In his famous novel, As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner uses multiple points-of-view, stream of consciousness narration, and often confusing sentence structure to give the entire work a new dimension of interpretation. Faulkner uses these techniques flawlessly to create a novel that constantly leaves the reader questioning him or herself and the validity of the narrators. By doing so, he leaves the true meaning of his work up to interpretation. Faulkner is showing the reader that his novel, and by extension reality itself, is subjective.
Through his use of multiple points-of-view, Faulkner establishes that his narrators may be fallible in their storytelling. In fact, they sometimes directly contradict each other, as evidenced by Cora Tull’s …show more content…
His characters often repeat things for emphasis and ramble on in nonsensical sentences to evoke particular emotions in the reader. Kathryn Olsen wrote, “Faulkner populates his novels with often inscrutable characters, who attack their project of narration obliquely” (1). This is especially true when reading Darl’s oddly poetic thoughts. For example, Darl thinks to himself, “And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were” (Faulkner 80). In this excerpt, Faulkner uses repetition and strange sentence structure to show Darl’s abstract thought process. Vardaman’s thoughts, on the other hand, are shown to be naive and childlike throughout the book. This becomes especially obvious when looking at the short, choppy sentences that make up his narration when describing Jewel and Cash (Faulkner 210). Addie Bundren herself, in her only chapter in the book, attacks language as a lacking and imperfect device that only serves to fill a space where meaning should be (172). This idea seems to contradict Faulkner’s own use of language and causes the reader to question whether this novel is praising language or disparaging
Through his use of multiple points-of-view, Faulkner establishes that his narrators may be fallible in their storytelling. In fact, they sometimes directly contradict each other, as evidenced by Cora Tull’s …show more content…
His characters often repeat things for emphasis and ramble on in nonsensical sentences to evoke particular emotions in the reader. Kathryn Olsen wrote, “Faulkner populates his novels with often inscrutable characters, who attack their project of narration obliquely” (1). This is especially true when reading Darl’s oddly poetic thoughts. For example, Darl thinks to himself, “And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were” (Faulkner 80). In this excerpt, Faulkner uses repetition and strange sentence structure to show Darl’s abstract thought process. Vardaman’s thoughts, on the other hand, are shown to be naive and childlike throughout the book. This becomes especially obvious when looking at the short, choppy sentences that make up his narration when describing Jewel and Cash (Faulkner 210). Addie Bundren herself, in her only chapter in the book, attacks language as a lacking and imperfect device that only serves to fill a space where meaning should be (172). This idea seems to contradict Faulkner’s own use of language and causes the reader to question whether this novel is praising language or disparaging