As I Lay Dying1

In the novel As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, there are several instances in which a pleasurable comment or action that is witty or humorous is made by a character. However, there are also many occurrences when there is a deep sense of disquietude resulting from a character’s words or dealings. Throughout the text, it is also not unusual for these two types of situations to occur as one, in a healthy confusion. …

…that he can now obtain them due to the death of his wife. In Faulkner’s novel, there is a clean balance between the individual happenings of the two distinctly different senses of pleasure and disquietude. On the other hand, we also encounter the fusion of the emotions into single instances. When Faulkner achieves this confusion, it provokes a satisfyingly odd feeling within the reader, which is perhaps the mark of superior literature. Bibliography NA