As I Lay Dying Literary Analysis

Toni Morrison and William Faulkner are two of America’s most successful writers who seem to share many similar themes and motifs, Especially between Morrison’s Beloved and Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Both of these novels use multiple narrators, present their characters with struggles of their own identity, and show the difficulties of the people born into the lowest social class. As I Lay Dying is structured in such a way that the author has removed himself from the story. Basically, he allows his characters to tell their own story by switching between each character’s perspective. “As I Lay Dying is divided into fifty-nine sections which are described by most critics as the "interior monologue" or the "stream of consciousness" of the characters”
The Bundrens find willing hosts at neighboring rural farms, but their welcome in the more wealthy towns is cold at best and looked down upon for being poor. Cora, Tull’s wife, made a deal with a wealthy person to bake a cake for her party. However, the wealthy person decides to cancel the deal, causing Cora to not get any money. “ ‘She ought to taken them,’ Kate says, ‘But those rich town ladies can change their minds. Poor folks cant’ ” (Faulkner 7). Because the rich people already have a lot of money and are the ones with the power, they can afford to back out on deals but because the poor people need the money it is a much bigger deal to them. Also, the Bundrens had a low social status and Anse made the trip to Jefferson to get his false teeth, or the material goods, and get a higher status. “Railey views the Bundrens as representatives of a segment of poor white farming people who identified with middle class ideology, and he characterizes their journey to Jefferson as the fulfillment of their desire, through the acquisition of material goods, to attain the status of middle class town people”