Paper Title (use style: paper title)

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An Analysis on the Subject of 
As I Lay Dying 
Ruiyang Wang 
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics 
Nanjing, China 
Abstract
—
As I Lay Dying
 is one of William Faulkner’s most 
influential works. William Faulkner shows the lower-class 
people’s several qualities in the novel, and he reveals this 
theme through his whole writing. Generally speaking, the 
understanding of the novel should be started from the 
understanding of the title. What is the deep meaning of the 
novel, what connections does the title have with the author 
himself and what does the author want to convey through the 
title? This essay will elaborate the meaning from four different 
parts- from the superficial level, from the family level, from the 
social level and from the literary level. Though Addie is dead at 
the beginning of the story, her influence and control disappear 
after a really long time. Thereby, it can be said that the title 
"As I lay dying" is better than "After I died". In his novels, 
William Faulkner delivers most of his life outlook and history 
outlook views. In a word, the life is hard, the road is long, the 
future is confused, but the heart is determined. The Bundren 
family’s willing to send Addie’s remains to her hometown have 
never been shaken during their journey, which inspires us a lot. 
Keywords—William Faulkner; As I Lay Dying; title; 
meaning 
I.
I
NTRODUCTION
Although Faulkner has said several times that the novel 
As I Lay Dying
one of his most simple and insightful works, 
however, the critical explanations for this book have still 
been debated for a rather long time. Some critics think that 
this novel is an investigation made for the realistic society of 
the poor Southern American; some think that this novel is 
another adaption of the Bible. Generally speaking, the title of 
the work is often closely connected with the theme of the 
book, so the understanding of the main knowledge or the 
meaning of the novel should start from the title of the novel 
— 
As I Lay Dying
. 
In fact, this strange title is quite confusing from time to 
time. In terms of literal meaning, 
As I lay dying
should 
describe about the thing which has happened at the death of 
Addie. However, from the actual content of the novel, Addie 
hasn’t been dead for a long time, and she was dead on the 
first night. However, the whole process lasts for more than 
10 days. What is the reason for this continuity? What does 
the story want to convey to us? What is the background 
meaning behind the title? 
II.
S
UPERFICIAL 
L
EVEL
Apparently, the body of the plot is about the thing took 
place after Addie’s death, which seems different to the 
meaning to the title. Now that the title is "I'm dying", the 
main writing should be about the feeling of "I", or the 
perspective should be based on me. In fact, Addie only 
stands out and says some words in chapter 40, which is 
exactly 3 days after her death. The rest of the novel is the 
other people’s narration after her death. 
In other words, she is not dead on the first day in the 
novel; instead, she is “really” dead at the ninth day after her 
burial. That is to say, in "the whole process of the journey”, 
all the events (except the events of Addie’s being buried at 
the end of the novel) happened at the death of Addie, or as 
she lay dying. This point of view has been a breakthrough to 
the traditional viewpoint: the title “I" just symbolizes Eddie 
flesh. In a broad and deeper sense, the “I” has a whole new 
meaning, which means the loss of Addie’s control over her 
family members. This idea provides us with a wider way of 
thought. Based on this point, there comes another question, 
now that Addie has already been dead, how can she keep this 
kind of control for nearly nine days? Is it a natural maintain 
of the formal state, or is it guaranteed by someone? Then 
how it vanishes in the end? The most important thing is, 
what does the control mean by itself? 
We may come to a question — Now that Addie has died 
in the first night, what kind of reason makes the old order 
last for nine days? The answer is about the most important 
character in the book — Darl. He is the most controversial 
character in the book; his relation with Addie is the most 
important point in the book. From this point, many critics 
hold a similar idea; Darl is Addie’s deserted child. In fact, 
Darl is the child who is most similar to his mother, in other 
words, she is the only spiritual successor of his mother. 
He is not only a special part of the old family order 
himself, after the death of Eddie; he has also tried to 
maintain the old order. In the novel, the author says in the 
name of Addy’s neighbor Cola: "I've always said, and is not 
the same as the other children. I always say he is the only 
nature as the mother of them (to "his mother’s nature", 
"nature" trans. Li Wenjun as "disposition", it seems like the 
"nature" is a more appropriate) (Faulkner, 30). From this 
sentence, I think Addie’s feeling towards Jewel is fake, her 
true understanding and true love is only on Darl." 
III.
F
AMILY 
L
EVEL
Addie is not the center or the narrator the novel, which is 
quite contrary to the subject shown in the novel. Towards 
this point, some researchers propose different explanations. 
Among which, Mr XiaoMingHan has cited the point of 
3rd International Conference on Culture, Education and Economic Development of Modern Society (ICCESE 2019) 
Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. 
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).