the Bundren family traveling to bury their dead mother.

00:12

It would have been a very different story had they tried to bury her alive. Which is

00:16

kinda what the title seems to suggest… This novel stands out [1] from the stacks

00:22

of dusty old classics because it is told from the perspective of fifteen different characters.

00:27

Basically, it’s like the fourth season of Arrested Development in novel form.

00:31

So what’s more important in As I Lay Dying – the content… or its form?

00:36

The content’s pretty solid. The family’s journey follows one of the seven basic plot

00:40

types: the quest.

00:42

It may not be as glamorous as a quest for the holy grail, but there’s just as much

00:45

peril. One terrible thing after another happens to

00:51

the Bundrens…

00:51

…Dead mother.

00:52

…Guy with a broken leg.

00:54

...The toothless dude.

00:55

…A sister who is unwed and pregnant.

00:57

Yeah, they all get along like a barn on fire.

01:00

Oh yeah… there’s one of those, too. As if there wasn’t enough going on, Faulkner’s

01:07

unique form complicates things quite a bit.

01:09

With fifteen different narrators telling the story in fifty-nine stream-of-consciousness

01:13

sections, the story goes forward, backward, counterclockwise, and upside down.

01:18

Faulkner isn’t throwing this many characters at us just for fun…

01:26

Like a synchronized diver, Faulkner is all about form…

01:29

…and he’s using this complicated structure to remind us that all observation is in the

01:34

eye of the beholder… and narration is always subjective.

01:37

But don’t try to separate the form from the content, or the whole thing falls apart.

01:42

See, Faulkner is writing a modernist novel, and modernism pretty much hinges on having

01:46

no reliable narrator, no clear protagonist, and no certainty for the reader as to what

01:51

is going on or whom to trust.

01:53

With all that nothingness going on, we’re surprised there’s a book at all.

01:57

Form and content go hand in hand, like peanut butter and pickles. Don’t judge us.

02:01

If we had a straightforward story about a family funeral, it wouldn’t be the same

02:04

book.

02:05

Neither would it be the same if we had fifteen people rambling on about how rich they are

02:09

and how perfect their lives are. So what’s more in important in As I Lay

02:13

Dying?

02:13

Is it the form?

02:16

Is it the content?

02:18

Or do we need both for it to be a true modernist novel?

02:21

Shmoop amongst yourselves.

02:21

[1]Stands out from what?

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