As I Lay Dying: Demise of Vision Author(s): Carolyn Norman Slaughter Reviewed work(s): Source: American Literature, Vol.

61, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 16-30 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2926516 . Accessed: 31/01/2013 21:28
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As I Lay Dying:Demise ofVision

CAROLYN NORMAN SLAUGHTER

University ofArizona

criticismof William Faulkner'sAs I Lay Dying maniand the outright the ambivalence, feststhe heterogeneity, contradictionthat characterizeFaulkner criticismin general.' Meanwhile the work continuesto provokeever more provocathateven yet interpretations tivecommentary. Among traditional nontraditional readings attemptto find meaning as statement, are beginningto let the meaninglie while theyfollow Faulkwith time and space, with memory ner's strangeexperiments Still, with consciousness and unconsciousness.2 and imagination, whateverthe reading,it is usuallyexpressedin termsof ratioas disruption, disjunction, terms, i.e., in negative nalistthinking, I and loss. The only novelty vacancy,and absence,as distortion is to describewhat shows up hope to offeris that my interest or what happens where old meaningshave disappearedwithout Exploringthe novel'sexplicittreatmerelyspeakingin reverse. along, ment of language, my studywill make its way literally not to reattempting searchingthe bare bones of the narrative, the work,but to follow reconstitute peat or to archaeologically alongside it in a thinking. It is Addie who gives emphasisto (raisesthe spectreof) language as such. Words,she claims,are ineffectual.
THE

And so when Cora Tull would tell me I was not a truemother, I would thinkhow wordsgo straight up in a thinline,quick and to it, clinging and how terribly doinggoesalongtheearth, harmless,
1 For studies before I973 see Andre Bleikasten, Faulkner'sAs I Lay Dying, trans. Indiana Univ.Press,I973); fora general RogerLittle,rev.and enlargeded. (Bloomington: in overviewa decade later,see Doreen Fowler and Ann J.Abadie, eds., New Directions Univ. Press of Mississippi, and Yoknapatawpha, 1983 (Jackson: FaulknerStudies:Faulkner I984). A Speculaand Revenge: 2 For example,John T. Irwin,Doublingand Incest/Repetition Hopkins Univ. Press, I975). tiveReadingof Faulkner(Baltimore:Johns

C) I989 by the Duke Literature, Volume 6i, Number i, March I989. Copyright American Press. CCC ooo2-983I/89/$I.50. University

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As I LayDying '7 so that after a whilethetwolinesaretoofar for thesameperson apart to straddle from one to theother; and thatsin and loveand fearare just soundsthatpeoplewho never sinned norlovednorfeared have forwhatthey never had and cannot haveuntil they thewords.3 forget Not words but "doing"-something terriblethat belongs to the earth-is what matters. Addie's essentialdisagreement with Anse turns on preciselythis point of doing versus not-doing, a horizontal-vertical earth-spaceset of contraries. Things God meant to stay in one place, says Anse-such as trees,menHe set in an upright, vertical position;things devotedto moving -roads, snakes-He made horizontal.Anse cordiallyloathes movement.Living in Addie's termsis evil in his (pp. 34-35).4 Living in her termsis evil in the termsof her culture,too: Mississippi bible-beltterms which counsel to sufferthe little children, not to relish whipping them; to honor fatherand mother,not to hate the father for"planting"one; to submitto the husband,not to denyunequivocally his significance; to bring up a child in the way he should go, not to rejecthim (Darl), not to worshiphim (Jewel);not to commitadultery; not to refuseto confessor repent;not,above all, stubbornly to choose one's own terms.In Addie's culture, naturalinstinct is fallennature;desire is concupiscence;will is willfulness;initiative is disobedience; independenceis pride. But when Addie insistson choosingher own "terms,"does she escape the function or the necessity of words? And can we ignore the tautologyin the denial of the validityand utilityof words by the characterwhose words provide the title of the novel and the centralchapter?Settingthesedoubtsaside forthe moment,we commenceour exploration afterAddie's example, with a story,with Addie's story, taking her literal statement as our firstsubject of inquiry.The "Addie" chaptergives an account of Addie's lifetimeof interpreting and reinterpreting (i) the nature of the words of her culture, theiremptinessand
3William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (New York: Random House, I964), pp. I65-66. 4 Compare Faulkner'sremarks in an interview forParisReview in I956, in which he

equates life with motionand motionwith motivation, claimingthatthe intention of the artistis "to arrestmotion,which is life,by artificial means and hold it fixedso that a hundredyearslater,when a stranger looks at it,it movesagain sinceit is life."Quoted in Lion in theGarden,eds. James B. Meriwether and Michael Millgate(New York: Random
House, I968), p. 253.

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inadequacy,and (2) the natureof living-a "doing,"separateand fromthose words. different is partial and instinctual, derived Addie's firstinterpretation as a young teacher,a lonely,educated woman in a Mississippi all the more forthe frustrated, country community, profoundly lack of a directcause or a directobject. The opening sentence when school was in her chaptersets the tone: "In the afternoon nose, out and the last one had leftwith his littledirtysnuffling instead of going home I would go down the hill to the spring where I could be quiet and hate them."At night,as she recalls, "Sometimes I thoughtthat I could not bear it, lying in bed faintand high and wild out of the wild darkness,"and during the day, "it would seem as though I couldn't wait for the last one to go so I could go down to the spring."She interprets and lives her hate in termsof the "secretand selfish"thoughts his she the each with own blood. Thus of children, "strange" whips them till the skin weltsand bleeds,till she has "marked" theirblood with her own in a cruelempathic(sado-masochistic) catharsis. thisearly Addie expressly attributes In a laterreinterpretation to the problem of words. Whipping the children frustration was a futile attemptto mitigatethe conditionof alonenessby reason of theirdependence aloneness,she later understands, upon words for touching.She and the children"had had to use one anotherby wordslike spidersdanglingby theirmouths and never touching,and from a beam, swingingand twisting theirblood flowas one stream"(p. I64). In thisimage,the beam is a part of an apparentlystationary structure. Hanging from are spidersthatdangle and twistwithout the beam at intervals touchingeach other.Each spideris connectedto the beam by its own thread,but the connection of spiderto spideris contingent is not relatedto spiders'. on the beam, whose essentialfunction Like the given beam, preestablished languagedoes not originate in Addie and the childrenor in theiressentialfunction: doing. In this image, as in the vertical-horizontal image above (and the geese image below), language is a high,separate,separating nonmediator. Addie and thechildren "use" each other"bywords"as the spi... only through the blows of the switch could [her] blood and ... with the wild geese going north and their honking coming

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are likethe Words mouths. dershangontothebeam"by"their is artififunction is essential buttheir origin their threads; spider thenon-anddis-connecting routed through cial and mechanical, cando notmediate, Whenwords language. beam,dysfunctional requires thenhumanintercourse interpenetrate, not penetrate, Addieincor"Doing"for essential: doing. more more, something physical, notmerely a principle ofviolation-a violation porates is an attempt thechildren Whipping ofaloneness. buta violation (p. I64). and it fails to make-them-aware-of-me; "And so I tookAnse."The word"so" (pp. I62-63) indicates and her betweenAddie's frustration an essentialrelationship Anse; "doing"is her of Anse (notherbeing-taken-by "taking" is givenbythe nothis).The sameimplication modusoperandi, later.Addie tellsAnse thatshe same word a few paragraphs or dead,who were living knownanykindof people, has never "So I took begins, not "hard to talk to"; the nextparagraph frustration between a relationship Anse."Againthe"so" implies idenis indirectly Anse,but thistimethe problem and taking in herfirst-implicit-critique withineffectual language tified of language. remtheoldest Ansemeansa violation-of-virginity, Marrying fails but marriage edy in the worldforthe oldestfrustration; whichsatThe violation Addie'sviolation-principle. to satisfy of Cash. This "doing" her demandoccurswiththebirth isfies of aloneand restoring violating the more-than-physical brings a "circle" aloneness), at last a wholeness (of provides nesswhich of "time, Anse,love,whatyouwill"-but notofCash exclusive the deed displaced by the word"love."(This inor of loving, women, of Faulknerian is characteristic sularself-inclusiveness of female enprinciple an often hard,wise insensitivity, bitter, a secondpregnancyA secondviolation, enduring.) durance, the restof the a "trick" of Anse'sword"love"-will motivate thechilof"having" the"doing" here, butto ourpurpose story, and it to "terrible" living; the"answer" drenis,Addiediscovers, I wouldlie by[Anse]in "Sometimes involves, theearth: includes, thelandthatwas nowofmybloodand flesh" thedark,hearing ifwe sortheranswers (p. I65). If we analyzeAddie'scondition, cateand physical emotional, and blood intomental, and terror of objective in terms herstate to define or ifwe attempt gories, their "flooding," we sacrifice or subjective interpretation, reality

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that ofabstraction process and enactthevery actuality, "boiling" and denounced. she has discovered alone lisat night lying frustration, CompareAddie'sformer she has "had" Now, after to the geese criesoverhead. tening potentisomeessential Cash and Darl, whenshe has achieved of God's the dark land talking she lies awake,"hearing ality, thedarkvoicelessness and His sin;hearing loveand His beauty wordsthatare in whichthewordsare thedeeds,and theother down coming notdeeds,thatare justthegapsin peoples'lacks, old the in wild darkness the out of like the criesof thegeese to whomare at thedeedslikeorphans fumbling nights, terrible out in a crowdtwofacesand told,That is yourfather, pointed their though areorphans, words" (p. i66). "Other mother" your are living:wordsas deeds,whichbelongto the "dark parents "Otherwords"are all of the"darkland talking." voicelessness" words sinceshe denounces the wordsshe knows,we assume, "Otherwords" theirmeanings. per se, deniesand contradicts upon effect and without from dissociated words, are alienated and mustbe are inert real-i.e., doing-living."Otherwords" doing. withliving, to deal directly in order forgotten of words: aboutthefunction She thinks
Anse.WhyAnse.Whyare youAnse.I wouldthink I would think: a whileI couldsee the wordas a shape, about his nameuntilafter and flowintoit like cold him liquefy watch I would and a vessel, thejar stood until vessel, out into the flowing ofthedarkness molasses lifelike without shapeprofoundly a significant fulland motionless: the thatI had forgotten and thenI wouldfind doorframe; an empty The shapeofmybodywhereI used nameof thejar.I wouldthink: Anse, think and I couldn't is in theshapeofa to be a virgin as no ofmyself I couldthink Anse. It was notthat remember couldn't now.And whenI wouldthink becauseI was three longerunvirgin, into nameswoulddie and solidify their Cash and Darl thatwayuntil matter. It doesn't All right. I would say, fade away, and then a shape (P. I65) call them. whatthey It doesn'tmatter In Addie's analogy a name is like a jar thathas a shape, a prelimitation(a name definition, fabricatedform-with contours, adapting alreadybelongsto language).Into thisjar the strangely Anse flows. Since the form is already made, shaped, limited, Anse fillsthat form,takes that shape, admits the transforming that limit. The jar is not Anse, is not an image of him, not

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lent to Anse signifier) but a shape (a form, a representation, Anse hima shape whichaccommodates (a doing,signified), of what of Anse to the jar is reminiscent self.The adaptation of construct a psychological call "concept," meaning we usually to thetemptation Anse in the mindof Addie.But if we resist a newviewofthephenomenon we mayobtain call it "concept," the jar is not the same here.In Addie'sdescription appearing sleeping besideheras she thinks as Ansehimself, phenomenon in entity a third of his name;yetto install aboutthe function to an idea in themindof Addie,does not answer the scheme, The jarsincethejaris onlytemporary. either, thephenomenon and leavesAnse behind-or it leavesnothing, name dissolves is notthejar butwhatflows sinceAnseis "dead."Whatremains intothejar and is released. and of whatthejar "Anse"receives And whatis thenature tothe adapting (unaccountably) strangely Ansehimself, releases? of the the function is present to Addie through transference, is perhaps another word,and outsideit. This being-present-to would be by whichAnse sleeping mode of the same miracle ofa tohim.The notion toherifsheturned herattention present Ansewhohas beenand maybe present or cumulative recurring of Anseconcept or dismisses the metaphysical to her ignores in-himself. Thus we objectthatthisAnse is, or is alteredby, But in thistextit is notpossible perception. Addie'ssubjective and so the pointis moot. to locateany entities-in-themselves, thejar does of theword, to thefunction At anyrate, to return him.That is, Addie Anse as it maintains not so muchcontain thenrecallsAnseseparately, recallsthe name "Anse" first, to bear or The name serves the word-jar. flowing into,filling Butoncethename or call himto presence. Anse,to bring carry is displaced byAnse thenameitself has performed thisfunction, is forgotten. and in itself the name of the jar; to recall it she Addie would forget If a namestoodin a reciprocal would thinkof Anse himself. thenthe recollecwith a person, or a necessary relationship tion of the personshouldrecallthe name. But when Addie a blank.The experiment thinks of theperson Anse,she recalls to signify hertheory thatnamesfunction seemsto corroborate whiledoingsfunction Anseto presence), doings("Anse"recalls without reference to names(Ansedoes notrecall quitehealthily

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of the character concerns "Anse" to mind). Anotherimplication Anse. When Addie thinksof the word "Anse" (and of Anse's word "love"), the form(filledjar) is like an emptydoorframe. for is a base for a door, the preparation An emptydoorframe it of a door; but ultimately a door, and it impliesthe intention the absenceof a door. Like words in themto signify functions Anse is "a like a mere doorframe, selves,outside theirfunction, withoutlife."5 shape profoundly significant Anse's name and triesto recallit by Now when Addie forgets accordingto thinkingof him, she thinksof sexual intercourse, principle(doing). But in spite of the her violation-of-aloneness ("I was threenow"), in hertwo children factthathe has fathered have thatthesetwo "violations" significance spiteof the profound had forher,stillAnse himselfhas nevertouchedher according thus he has no meaning. principle; to her violation-of-aloneness a shape signifying nothing: The name "Anse" is a signsignifying a lack. with "Cash" and "Darl," although the funcIt is different tion of names remainsthe same. When Addie thinksof "Cash" into a shape and then and "Darl," the names "die and solidify fade away," as "Anse" did. But "it doesn't matterwhat they withCash "that call them."She learnedwhen she was pregnant words are no good; thatwordsdont everfiteven what theyare tryingto say at" (p. I63). The names "Cash" and "Darl" are but the shapes in to signify (recall,bring), shapes which function view names in themin Addie's not are significant; themselves "When [Cash] was born I and unnecessary. selves are arbitrary knew that motherhoodwas inventedby someone who had to have a word forit because the one thathad the childrendidn't care whethertherewas a wordforit or not. I knew thatfearwas inventedby someone that had neverhad the fear; pride,who in "Cash" never had the pride" (pp. I63-64). The significance and "Darl" is the realityof "having"these two children.Cash according and Darl, with or withoutnames,are genuinedoings, principle. to her violation-of-aloneness of life and of words There is one more activeunderstanding house. This time her must clean she achieves before Addie that
5 Compare of intheironies where Absalom! inAbsalom, doorframe empty Sutpen's ad infinitum. aremultiplied andshattered thwarted, tention misapprehended, misdirected,

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the doing is passionand the word is "sin." Motherhood has provided thekeyto ("terrible") Ansehas "died," living, and now sheinterprets in lifeas duty herduty to life, to "thealive."(Cora will castigate her forneglecting herChristian but Cora's duty, "duty"is another high,dead soundin theair.)"I believed that I had foundit. I believed thatthe reasonwas the dutyto the alive,to theterrible blood,theredbitter floodboiling through theland" (p. i66). "Sin" is thewordpeoplewho haven't sinned use to coverup what-sin-is. "Sin" is forpeople who have to have a word for something theyneverhad. It is a shapeto filla lack. But for Addie,the sinner, "sin" is a "gallant garment already blowing aside withthespeedof his secret a garment coming," herlover and shelayasidein order "toshapeandcoerce theterrible blood to theforlorn echoofthedead wordhighin theair."The deed that"sin"displaces is a living, life-forcing doing. The meaning of words is forAddieonlythedoingofhuman living. Wordslike "sin"and "love"and "fear," whichhavelost theirconnection withdoing, whichhaveflown offfrom doing (whichis clinging to the earth)intothe wild,dark air,have becomefalsifiers and expropriators of lifeand language. Thus Addie'sinjunction against words for substituting and her doings thatpeoplewillnever warning experience until fordoings they getwords. But does theprinciple enjoinsilence? Does it address literally all words?As we havealready Addie'sprinciples noted, of life and languageare themselves "terms." Havingexamined these we peruseher chapter again forfurther directly, implications aboutthefunction of words. There are thewordsof Addie'sfather, his dictum: "thereason forliving was to getready to stay dead a longtime." Addie contemplates thissentiment at thebeginning, in themiddle, and at theend of hernarration. Whatherfather saysin thisdictum is at thebeginning an ironic witticism to whichherexperience givesa bitter, humorless interpretation. If this(teaching school, and whipping hating thechildren, unmitigated is the aloneness) onlyway to get readyto staydead, she wishesher father had not"planted" her.In themiddle ofthechapter thewords occur again. Afterthe "trick"-Anse's, "love" 's, life's-of a second pregnancy, thisviolation violating theconsummation ofthefirst,

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thatwhen Anse'spromise Addieextracts Darl's birth, and after whereher people, she dies he will takeher back to Jefferson "becauseI knewthat herfather as well,are buried, presumably have knownhe evenwhenhe couldn't father had been right, than I could have knownI was wrong." was rightanymore knows Now she knowsthe doingto whichthedictumrefers, is not "the answer"to livingafter thatviolation-of-aloneness her Addie interprets revelation of bitter all. At threemoments the last. overwhelms father's dictumas each waveof violation selfPerhapswiththesecondshe beginsto knowtheinherent itselfagainst that itcommits lifeis,theviolation contradiction continuofarrival, thepossibility moving precluding continuous continuous of attainment, thepossibility precluding ous getting of product, until afterward. thepossibility precluding process "sin,"whenshe after thesecret At theend of hernarration, up and its price(cleaning Jewel, discovers the new pregnancy, Addie "knewat last what [her father] the house afterward), meantand thathe couldnothaveknownwhathe meanthimup the knowanything aboutcleaning becausea mancannot self, a doingwhich Her father's dictumsignifies house afterward." differat three She has speculated he could nothave"known." had forhim,who, as thissaying ent pointsas to the meaning the words.At each pointthe saying faras we know,authored is forher.The saying different has come to mean something who wordsof herfather alwayscomposedof the samewords, has notsolidified, died. is notfixed, meaning is dead; but their of is an indication words withherfather's If Addie'sexperience in thenthe difference of livingwords, function the legitimate is notin thatare living old wordsthatare dead and old words but in theirrelationship theirage nor in theirsoundor sense, withliving doing. dead and living thedifference between Addie has illustrated hasan is a given shapethat In bothcasesthename(word) words. areonly Butdead words to whatitnames. relationship arbitrary what Addie's "jar" holds, givenshapes; and what-they-name, Livingwordsare dead names/shapes is inertor nonexistent. are dead), arbitrary too, and in themselves too (names/shapes is living, real.Name themor but what-they-mean forgettable, or something else,in any particular not,namethemsomething And whatthe words case what-they-mean "is,"is memorable.

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as Addie'sexperience by wayof language, mean is memorable words has shown. withherfather's operating principle In fact,thereseemsto be an ambiguity of wordsare not dein livingwords-not thatthe meanings not not static, or clearbut thattheyare not fixed, terminable We haveseenit in Addie'sfather's totalled. finished, complete, in wordslivingout of the past.We findit again,forexample, withCora on the subjectof her refusal Addie's conversation of the sanctified admonitions evenundertheardent to confess, (pp. 158-60). Addie'swords(e.g., "I know Brother Whitfield I do not my punishment. my own sin. I knowthatI deserve Cora, to poor spiteful provocative it") are extremely begrudge but who is helpless is quite reliable, whose nose foriniquity Addie.And though a "word"from to get a hold herewithout that words thathavethemeaning in words, Addie is confessing the she nevertheless withholds bothshe and Cora understand, that wouldsattheparty) naming (theconfession, wordoutright atoneforthe fact (and perhaps curiosity isfyCora's malicious thatAddiehas sonsand can cook). to Cora language of her own Addie is returning Ostensibly religious phrases kind. Cora uses words no one can refute, hardWhitfield, ofthelikes ofBrother from themouths straight has handedaroundto everyone ened empty jars" the church And heruse of theseempty and stands every day to authorize. she uses themlike clubs. a bully, is fairly truisms transparent; aboutAddie'suse of such thing maddening But thetantalizing, when she saysthem; forms wordsis thattheyare not empty witha salacious arebrimming areliving, and forCora they they a whatshemeans, house, Addie'swords accommodate, mystery. deny, belie,herdoingmeaning. doing.Cora's words thatallowsdead languageto serve The ambiguity principle in reverse as well,allowsliving theliving, to liveagain, operates ofcharacterizing thedead,todie. Anseis fond to serve language as "She was evera private woman";"She Addiein suchphrases herself" was ever one to clean up after (pp. i8-i 9). In such is true, i.e.,going-on, remarks Ansestates words whosemeaning doing.Addie has beenand is doingwhatthesewordsindicate. forms in Anse'smouth arethesolidified thewords Nevertheless that Addie despises.The wordsare dead, forAnse is dead. but he means as Cora saysherplatitudes; He saysthe words,

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by them.That is, the wordsmean what he means, nothing at bestas an excusefornot-being, Theyserve is which nothing. Anse'swordsare mostpositive, forbeing.At their a substitute to buryAddie is Anse'sarduoustrekto Jefferson a complaint. he seemsglad this kind; of (doing)word (deed) his ultimate is The degradation indecent. absurd, thatthetaskis impossible, forhis own doing(he of responsibility abdication his manifest of of doing,we know):thisobsceneadvertisement disapproves ("It's hercommand ignorance is heridea,herwish, and stupidity herit,"p. 156).6 begrudge a trial.... ButI dont Where is the livingin livingwords?Are the wordsdoing and thatsaydoing, thatare "true," Anse sayswords theliving? we readhis words, Whenwe, readers, yethis wordsare empty. eventhough areliving that byAddie'sstandards understand they Anse does not know it. The answerseemsto be thatwords ForAnsethewords aredead; for andhearers. to speakers belong thewordsof herfather us theyare living, justas Addiethinks areliving to her.Livingdoes not they weredead to himthough in and notto words or objective "reality" belongto anyabstract is living, words are Andliving doing. buttowhoever themselves, in them. allowdoingto happen areambiguous; they unfinished, accommodate changing, Like thewordsof Addie'sfather, they living doing. to to holda place formeaning use of words, The legitimate go on, has been shownabove.But is the use of words,even of words? The Whatis theeffect thelegitimate use,necessary? That of of words. origin in cases the point novelshows many to sayit. a wordand breakoff-refuse is, characters approach Why?
"It's laying there,watchingCash whittleon that damn . . ." Jewel buthe does notsaytheword.Like savagely, says.He saysit harshly, and suddenly aghastinto a little boy in the dark to flailhis courage silence by his own noise.(Darl,p. i8)
6 We see the principle in small when in thepassagesI havecitedboth Anse and Addie effect. Anse's word and to different motivation use the word "begrudge,"with different at least fromhimself;Addie's word indicates conceals his meaninglessness (not-doing), for us. We note that Addie's word does not her meaning (doing), at least for herself, reveal her meaningto Cora, forwhom livinglanguagecan indicateonly mystery-and menace.

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aregoingto putherin it and thenfor they getit finished When they I up and go whirling sayit. saw thedarkstand a longtimeI couldn't
away and I said.... (Vardaman,p. 62)

Beforethe word,at the pointof origin,thereis an approaching. he stopsshort.We recall thatearlierhe Jewelapproachescoffin; could not stand the sound of Cash's hammer."One lick less. that passes in the One lick less. One lick less until everybody road will have to stop and see it and say what a finecarpenter does amount he is" (p. 15). Jewelis right;for Cash the coffin to a good job to do well. But for Jewel,who cannot bear to of thejob would mean: coffin. his sentence, thecompletion finish deed (doing) of the making hammer, the of the The sound is a sound he hates, for he hates the sequelof the coffin, He suppresses reality. denies, refusesthe spoken or carpentered the word; denies, opposes the deed, as he will suppress,deny, that Darl knows; oppose the truth(doing) of his own identity suppress,deny,oppose Darl who could say the word. Before the word, we have said, at the point of origin,there He says is an approaching.Vardaman approachesnail-her-up. it: "Are you going to nail her up in it, Cash? Cash? Cash?" A where breathless space and he saysit again,thistimediscovering the emphasis is: "I got shut up in the crib the new door it was too heavyforme it wentshutI couldn'tbreathebecause the rat was breathing up all the air. I said 'Are you going to nail it shut, Cash? Nail it? Nail it?'" (p. 62). What is the principlehere? It is expressedby Darl, telling Dewey Dell (in their unspoken language), "'You want her to die so you can get to town: is that it?' She wouldn't say what we both knew. 'The reason you will not say it is, when you you will know it is true: is that it? But say it, even to yourself, you know it is true now (pp. 38-39). This storyis full of secretknowledge, privateand shared knowledge,subconscious of what characterssay and do, motivationand determination thattheirlives subvert dead forms that could perhaps knowledge and crippledby.Sayingit would are trappedby,made impotent drag it into the light, bring it into view, expose it. Saying it nothing; would mean seeingit. Sayingfalsewordsfixesfalseness, fixes a blight,death. Saying doing words means seeing doing, establishingit in view so that one, and others,can continueto

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of an originhere: to say see it. We findourselvesat something words is to createreality. An ontologyof language has been tracedin this novel to the problem of a beginning.In such a novel, which treatssuch a at thequestionof art. If subject,we should at leastglance briefly to createreality, thenthe makersof language language functions the artist? are gods. How does thisnovel characterize is Darl-the rejectedseer,oracle,prophet;separated The artist from the others, apparentlyuncaring and uninvolved,alienJeweland Dewey Dell, the ated, and finallyexcommunicated. othersabetting, get him,fixhim. Like the abortionDewey Dell will eliminate to get to town for,this"fixing" wants desperately The truth about themselves. the tell-taleindicatorof the truths him! Darl's last word is mad, ironic could set themfree?Crucify laughter. of makinglanguageto articulate Darl's Vardaman'sexperience His wordsbreakoffagain and again disappearanceis suggestive. The blank/ when they approach what-has-happened-to-Darl. stop seems to run into a genuinelyempty space-not horror or fear,but incomprehension, enigma. He says "crazy" without but that does not finishthe matter, the thought,the difficulty, syntax.There is more doing,not broughtinto words yet. Darl wentcrazyand was sentto Jackson butthatis notall. my brother And there is another ambiguity.I have suggestedthat the They Bundrens are suppressingand denyingself-knowledge. might drag themselvesout of the mud primeval by making words, creatinglife,I have implied. Perhaps theycould. They are profoundly guiltyfor theirown conditionand for the loss But theirfearof the truth of the artistand forhis immolation. is not simple perversity. does lie beneath the Somethingfearful language of the novel. Darl's vision fromtime to time takes on Faulkneriantones,pessimistic: "How do our lives ravelout into the no-wind,no-sound,the wearygestures wearilyrecapitulant: in sunset echoes of old compulsions withno-handon no-strings: we fall into furiousattitudes, dead gesturesof dolls" (pp. I9697); or "Life was createdin the valleys.It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts,the old despairs.That's why you must walk up the hills so you can ridedown" (p. 217). We pause beforethe artist Faulknerto considerthe novel fora momentin

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As I Lay Dying

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of language.What kind of language termsof its own treatment does it use-dead or living? "words" are employedin the conInnumerableconventional of comedy, of epic,of tragedy, of the novel:conventions struction descentinto the of romance,of allegory;motifsof the journey, underworld,hell, Christ, the scapegoat. There are techniques borrowed from the art of painting-impressionism,cubism, pointillism:comparisonsto paintings(Darl often sees life like that exclude a painting,life imitatingart), literal descriptions collage of lack of narrator, streamof consciousness, perspective, manyvoices,pointsof view. Language theory, many narrations, Freudian thought.No doubt the list could go on till the last The crucial question: echo fromthe past has been transcribed. or are theyliving? deadweight, fossils, Are theseformssolidified Do the words definea space where "doing" is happeningstill? between the old meaningsof the words and The difference the new ones is partof what the new ones mean. The new living withthe past. (doing) wordsstandherein a dialogic relationship with (Bakhtin's polyglossia principlecorrespondsinterestingly the Heideggerian thoughtthat has guided this reading.) We at once. There is a fallingoff. can make a few generalizations with and tragedy Whereas epics deal with heroesand warriors, the Bundrensreprecharacter, men of elevatedrankand superior They are shabby sentthe verylowestelementsof human society. as they bear the stinking and ignorantand grosslyinsensitive advertising the buzzards unnecessarily corpseacrossthe country, what everybystander's apparatushas alreadytold him. olfactory are shabbytoo. Tull says duringthe The motivesof the family crossingof the riverepisode, "Justgoing to town. Bent on it. They would risk the fireand the earth and the water and all just to eat a sack of bananas" (p. 133). Bent on going to townAnse forteeth,Cash fora talkingmachine,Dewey Dell foran abortion.Their episodic odysseyis a spectacleof stupidheroics, everysenout" neighborsalong the way and offending "putting for would be appropriate tientbeing. The elementsof thisstory and often,as comedy,but theyare treatedhere with seriousness with a grotesque in Darl's chaptersand Vardaman's,informed is a painfulcomedic irony. or naked beauty.The effect selfTragic heroes fall and in the fallinggraspat last a bitter

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from thefloodand If Jewel-whois Addie'ssavior knowledge. the fire-is takenforthe hero,we mustnote thathe extinDarl whois thesignofhistrueidentheoracle-"fixes" guishes to himself. blinds himself blinds Jewel Oedipus,awakened, tity. awaking. prevent We maysetthefirst upon itself? How does thenovelreflect Darl is withthelast.In thebeginning sceneintocontra-diction for the truth Anse, Addie-the one of signifier Jewel. dogging and a and Darl-is dying, forJewel focusof meaning central is at hand.At theend ofthestory is coming. Surely crisis storm There bananas. eating on a street corner is standing the family First,thereis a new Mrs. Bundren, are two obviouschanges. forAddie (a shape to filla lack). Second,Darl a substitution alien, has been alwayssuspect, is gone. The artist-character, in the declaredcrazyand he will be crazy.If Addie functions occursat aboutthe of a center (herchapter as something story in the livesof the othersis of the book; her meaning center her deathis the eventof the story) of the story; the meaning and last word and as fundament (her voice is giventhe first the story), then"I" and outlasts precedes as it givesthe title, is whatdoes die in thisstory, as center, as self-consciousness, Addieand Darl, are putawayin Jefferson sincetheonlyseers, in Vardaman). endures as potentiality seeing (though is Cashprophet-priest The substitution forthetraditional artis perand whosefine is precision principle Cash,whosefirst are his. The lastwordsof thestory methodical carpentry. fect, soulis pleasedwiththenewMrs.Bundren's His simplemeagre of a new kindof word,technological), (signifier graphophone thebucolic ofa doubt peace. disturbing ripple onlyone brotherly

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