I think several students have composed entries in Word (or whatever word processor) and then attached the files to the wiki site. Instead, you should compose in the word processor, then start a new entry on the wiki and *paste* the text from the word processor into the window. Then it will be visible immediately to readers rather than making them click and download.
I was interested in trying to further the Sundquist article’s argument that Faulkner used Addie Bundren’s coffin as a metaphor for the novel itself, and found something interesting on As I Lay Dying‘s first page: I’ve had trouble forgetting the opening image of the book, offered up by Darl, in which action is drawn along a series of right angles. Darl describes in gorgeous detail the path he’s walking with Jewel, who runs “straight as a plumb-line, worn smooth by feet and baked brick-hard by July” … which “circles the cottonhouse at four soft right angles and goes on across the field again, worn so by feet in fading precision.”
While on one level we might tie this how Faulkner constructs the novel by pointing down a “path” among his characters’ collective consciousness, Darl’s image of the path, of the right angles, strikes me most because the sense of order it introduces is totally at odds with the disorderly structure of the novel itself.
It seems significant the attention that Cash pays to the “beveling” (or, the wearing down of right angles) to build his mother’s coffin. Taken altogether, the extended coffin-as-novel metaphor seems to suggest further parallels between boards and individual consciousnesses, which itself implies a certain rigidity to how we experience reality, a series of consciousnesses whose sharp angles must be worn down if they are to be included built into the work of art.
In some ways, the fractured and experimental narrative style of The Sound and the Fury helps Faulkner to avoid pitfalls of melodrama. Though the story is in many ways overwrought and sensational, it must be filtered through non conventional narrative techniques which inhibit the types of tropes and familiar cliches associated with the gothic form.
Similarly, the collective narration of As I Lay Dying moderates the dark burlesque humor of the novel. The humor ranges from Cora’s many mistakes in her early narrative section, to Vardaman boring holes into his mother’s face to let her corpse breathe inside her coffin, to the sick irony of Dewey Dell’s rape, culminating in the final image of Anse returning to the family with new teeth and a new wife. The humor is over the top, but because the plot itself is buried beneath the competing narrations, thre reader must take few extra steps before the humor becomes apparent.
This technique of buried irony contributes to several themes throughout the novel. The increasingly disastrous journey (the fire, the cemented leg, the lack of a shovel) generates a dramatic irony that implicates both an authorial presence, and associates this presence with both a malevolent God and the backlash of violated Nature. The nearly slapstick comedy of ill and breaking and rotting bodies reinforces the novels central concern with the paradox of the “being” and the physical object which contains that being. Formally, the humor complicates the intent of the novel, frustrating tragic proportions but never foreclosing to potential tragedy of the family.
The final “gag” of Anse’s return is the most blatant and, in some ways, the least effective. But the build up of Anse’s repeated desire for new teeth, and his mysterious loyalty to his wife’s wishes despite general laziness, lends a sense of inevitability to the final joke. The reader simultaneously can’t believe Anse’s callousness, and cannot imagine any other outcome to the journey. Humor, as a a technique buried beneath broken narration and the readerly task of constructing a coherent narrative, ultimately structures the characteristics of the Bundren family and the pitfalls of their journey. The humor of the novel successfully assimilates complex themes within a sort of ironic authorial omniscience and undermines the concept of authorial mastery by undercutting the seriousness of the novel itself.
“He looks up at the gaunt face framed by the window in the twilight. It is a composite picture of all time since he was a child. He drops the saw and lifts the board for her to see, watching the window in which the face has not moved.He drags a second plank into position and slants the two of them….shaping with his hand in pantomime the finished box.” (48) Addie, who has not sat up in bed for the past ten days gathered the strength to inspect and approve this most precious project, as it is intended to serve as her final resting home placed among the rest of her distinguished family in Jefferson.
Cash’s commitment to his dying mother is in stark contrast to Anse’s As a husband, his lack of immediate or relevant response corresponds with the overall sentiment from the neighbors of Addie’s ill choice in choosing a husband. Why did Anse wait until the eleventh hour to send for Dr. Peabody? Did he know of Addie’s infidelity and wanted to punish her? Addie loved Jewel most of all, buy Anse was indifferent to him and all his other children. Do you think that Anse was repulsed Addie and all ‘her’ children causing him to get rid of her once and for all and celebrating with a new set of teeth. A symbol of starting over- rebirth.
Okay, so this is not particularly relevant to Yoknapatawpha, but if you’re not registered to vote, you should be! Mayoral and other local elections are taking place on 11/5, and the mayoral election is especially important for CUNY students, since so much of your experience here–and the value of your degree for the rest of your lives–depends upon strong support from local and state government. You can register here online, and here’s the contact info of Hunter’s voter registration coordinator, who can provide you with registration materials in hard copy, if you prefer:
Ms. Teneia Wooten
Asst. Director of Student Activities & Leadership Dev.
T: (212) 772-4908
F: (212) 396-6251
