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Discuss
As I Lay Dying as a modern
text.
As
I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is one
of the novels to be taken as a modern
text in terms of its theme, style and
subject matter. Writer of this novel
breaks away the traditional and conventional
trend through experimentation with new
literary forms, devices and styles.
His work As I Lay Dying reflects the
pervasive sense of loss, disillusionment,
despair with the emphasis on historical
discontinuity and alienation of humanity.
In this novel the most important theme,
like other modern and post-modern literature,
is the theme of alienation. Most characters
like Anse, Addie, Cash, Darl, Jewel,
Dewey Dell, Verdaman are alienated in
As I Lay Dying.
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Father of the family Anse
is alienated because of his
egoist, selfish & irresponsible
behavior to his children &
his wife. Mother of the family
Addie is alienated because
of her philosophy to life
& disbelief toward love
& motherhood. Even her
infidelity towards her husband
shows that she is alienated
from him too. The sense of
alienation prevails in Chash
because he is only concerned
with his work. He is not bothered
about other cases. Darl is
alienated because of his intuitive
knowledge or sensibility to
know everything of his other
family members, and that makes
other family members afraid
of him.
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Mother is afraid
because she had committed adultery,
Dewey Dell is afraid because she is
pregnant, Jewel is afraid because he
knows that Darl is not his real brother.
Verdaman is alienated because he feels
alienated after his mother's death.
Another theme that makes this novel
modern is religion. It is taken doubtfully
since the priest Whitefield commits
adultery with Addie Bundran. This gives
the sense of loss on spirituality of
the priest. Death of Addie is not taken
as glorification. For Christianity death
is just spiritual transformation from
one birth to another. But here in As
I Lay Dying Addie’s death has
been treated as terrifying in an ugly
manner. These are the things which help
to treat this novel as modern text too.
This novel can
be taken as a good example for its fragmented
style which shows private and subjective
experience. It has no single plot and
the events are not chronologically ordered.
This style of Faulkner is proved to
make this novel modern by breaking the
tendency of conventional and traditional
kind of writing novels. Another important
technique used by William Faulkner is
stream of consciousness technique, which
designates the flow and mixture of all
past and present experience in the mind
of characters. This technique appears
to be fragmented just as our thought,
emotion and sensory impressions. In
this novel interior monologue is used
in the part of all most all character
which is a type of stream of consciousness,
presenting almost all characters of
this novel, various thoughts, emotions
and feelings. The idea of stream of
consciousness technique matches with
the nature of modern text. Thus this
style also gives the sense of modern
text to As I Lay Dying. In terms
of its subject matter the novel As I
Lay Dying reinforces the nature of modern
text. It is about a story of simple
people from an ordinary county, Yoknapatawpha.
Unlike classical literature there are
no sophisticated characters and places
in the setting rather this novel includes
ordinary and rustic characters who are
poor and suffering from their own individual
problems.
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