Wednesday/Thursday

Over the last few days we have written about and discussed Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, responding to the eight prompts below.

• New Due Dates: PC, SG, Character Sheet, and Faulkner Quickwrites due Monday, 10/24

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As I lay Dying Questions

1. Anse Bundren may be one of the most feckless characters in literature. Why do you think his neighbors repeatedly come to his aid? Is it out of pity, respect, guilt, charity, community, or is Anse just that good at manipulation?
2. Faulkner allows Darl and Vardaman to express themselves in language that would be impossible given their lack of education and experience in the world. Why does Faulkner break with the realistic representation of character in this way?
3. What does the novel reveal about the ways in which human beings deal with death, grieving, and letting go of loved ones?
4. Why do you think Addie's chapter (40) is placed where it is? How does her chapter change your earlier perceptions of the Bundren family? For example, how well did Cora really know Addie?
5. In chapter 40, Addie meditates on the distance between words and actions. Is Faulkner saying that words—his own chosen medium—are inadequate? What do Addie's definitions say about her as a woman?
6. Humor and the grotesque are often interdependent in this novel, such as Vardaman's accidental drilling of holes in his dead mother's face so she can breathe, the family setting Cash's broken leg in cement and the family's apparent imperviousness to the stench of Addie's rotting corpse. What are other examples? What does this add to Faulkner’s narrative?
7. What does Faulkner achieve through his use of fifteen different narrators and narrative voices? How does this shape the story and support Faulkner’s themes?
8. The title As I Lay Dying is an allusion to Homer’s epic The Odyssey* (you may have read it your freshman year), which tells the story of the hero Odysseus’ return from the Trojan War. In what way is the Bundren’s journey an odyssey? What is the effect of this connection on the overall meaning of the novel?