A Psychoanalytic Character Study of Darl and Addie in William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying"
A Psychoanalytic Character Study of
Darl and Addie in William Faulkner 's
"As I Lay Dying"
"As I Lay Dying" is consistently ranked amongst best novels of the twentieth century. The novel pays attention to the characters inner thought so it can be read very interestingly from a psychoanalytic point of view. The novel is written through stream of consciousness technique; as such, it is assumed for the reader to follow through character 's thought process more easily. "As I Lay Dying 's" text, however, claims the opposite. Many motives and reasons remains unresolvedly questionable to the reader till the very end. A more close psychoanalysis of characters, therefore, can be regarded most helpful to figure the novel 's ultimate message conveyed.
"As I Lay Dying" is narrated through various characters with different perspectives. The present writing is trying to deeply analyze two main characters of the novel namely Darl and Addie since their transformation of characters goes to a kind of extreme throughout the story line.
While Darl seems to be the most knowing of all characters, narrating nearly a lesser half of the story, his final faith of being force into asylum remains highly ironic. The most intelligent and thoughtful, even philosophical, of the Bundrens, and certainly the most widely traveled (he has been to France during World War I), he is also possessed of a clairvoyance (or maybe it’s just a heightened imagination and intuition) that enables him to see and know things that appear to be beyond the normal powers of perception. He knows without being told, for example, that Jewel is not Anse’s son and that Dewey Dell is pregnant. On the other hand there must be a reason for how double minded Darl is, how lost, how deeply disturbed. Everyone, Bundren or not, recognizes that Darl is different, weird, even abnormal. He thinks too much and it is pictured through his nineteen interior monologues. The novel perhaps is trying to emphasize in a way
Darl and Addie in William Faulkner 's
"As I Lay Dying"
"As I Lay Dying" is consistently ranked amongst best novels of the twentieth century. The novel pays attention to the characters inner thought so it can be read very interestingly from a psychoanalytic point of view. The novel is written through stream of consciousness technique; as such, it is assumed for the reader to follow through character 's thought process more easily. "As I Lay Dying 's" text, however, claims the opposite. Many motives and reasons remains unresolvedly questionable to the reader till the very end. A more close psychoanalysis of characters, therefore, can be regarded most helpful to figure the novel 's ultimate message conveyed.
"As I Lay Dying" is narrated through various characters with different perspectives. The present writing is trying to deeply analyze two main characters of the novel namely Darl and Addie since their transformation of characters goes to a kind of extreme throughout the story line.
While Darl seems to be the most knowing of all characters, narrating nearly a lesser half of the story, his final faith of being force into asylum remains highly ironic. The most intelligent and thoughtful, even philosophical, of the Bundrens, and certainly the most widely traveled (he has been to France during World War I), he is also possessed of a clairvoyance (or maybe it’s just a heightened imagination and intuition) that enables him to see and know things that appear to be beyond the normal powers of perception. He knows without being told, for example, that Jewel is not Anse’s son and that Dewey Dell is pregnant. On the other hand there must be a reason for how double minded Darl is, how lost, how deeply disturbed. Everyone, Bundren or not, recognizes that Darl is different, weird, even abnormal. He thinks too much and it is pictured through his nineteen interior monologues. The novel perhaps is trying to emphasize in a way
Cited: Bowman, Sylvia. ed. William Faulkner. Twaynes Author Series:1966. Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. New York: Vintage Books, 1985. Gresset, Michel. Fascination: Faulkner’s Fiction 1919-1936. Durham: Duke UP, 1989. Pierce, Constance. Being, Knowing and Saying in "Addie" Section of Faulkner 's As I Lay Dying. Twentieth Century Literature. Vol.26, No.3, pp 294-305, 1980. Simon, John. What Are You Laughing at, Darl? Madness and Humor in As I Lay Dying. College English, Vol. 25, No.2, pp 104-110, 1963. Volpe, Edmond. A Reader’s Guide to William Faulkner. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1964.