Analysis of the Articles about Discourse and Identity in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying - Essay Example

December 5, Annotated Bibliography: Irony, Identity, and Autonomy in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying Atkinson, Ted. “The Ideology of Autonomy: Form and Function in As I Lay Dying.” Faulkner Journal 21.1/2 (2006): 15-27. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Ted Atkinson argues that Cash’s production of his mother’s coffin is a metaphor for Faulkner’s production of As I Lay Dying because they both concern themselves with form and function, as they pursue artistic autonomy despite significant stressful conditions and socio-economic demands. Atkinson describes the historical backdrop of the writing of the novel, which is the stock market crash of 1929. He argues that the novel represents how the modernist text struggles with opposing actions (engage or retreat) to social reality. Literary works are also forms of art that may function to earn money or function in opposition to financial demands and Faulkner tries to balance both form and function in reaction to socio-economic conditions of his time (18). Atkinson explains Cash’s devotion to his art and filial duties (19). He notes the irony of Jewel’s concern for Cash’s obsession with the coffin’s form because the former thinks that this results to the negation of the more important function of the coffin as being the final dwelling place of their mother. In reality, like Cash, Faulkner skillfully balances form and function in his creation of an autonomous modernist text that is not necessarily detached from environmental context. In addition, Atkinson believes that Faulkner uses critical reflection as he creates fiction from social reality (23). The theme of conflict between individual and social identities reveals the connection between the novel and its social context (25). Atkinson concludes that the novel is a testament to Faulkner’s artistic autonomy and his integration of social reality, while allowing readers to put their own readings in the appreciation of this novel. Delville, Michel. “Alienating Language and Darls Narrative Consciousness in Faulkners As I Lay Dying.” The Southern Literary Journal 27.1 (1994): 61-72. JSTOR. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Michel Delville believes that the writing style of Faulkner, not matter how complex when compared to the linguistic skills of rural farm people, matches the inner needs of the characters for selfhood and autonomy. Delville argues that while others deal with Addie’s death through newfound goals and actions, Darl and Vardaman use verbal expressions. Vardaman uses a fish to verbally express his need for his mother, while Darl uses deeper reflections on the meaning of existence (63). Delville believes that these rhetorical strategies serve to help them define their identities through reflections on identity and nothingness (64). Darl represents the notion of “lack” in Lacanian terms and his different uses of parts of speech demonstrate his need for self-identity. Delville agrees with Pierce that language represents the incompleteness of identity (66). Delville asserts that Darl fails to find his identity and his brokenness is finalized with his admission into an asylum. Furthermore, Delville argues that Darl represents the gap between speech and the self because he is both a farmer and a poet (68). He also thinks like an intellectual, but he does not speak just as much. His self is disrupted, because by self-representation, he further loses, instead of finds, his Being. Delville asserts that Darl cannot attain a sense of unity in his Being because of the gap between words and reality and the signified and the signifier (70). He concludes that Darl ironically estranges, instead of finding, himself because of the opposing forces of voice and human vision. Gault, Cinda. “The Two Addies: Maternity and Language in William Faulkners As I Lay Dying and Alice Munros Lives of Girls and Women.” American Review of Canadian Studies 36.3 (2006): 440-457. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Cinda Gault compares and contrasts the Addies in William Faulkners As I Lay Dying and Alice Munros Lives of Girls and Women. These novels both use the name Addie for the maternal figures of their stories. Gault argues that Faulkner uses a corpse metaphor to underscore physical limitations, whereas Munro uses a clown metaphor to emphasize psychological tribulations. She agrees with Hewson that Addie influences her family beyond her grave. She talks about the fury of the dead that enables her to control the living more than she did during her living days. In addition, Gault believes that Faulkner gives some form of fulfillment to Addie by keeping her ideal image to her family, despite her extramarital affair with a minister (443). She notes the contrast between the conservative and curtailed life of Addie and her sexual identity. Furthermore, Gault describes the imprisonment of femininity that Addie feels in marriage and as a mother. Motherhood increases her physical confinement and is a form of betrayal through her view of language (444). Gault asserts that Addie also sees words as deceitful because they change or remove meaning (444) and that her sexuality is deceitful (445). Nevertheless, Gault contrasts her freedom before and after Addie’s death, as the journey represents sexual and reproductive issues that affected Addie (446). Gault notes that Dewey also experiences the same disillusionment with language (447). Gault concludes that the connection between motherhood and language is best depicted through the physical constraints of being in a coffin, while motherhood continues to haunt these two Addies’ children in ways that were not resolved. Hewson, Marc. “‘My Children Were of Me Alone: Maternal Influence in Faulkners As I Lay Dying.” Mississippi Quarterly 53.4 (2000): 551-567. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Marc Hewson argues that Addie serves as the active influence on her children’s lives in fighting the domineering and negative worldview of their family’s patriarchy. He believes that her intuitive love, which words cannot fully capture, lives on through her influences on her children. The irony is that her absence in the novel depicts her solid presence in her children’s lives. Hewson explains the importance of Addie’s monologue placed at the middle of the book, and her continued effect on her children’s attitudes and behaviors, in supporting his view that Addie is far from being a peripheral character, but a much more dominating one compared to Anse. He states that the family’s journey to Jefferson is a learning experience from their mother, who also happens to be a teacher (552). Another irony is the difference between how Anse treats his wife’s body and how he treated her when she was alive. He wants to start the trip as soon as Addie dies because that was her wish, but, in actuality, he has kept Addie motionless in her traditional female roles and responsibilities when she was living (553). In addition, Hewson asserts that the novel describes the dichotomy between female process/activity and male inactivity (554). He compares Anse’s life-as-death ideology to Addie’s commitment to seeing life as active and mobile (554). Moreover, Hewson shows that Addie sees the conflict between words and actions, a rejection of linguistic determinism (556). Vardaman cannot express his brokenness over his mother’s death too because of the arbitrariness of words (558). Hewson concludes that Addie’s death continues to mold her children to feel more than to speak more, as they challenge the domination of their father over their lives. Kerr, Elizabeth M. “As I Lay Dying as Ironic Quest.” Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 3.1 (1962): 5-19. JSTOR. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Elizabeth M. Kerr explores the ironies in As I Lay Dying. She argues that it is an ironic quest because family members are not doing the journey for Addie but actually for their own self-interests, except for Darl and Jewel. She adds that Faulkner also creates irony with the setting because of the flood that does not realistically happen to Mississippi due to the heat of its weather. Furthermore, Kerr explores the irony of identities that negates usual idealistic notions of epic journeys and noble characters. She highlights how the action, setting, and characters are anti-thesis to romantic journeys (10). Nonetheless, Kerr believes that some symbolisms have romantic notions, such as the horse and the fish, although death symbolisms and imagery dominate the story more (12). Still, Kerr describes the journey in terms of the stages of the usual Arthurian quests. The similarities are in the action toward desires. Kerr believes that the novel is a satire of the quest because Faulkner shows that people are not noble and life is meaningless. They can only attempt to make sense of and enjoy their existence, but every time, they will fail because of their human flaws and because of constraints in environmental forces. The ironic inversion of the quest is not completely fruitless in terms of making meaning of the novel. Kerr shows how the irony is extended to how, despite the sufferings of the characters and their selfishness and weaknesses, readers can connect to their humanity. They are not evil, after all, but simply human beings existing in this world. Palliser, Charles. “Predestination and Freedom in As I Lay Dying.” American Literature 58 (1986): 557-573. Biography Reference Bank. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Charles Palliser rejects Olga Vickery’s analysis of Addie’s incestuous affair. Vickery believes that Addie gains salvation from her extra-marital sexual act by finding and enacting her identity. Palliser believes that Darl’s characterization helps explain the meaning of freedom and predestination. He puts Darl in sharp contrast with superficial people who believe in predestination when the latter believes it the most by seeing freedom as a delusion. He believes in the irony that Darl is not insane in this thinking because he uses the past to determine his family’s future behaviors (559). He also thinks that Addie and Darl both believe in predestination and that life does not have any sense of freedom. They are also both preoccupied with the predictability and irrevocability of death (560). The main difference between the two is that Addie struggles against determinism, while Darl yields to it (560). Palliser argues that Addie does not rebel against determinism to connect to God as Vickery asserts, but to actually sever ties from God’s control over human destiny (562). The word or language is about predestination which Addie rejects (564). Dewey’s use of the word “shape” also supports the view that there is more death and hollowness in life than life in life (565). Finally, Palliser sees that Addie’s adultery ends with Darl’s arson because of desperation and self-destruction. Darl remains silent but does something to show how strong determinism is in controlling humanity. Palliser concludes his article by expressing the irony that these identities are lost to the rest of the family members. Pierce, Constance. “Being, Knowing, and Saying in the ‘Addie’ Section of Faulkners As I Lay Dying.” Twentieth Century Literature 26.3 (1980): 294-305. JSTOR. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Constance Pierce discusses the meaning of “being” for Addie using the Heidegerrian analysis of language. She argues that, in accordance to Heidegger, language houses Being, by speaking about it, but it also changes and negates Being that creates the same language and the process of speaking. She explains that Being is not conscious of itself, in line with Sartre’s being-in-itself. She asserts that when Addie begins seeing herself as Addie, she has objectified and destroyed her Being. The logic that this thinking follows is this. Addie thinks that language is insufficient in understanding the Being. If language is unreliable, then thinking is unreliable too, since it uses language to express itself. Addie then refuses thinking and speaking and focuses more on doing and feeling as her sense of knowing (295). Moreover, Pierce explains the importance of Addie’s pursuit of unconsciousness because she hates the world of language that kills her Being. She wants the unconscious Being that has no language components. Furthermore, Pierce argues that Addie’s monologue demonstrates the irony that the more that Addie wanted and did and felt things to connect to her Being, the more she became connected with death than her Being (297). At the same time, Addie also wants to be free from life’s complications through the sexual imagery of geese (298). Pierce notes that Addie fails in becoming her Being because she does not understand that Being is to not be consciously a Being (298). Motherhood cripples her ability to find her Being too. Piarce further talks about Addie’s revenge by metaphorically killing Anse and giving him a duty after her death. She concludes that it does not matter if Addie does not attain her Being because she has at least rallied against determinism and because consciousness of the Self is better than feeling nothing in one’s life. Simon, John K. “The Scene and the Imagery of Metamorphosis in As I Lay Dying.” Criticism 7.1 (1965): 1-22. JSTOR. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. John K. Simon talks about the importance of scene and imagery of metamorphosis in As I Lay Dying. He argues that the imagery of the inanimate, as it turns into the animate, proves the role of the environment in shaping and dominating confused and weak human identities and meaningless lives. Scenic elements support the theme of death, including the coffin box for Addie’s body. Simon adds that sound and sight imply the control of the environment over human and material metamorphism. Imagery, he shows, also foreshadows future bad events. Images and scenes depict the essence of chaos in human minds and behaviors. Simon asserts that time is also embodied metaphorically to show the absence of uncertainty and the futility of their journey (10). He underscores that the scene and imagery have become autonomous agents to characterize the relationship between human senses and external chaos (11). Moreover, Simon argues that Addie’s wish to be buried in Jefferson created irony because it imposed corporal reality on her husband and reverse irony through Anse’s taking of a new wife at the end of their journey (16). He describes the misery of Addie’s unfulfilled life as she becomes a mother and wife and not her own individual person (17). In contrast, Addie’s children are obsessed about her (17). Simon notes the irony of how the dead Addie brings her family together more than during her lifetime although the effects are not at all positive and are based on selfish interests (20). Simon concludes that the scene has apocalyptic implications for the primitive human mind (21). Slaughter, Carolyn Norman. “As I Lay Dying: Demise of Vision.” American Literature 61.1 (1989): 16-30. JSTOR. Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Carolyn Norman Slaughter explores the role of vision for human identity and destiny. She describes the contrast between Anse’s and Addie’s vision of the world. Addie thinks that doing is the right vision, while, for Anse, it is in not-doing and in remaining in one place. Doing is necessary in her pessimistic view of human existence. By doing, Addie feels that she is resolving her aloneness, such as in whipping her students. Slaughter compares identity to something put inside a jar, as Addie does to Anse. Anse adapts the shape of the jar and its limitations. Anse’s name becomes Anse’s representation, which means Anse is empty in itself. Slaughter further explains that Addie feels that Anse has violated her aloneness through making her pregnant, but it does not make him more real. Addie sees her children differently because she is part of their becoming. Doing is also living, while language or word is sin to her (23). Slaughter stresses that sin is not necessarily something wrong, but a word made to represent what people lack. Furthermore, Slaughter talks about the ambiguity principle that enables dead language to work for the living language and to act in reverse once more, when the living language serves the dead, and then die (26). Living words allow for activities to occur. Saying words produce reality (28). Furthermore, Slaughter describes old and new meanings of words. Old meanings oppress identity, while new meanings promote the doing of the words. Slaughter concludes that the novel is about the death of “I” or the death of identity. Tebbetts, Terrell L. “Discourse and Identity in Faulkners As I Lay Dying and Swifts Last Orders.” Faulkner Journal 25.2 (2010): 69-88. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 27 Nov. 2014. Terrell L. Tebbetts examines the themes of discourse and identity in Faulkners As I Lay Dying and Swifts Last Orders. He argues that these novels show that people have essential identities that they are born with. He notes that Faulkner does not seem to show any inclination for a self-serving identity to more existentialist ones. In addition, Tebbetts argues that people have material identities, which means that identity is within the body and its physical experiences. Faulkner describes humans as animals and tools, which show their material essence. The next argument is that society creates human identity because it is not inborn. The essential core is broken through society’s action on it. Furthermore, language constructs human identity. Addie rejects the power of language, but her non-use of it also ironically defines her identity (83). Tebbetts provides examples of identity conflicts for the characters, including Addie, Darl, Dewey, and Vardaman. He believes that Addie has found her identity in her doing of her motherhood, but she has not effectively taught her children to use language properly to create their identities. He thinks that her alienation of language alienates her children from herself and from their identities. Tebbetts does not share the same analysis of Pierce concerning the ability of language to negate Being. Tebbetts argue that language is essential to knowing the Being because it concerns thought and expressions. Tebbetts also disagrees with Hewson who believes that Addie has taught something vital to her children, where doing and feeling are more important than speaking. Read More