As I Lay Dying Book Summary

Her oldest son cash puts all of his carpentry skills into preparing her coffin which he builds right in front of addie s bedroom window.

As i lay dying book summary. Addie a wife and mother in a poor farming family is on her deathbed. As i lay dying. The rest of the family waits around for addie s impending death and vaguely discuss their eventual plans to cart their mother s corpse forty or so miles to the town of jefferson where she has requested to be buried alongside her family. As i lay dying is told in individual sections so that the narration of the story shifts from one character to another.

They are incredibly poor and the clan matriarch addie bundren is nearing death. The bundren family live on their farm in yoknapatawpha county a fictional rural county in mississippi. Published in 1930 william faulkner s novel as i lay dying opens with addie bundren who alive but in very poor health. Book summary of as i lay dying.

She and others expect her to die soon. Plot overview sparknotes as i lay dying addie bundren the wife of anse bundren and the matriarch of a poor southern family is very ill and is expected to die soon. As i lay dying is a 1930 southern gothic novel by american author william faulkner. While most sections are narrated by members of the bundren family the few that are told by neighbors and other observers offer a glimpse of the family from an outsider s perspective.

Faulkner s fifth novel it is consistently ranked among the best novels of 20th century literature. As i lay dying the woman with the dog s eyes would not close my eyes as i descended into hades the novel utilizes stream of consciousness writing technique multiple narrators and varying chapter lengths. The novel begins with addie bundren wife to anse bundren and mother of their children on her deathbed. Summary and analysis sections 42 44 with the resumption of the journey darl s narrations become much more intricate and involved.

The title derives from book xi of homer s odyssey wherein agamemnon tells odysseus. The intricacy of his narration might be faulkner s way of preparing us for darl s later problems with alleged insanity. Each narrator family members and outsiders alike is believable but at the same time unreliable forcing readers to decide for themselves what is reality.