As I Lay Dying

In A Nutshell
William Faulkner wrote his fifth novel, As I Lay Dying, in only six weeks in 1929. It was
published after very little editing in 1930. The novel tells the story of the Bundren family
traveling to bury their dead mother. The novel is famous for its experimental narrative technique,
which Faulkner began in his earlier novel Sound and the Fury: fifteen characters take turns
narrating the story in streams of consciousness over the course of fifty-nine, sometimes
overlapping sections. At the time, Faulkners novel contributed substantially to the growing
Modernist movement. He was no doubt influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud, whose
theories about the subconscious were made increasingly popular in the 1920s. Faulkners novel
regards subconscious thought as more important than conscious action or speech; long passages
of italicized text within the novel would seem to reflect these inner workings of the mind.
Faulkners prolific career in writing is marked by his 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature and two
Pulitzer Prizes, one in 1955 and the other in 1962.
Journey to Jefferson
After Addies death, the family embarks on a long and difficult journey to Jefferson,
the countys central town. The journey is made more difficult by the fact that the
Bundrens are poverty-stricken, Cash has a broken leg from a former injury, Anse is a
jerk who cant wait to get a new set of teeth, Dewey Dell is unmarried and pregnant,
and bad weather has devastated the bridge they need to cross. When they try to
ford the river, the mules drown, the coffin is almost lost, and Cash re-breaks his leg.
In the meantime, the young Vardaman, traumatized by his mothers death, has
decided she is just like the fish he caught and killed just before her death (in the
sense that both were living, and now both are dead). Anse decides that pouring
cement all over Cashs leg will help the break. He then mortgages everything he
owns and sells Jewels special horse to buy a new team of mules. Jewel is not
pleased. When the family rests for the night at the farm of a man named Gillespie,
Darl burns the barn down in an attempt to cremate his mother. Jewel rescues the
coffin before this can happen.