Complete 2 page APA formatted essay: William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying study questions.
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Each character is shown as being differentiated and actually utterly alone in his thoughts and interpretations of the events.
Whatever a character is thinking is what what is encountered by the reader. Incomplete thoughts and hard-to-decipher dialect compound the initial problem that the reader encounters. Since the reader is obliged to follow the mental meanderings and preoccupations of each character, one at a time, it is inevitable that the reader will become confused.
The reason for the family’s obstinacy in getting Addie’s request fulfilled is left to the reader to decipher from the family’s behavior and thoughts. Aside from the unfolding of events (the story itself), what holds the interest of the reader is the challenge, or at least the wait, of being able to piece this puzzle together.
The presence of characters not part of the Bundren family allows the reader feel that he can make a more objective judgment, and these outside characters show us that what the Bundren family is doing is not ‘normal’.
In the early parts of the book, I expected that there would be quite a lot of confusion. Faulkner gives only small glimpses of the plot, and slowly, so that the picture becomes clearer as the story goes on.
