William Faulkners As I Lay Dying :: Lay Dying William Faulkner Essays

William Faulkners As I Lay destructionWorks Cited MissingFulfilling a promise they had made to their mother, Addie, Cash, Darl,Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman, in William Faulkners As I Lay Dying, journeyacross the Mississippi countryside to bring her dust to be buried in Jefferson,alongside her immediate family. Each one, in turn, narrates the events of thisexcursion as they are perceived. Though all of the family members are differencethrough the akin experiences, each one expresses what they see and how theyfeel by exercising their individual powers and limitations of language. Whateach character presupposes as well as how he/she says it gives insight into thatcharacters underlying meanings.Darl, for example, uses his linguistic skills to gain power as narrator.He possesses the ability to pick up on things unstate and to memorialise otherpeoples actions. Dewey Dell describes his intuitiveness when she says that he said he knew without the words, and I knew he knew because if he had saidhe knew with words I would not take believedand thats why I can talk to himwith knowing with hating with because he knows (27). He uses his gift ofrealizing things without them having to actually be told to him to gaincredibility with the reader. Who would doubt a narrator who possesses thattype of adroitness? Also, his language is clear and reflective. He usessimiles and metaphors and appears to piss an acute awareness of spatialrelationships. Darls sophisticated perception and poetic philology give himthe means of reaching for and maintaining his role as a qualified observer andreporter. However, his po ragion does create certain problems for his siblings.Tull describes Darls look as being uncanny.He is looking at me. He dont saynothing scantily looks at me with themqueer eyes of hisn that makes folkstalk. I always say it aint neverbeen what he done so much or said oranything so much as how he looks atyou. Its wish well he had got into theinside of you, someway. Like somehowyou was looking at yourself and yourdoing outen his eyes. (125)It is the same penetrating gaze that gives Darl so much power thatmakes the others around him so uncomfortable, especially Dewey Dell. She feelsthat his strange knowledge of what has not been said is an invasion of herprivacy. The knowledge domain runs out of Darls eyes they swim to pin points. Theybegin at my feet and overture along my body to my face, and then my dress is goneI sit naked on the seat above the unhurrying mules, above the travail (121).