Symbolism and Theme in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
This essay analyzes William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, focusing on how the novel subverts traditional narrative conventions by centering on a corpse rather than a living protagonist. The paper examines Jewel Bundren's role as the spiritual extension and legacy of his mother Addie, the novel's use of eye imagery, and the multiple narrators' varying responses to death. It also explores Faulkner's critique of Southern poor-white culture, the tension between rationality (embodied by Darl) and irrational tradition, and how Addie's posthumous will shapes the entire journey. Drawing on critics André Bleikasten and Shields McLlwaine, the essay argues that Faulkner portrays Southern culture as morally bankrupt yet darkly compelling.
- Introduction: A Corpse as Narrative Center: Novel's unconventional structure centered on Addie's corpse
- Jewel as Addie's Legacy and Spiritual Extension: Jewel embodies Addie's will and spiritual agency
- Eye Imagery and Symbolism: Eyes as symbolic link between Addie and Jewel
- Death and Its Effects on Each Character: Each character's unique psychological response to death
- Addie's Will, Words, and Posthumous Power: Addie's distrust of language and posthumous revenge
- Darl as Rational Antagonist and Southern Critique: Darl's rationalism crushed by irrational Southern tradition
- Conclusion: A Bankrupt Culture Kept Alive: Faulkner's indictment of Southern culture as morally hollow
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its thematic claims in specific textual evidence, quoting Faulkner's prose directly and connecting quoted passages to broader symbolic arguments about agency, legacy, and the spirit of the dead.
- It draws on credible secondary sources — Bleikasten and McLlwaine — to anchor its characterization of Anse and Southern poor-white culture, demonstrating engagement with the critical conversation around the novel.
- The comparative references to Moby Dick and Greek mythology (the Centaur) add interpretive depth by situating Faulkner's choices within a wider literary and mythological tradition.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates thematic synthesis across multiple narrative voices. Rather than analyzing each character in isolation, the essay traces a single unifying argument — that Jewel functions as the corporeal extension of Addie's will — across different narrators' chapters, reconciling contradictory accounts (Cora's vs. Darl's) to build a coherent interpretive claim about the novel's treatment of legacy and death.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by establishing the novel's unconventional narrative structure, then moves to its central argument about Jewel's symbolic role. Subsequent sections address eye imagery, the varied psychology of grief among characters, and Addie's use of language and posthumous power. The final sections broaden into social critique — examining Darl as a voice of rationality crushed by Southern tradition — before closing with Faulkner's implied verdict on Southern culture as a whole.
Introduction: A Corpse as Narrative Center
As I Lay Dying is a unique novel in that there is no discernible protagonist. In place of a protagonist is a corpse — Addie — who is dead for most of the book. The novel is written in the first person from the perspectives of Addie and her family, although the point of view shifts across most chapters between Addie's self-interested family members, with Addie herself contributing only one chapter. Addie's dying wish is to be buried in Jefferson, and the story follows how she makes it there. Although Addie is not alive for much of the novel, her son Jewel reflects her interests after her death and acts as her legacy.
That the novel is the story of a dead person whose ends will not be met until she reaches her grave is thematically consistent with voodoo cultures that existed in Mississippi's colorful history. Another theme is that of the oral tradition in the Old South — a tradition kept alive not only in African American circles but also in folk tales. As with oral traditions, the story maintains distance from the perspective of any given individual by sustaining so many first-person voices. By using this technique, Faulkner attempts to distance himself from his own emotions. To a certain extent, this Faulknerian de-emphasis on any single perspective lends weight to naturalistic themes. When the coffin is nearly lost while traversing a stream, we see that nature still plays a powerful role.
One of the novel's themes is that poor white people whom we might consider irrational and illogical have their own dramas and intrigues. Darl, who is the most eloquent narrator in the book, is also the antagonist: he sets fire to a barn and criticizes the journey at several points. Whereas most novels feature a perceptive if not rational protagonist, here the protagonist is a corpse. A corpse is, at most, the echo of a protagonist, and nature often serves as antagonist. In Moby Dick, Queequeg effectively rescues the protagonist in that his coffin is used by Ishmael as a flotation device. In the flood scene in As I Lay Dying, we see the opposite: Jewel saves his mother's corpse. Jewel, who never narrates a chapter of the novel, is an extension of his mother's will.
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