As I Lay Dying and

In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, references to “the right” by numerous characters serve to propel the reader on a quest for truth. Cora and Tull make allusions to what is right as defined by religion, while Cash evokes a more innate sense of right and wrong. Anse has a sense of right that is deceptive to both himself and others, yet it also conveys his view of the world which Faulkner shows …

…making of his mother’s coffin on the bevel to summarize his belief of right. He believed in making things “always like it was for your own use and comfort...” (224) Beldient writes, “Why is this teaching ‘right’? Because a man defines himself, not by what he builds, but by the way he builds it...” (107) Cash questions his ideas of right when he is forced to weigh the righness of Darl’s burning of the barn.