Analysis Of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

The popular 1800’s novelist, William Faulkner, was born in 1897 during the second industrial revolution and the start of World War I. Faulkner was born in Mississippi and spent his childhood enriched in the southern culture. He through both world wars and used his artistic abilities to portray his emotional ideas pertaining to the events of the time. Most of his novels are set in Mississippi or in the south which is where he was born and raised. Faulkner began writing poems and short loves stories based on his own experience with a young girl he admired named Estelle Oldham. Going into their young adult ages Estelle was proposed to in which she could not escape due to her parents involvement with the marriage. Devastated, Faulkner turned to …show more content…
In these six weeks of writing Faulkner encompassed his deep history of the south and the drama involving the death of his well-loved mother. He uses the perspective of multiple characters to modernize his style of writing and show the reader the different perspectives of the event. As I Lay Dying takes place in Mississippi which is where he grew up. Many of his characters portray his feelings of conflicted topics during the time. For example, Dewey Dell is a young woman that get caught up in a pregnancy that she wants to abort, when she goes to find help she is shunned and turned away. Even today this is a sensitive topic in society and Faulkner was already addressing these issues in his own characters. Faulkner, even with his fame as a popular novelist, faced lots of disappointment in his life. This is shown in his writing through his dark somber tone of remorse. This tone matched the tone of the time period, our entire country was at war and many people reflected this same tone due to their own personal …show more content…
The bastard son in the novel is Jewel, Jewel is a man of few words and throughout the novel we can understand his intentions through his actions. Jewel, being hated by the rest of his family leans heavily on his dying mother. He refuses to come to terms with the idea of her passing. Faulkner was raised by a woman by the name of Caroline Barr. Faulkner loved this woman as if she was his own mother. Just like in his novel, Caroline soon passed on. Faulkner shows his sorrow through Jewel about the passing of his caretaker. Another character that directly resembles an important person in Faulkner's life is Addie Burden. Caroline Barr and the fictional character Addie Burden both possessed similar well loved affirmation from their communities. Although in the novel Addie Burden rarely expresses her own thoughts or past actions, her story is told through the eyes of the other women in the novel. Caroline Barr had similar attributes which impacted Faulkners infant stages of