In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner creates a frantic, and conceited world with very little room for success. As the book progressed through the journey of burying Addie, the scene of despair never changes. While a satisfying conclusion brings in happiness to the readers, Faulkner’s unsatisfactory endings of the Bundrens delivers pain and misery to the readers, and that may well be what the mood he wants the audience to feel. Through the use of unexpected events, Faulkner cultivates a realistic expectation of a dysfunctional family and keeps moving forward with the theme of suffering and mistrust. Furthermore, it also gives an insight on the writing style of the author.
Through the use of unexpected events the readers never anticipated the outcomes for most characters. However, looking back to the novel as a whole, there were hints of what was coming up later on. From the beginning, Anse Bundren was shown as lazy, cheap and selfish. He never advanced as a character that changing in any way. To Anse, he always gets what he wants and it is no different when he really meant that he wanted new teeth, “Now I can get them teeth”(52). Along the way of …show more content…
They have suffered the physical course and personal holdbacks. The theme of agony and lack of unity persists throughout the novel. To have given Dewey Dell a successful abortion or Cash healing his leg would polarize the work that Faulkner tried to portray in the novel. If the family goes through the journey without any failed attempts, it will show that they can work together, which is not the case for the Bundrens. Also, the conclusion left unanswered questions of Dewey Dell’s pregnancy, Darl’s insanity or Cash’s broken leg. This gives the future of the novel a dependency on the reader’s imagination. It either highlights the tiny ray of hope of the impending plot or that because pain endures all the way till the last chapter, that these characters do not deserve any
Through the use of unexpected events the readers never anticipated the outcomes for most characters. However, looking back to the novel as a whole, there were hints of what was coming up later on. From the beginning, Anse Bundren was shown as lazy, cheap and selfish. He never advanced as a character that changing in any way. To Anse, he always gets what he wants and it is no different when he really meant that he wanted new teeth, “Now I can get them teeth”(52). Along the way of …show more content…
They have suffered the physical course and personal holdbacks. The theme of agony and lack of unity persists throughout the novel. To have given Dewey Dell a successful abortion or Cash healing his leg would polarize the work that Faulkner tried to portray in the novel. If the family goes through the journey without any failed attempts, it will show that they can work together, which is not the case for the Bundrens. Also, the conclusion left unanswered questions of Dewey Dell’s pregnancy, Darl’s insanity or Cash’s broken leg. This gives the future of the novel a dependency on the reader’s imagination. It either highlights the tiny ray of hope of the impending plot or that because pain endures all the way till the last chapter, that these characters do not deserve any